GOP Convention – Day 3: Gov. Palin’s night (MULTIPLE UPDATES)

Update 10 – 11:32 PM: I just posted video of the full speech here.

Update 9 – 10:29 PM: HERE COMES SARAH! Interesting no opening video/bio.

– They’re showing her kids on Fox clapping. How cute.

– She accepts the nomination.

– Praising McCain.

– Giving props to special needs children, says their parents will have an ally in the W/H if she and Mc are elected.

– Talking up small towns. She’s setting up for the verbal kill She’s saying she will explain to OBiden what being a mayor involves. She is doing great.

– Painting Obama as an elitist.

– Giving a great bio of herself.

– I put the Gov. jet on Ebay.

– Talking about her Alaska record.

– Emphasizing energy dependence.

– Mc will not be able to top this tomorrow night. She is electric.

– The mediots are going to be firing on all cylinders against Gov. Palin in the coming days even more so than normal. She’s whipping OBiden.

– The speech is over. She rocks The family, including Levi, joins her on the stage.

– Senator McCain has made an appearance.

– Shannen Coffin: “Palin is dynamic, smart and charismatic. She is doing a great job of contrasting accomplishments and highlighting Obama’s weaknesses. McCain will have a good opportunity to state what he stands for because Palin has done a very effective job of showing what an Obama administration will mean.”

Update 8 – 10:00 PM: Rudy’s up. This oughta be good. All the prime time nets are broadcasting the convention now.

– Rudy’s really touting Mc’s experience vs. Obama’s. Really going off on BO.

– “If I were Joe Biden, I’d get that VP thing in writing.” (Referring to Obama’s penchant for changing his mind)

Update 7 – 9:41 PM: Gov. Linda Lingle’s (HI) is up next, speaking about Gov. Palin. I think Rudy’s up after her.

– Lingle’s going off on Gov. Palin’s liberal/media critics.

– Dang! I wish Lingle’s speech was being carried in primetime. She’s kicking bootie.

– The Palin family have arrived and have taken their seats. Levi Johnston is with them.

Update 6 – 9:26 PM: Huckabee’s making his speech now.

Thanks the media for uniting the Republican party around Senator McCain and Gov. Palin. Ain’t that the truth!?

“What they’ve been reported is tackier than a costume change at a Madonna concert.” – LOL.

Congratulates Senator Obama.

– I’m a Republican not because I’m rich but because I grew up not wanting to wait on a government hand out (I totally screwed that quote up … but it was good delivered by him).

– He’s making a crack about Biden. Really firing up the crowd. Love it.

– Huck’s given the best speech by far so far this week.

Update 5 – 9:17 PM: Mitt’s giving one of his better speeches, ripping the left. Huckabee’s up next.

Update 4 – 9:06 PM: Great speech by Michael Steele. I’ll try to find a vid of it later. Romney’s up now.

Update 3 – 8:55 PM: Former Lt. Gov. and current chair of GOPAC Michael Steele is up to speak. This out to be awesome!

Update 2 – 8:22 PM: Here are more excerpts, via Ed Morrissey.

Update 1 – 7:51 PM: Here are a couple of excerpts from Gov. Palin’s speech:

“Here’s how I look at the choice Americans face in this election. In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.”

[…]

“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

I’m sure she’ll get attacked for that last line tomorrow, even though Barack Obama asked for it with not only his remark on Anderson Cooper Monday night ignoring the fact that she is the Governor of Alaska (“Well, you know, my understanding is, is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We have got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month”) as well as his campaign’s initial reaction to McCain’s selecting her, when they all but ignored the fact that she is a Governor.

——-

It’s day three of the GOP convention in St. Paul, and everyone’s talking about what Gov. Sarah Palin might say tonight as she speaks to the nation for the first time since the announcement was made last Friday. Since her speech was made on a working day, and also a day where many were likely taking off work for a long holiday weekend, not as many people saw it as will see the one she makes tonight. And with all the relentless attacks on her character, her womanhood, her fitness as a mother, and the latest – her marriage, I have no doubt that more people than normal will be tuned in to see what she has to say.

