One thought pushes fence-sitters to the left: Palin

[Tony_FLADEM]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

ST. PETERSBURG — Five weeks ago, the St. Petersburg Times convened a group of Tampa Bay voters who were undecided about the presidential election. Their strong distrust of Barack Obama suggested it was a group ripe for John McCain to win over.

Not anymore. The group has swung dramatically, if unenthusiastically, toward Democrat Obama. Most of them this week cited the same reason: Sarah Palin.

"The one thing that frightens me more than anything else are the ideologues. We've seen too many," said 80-year-old Air Force veteran Donn Spegal, a lifelong Republican from St. Petersburg, who sees McCain's new running mate as the kind of "wedge issue" social conservative that has made him disenchanted with his party.




Read more: www.tampabay.com/news/politics/state/article818181.ece

[supernova]

1. Heh. Keep it up GOP!

:D

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. Looks as if she may be backfiring on them with a very valuable voting block

She may bolster their already solid states, but it's the ones like Florida that make or break the race.

[mnhtnbb]

3. Hoo-ray. Let's hope the fence sitters keep falling off for Obama.

[LaStrega]

4. C'mon over to our side GOPers ... we're happy to have ya!

k&r

[gratefultobelib]

5. I LOVE articles like this!!

[crossroads]

22. Me too! nt

[FightingIrish]

6. It sounds like it's not too early to find her an undisclosed location.

[LiberalFighter]

7. Eskimos probably don't want her.

[Imagevision]

8. Republicans don't want to vote for Obama, BUT!, they don't want 4 more years of Bush either!

[sop]

9. Palin embodies the worst traits of both Bush and Cheney

She's McCain's 2008 version of "you'll be getting two for the price of one". I've heard several comments here in Florida that Palin scares the hell out of elderly Jewish voters, perhaps they see the resemblance to Hitler.

[The Brethren]

12. Well said sop!

[juno jones]

19. I think she's lost everybody but the 'Jews for Jesus'.

They might gain a few, but they're going to lose many.

[patomime]

10. Fence Post Riders....

are going to break for us, I believe.

Yes We Can! Yes We Can!

[tblue]

11. Obama is on your side, Mr. Fencesitter. He'll fight for you.

[Imagevision]

13. With Palin "you can full some of the people some of the time, you know the rest!

[and-justice-for-all]

14. "strong distrust of Barack Obama"

and what is that distrust based upon?

Mcfalin does all the fucking lying.

[bitchkitty]

15. As bad as Palin is,

I can't understand how they would have ever considered voting for McCain, no matter who his running mate.

After the past eight years, are there really people who feel this way? Is it some kind of sneaky subliminal programming, chemicals in water, some sort of pollution overload that is causing mass insanity?

Probably so - I feel insane when I think about it.

[radfringe]

16. it was enough to

push my sister to register to vote after 20 something years...

she even has an Obama-Biden sticker on her car.

[llmart]

20. Hey, mine too!

I can't believe my non-voting sister beat me to the Obama/Biden sticker:)

[TankLV]

24. it was enough for me and my partner, too...

there is only one choice now...

and...


















the primaries are OVER...get over it!!!

[meowomon]

17. There are so many other more qualified Republican Women.

I think a lot of them feel insulted by his choice.

[Judi Lynn]

18. It seemed impossible people would even consider voting for George W. Bush.

He has always seemed far too slow-witted and ill-tempered to be valuable for ANY responsible position.

It 's unbelievable ANYONE would want a cheap, shallow, ignorant, horde of locusts in a dress like Palin to even drive through Washington. How can the Republicans put up mutants time after time after time and expect people to respect them? She's a sideshow, not "just like me," as they insist. She's not like any civilized woman I've ever seen.

Laughed with glee seeing BoRev.net refer to her as a "snowbilly."

[KakistocracyHater]

21. I don't want to be like Terry

Schiavo

[Mari3333]

23. and people like this

"Rebecca Montilla, a 22-year-old premed student at the University of South Florida, began questioning her Democratic allegiances when it struck her in the primary that Democrats were sounding reckless about yanking troops out of Iraq.."


puhleeease someone send this girl an enlistment form and tell her to sign up or shut up.

[last_texas_dem]

25. Good news

Although the level of reasoning displayed by most of the fence-sitters in their comments confirms my already low estimation of the intelligence level of most "undecideds." Still, a vote is a vote...

[0rganism]

26. I figured this would happen, but McCain is still better off with Palin than before

The gamble McCain's bunch took when they selected Palin was alienating the "moderate" republicans. However, if it comes down to a trade-off of lukewarm conservative retirees for a whole bible belt full of fire-breathing politically-active fundamentalists, they were correct to choose the course they did. McCain was going to lose hard if the far-right nutcases sat this one out, but now he's close and may even pull out a win.

The problem for him is, the longer Palin stays on the trail with him, the more his "maverick" schtick corrodes, and the more his precious "moderates" will be pondering whether to gamble on a 73-year-old president whose VP pick would merrily drown the world in a sea of radioactive hellfire. :nuke:

All the more reason for the Obama campaign to keep its hands off of Palin and let her self-destruct.

[Demeter]

27. She Would Move Any Sane Man Or Woman to Vote For a Sane Candidate

and Obama is the best candidate we've ever seen in decades.