To get an idea of what Gov. Palin will talk about, Byron York has a sneak peek. She and Rudy are speaking in the 10 o’clock (ET) hour, so I’m guesstimating she’ll take the stage at around 10:30.

First things first: Here’s tonight’s schedule. You can watch tonight’s speeches online via C-SPAN.com or UStream.

Here’s the latest political news:

—– Talking Points Memo sadly, is demonstrating once again that their PDS afflication has affected their ability to write things that are truthful. Take this Josh Marshall report, for example:

It didn’t take long. We’ve already brought you news of the official investigation into Gov. Palin’s firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Steve Branchflower, the lead investigator, began trying to arrange a deposition of the governor days before her veep selection. And despite claiming executive privilege to shield requested emails, up until that point Palin had promised full cooperation with the probe.

Now, however, she is refusing to submit to questioning by Branchflower unless he and the legislative committee that appointed him agree to relinquish control of the investigation and turn it over to a state review board made up of three Palin appointees.

Bzzz! Wrong. The state review board, also known as the “Personnel Board” is made up of Gov. Murkowski appointees. Only one, Debra English, was reappointed to the board by Gov. Palin earlier this year:

Personnel Board
Ms. Debra E. English – Anchorage
Appointed: 1/8/2004 Reappointed: 1/29/2008
Term Expires: 3/1/2014

Gosh, if TPM can’t get the basic facts right, it makes you wonder what else they’ve gotten wrong in their Gov. Palin “reporting.”

Gov. Palin has reason to believe that the investigation into what did or did not happen in le affaire de Troopergate will not be an impartial review, partly because Sen. Hollis French, the guy who is supervising the special investigator, is a prominent Barack Obama supporter in Alaska who has also made statements that Gov. Palin believes calls into question his impartiality. So she’s desirous to have a fair review of the facts. Shame on her!

More, via McClatchy:

Gov. Sarah Palin wants a state board to review the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan — taking the unusual step of making an ethics complaint against herself.

Her lawyer sent an “ethics disclosure” Monday night to Attorney General Talis Colberg. The governor asked that it go to the three-person Personnel Board as a complaint. While ethics complaints are usually confidential, Palin wants the matter open.

To read that “Ethics Disclosure” form, click here.

—– The McCains and the Palin family – including Bristol Palin’s 18 y/o fiance Levi Johnston – met up today in Minneapolis. Here’s the story and a photo. It is not known whether or not Levi will appear onstage with the Palin family tonight after Gov. Palin’s speech.

—– Victor Davis Hanson has invented a new word: Palinize. Here’s what it means:

Palinize: to slander and caricature a working-class female public figure for the noble advancement of liberalism.

That’s a good start, I think, but the definition could actually be much longer.

—– And speaking of “Palinizing,” check out the WaPo’s Fred Hiatt’s take on how the GOP are supposedly putting every word Gov. Palin speaks tonight in her mouth, as if she won’t have a say in it whatsoever (via Memeo). In it, we get “informed” about how tonight we get to see how well Gov. Palin has learned how to use a teleprompter. To be fair, he says all politicians do it, but strangely I don’t remember any column from him on Obama’s need to have a teleprompter with him at all times, so he doesn’t always sound like this.

—– As expected, Senator Joe Lieberman is taking some major heat from Democrats today over the speech he made last night to the GOP convention. Aww. Like he owes them anything after the way they treated him in 2006.

—– Flashback: What the NYT said about Geraldine Ferraro’s nomination, back in 1984 (h/t: Ross Douthat):

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President?…Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens?…Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial?…Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy…. What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. . . . Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?. . . .the indispensable credential for a Woman Who is the same as for a Man Who – one who helps the ticket.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the NYT has to say about Gov. Palin after her speech tonight.