Huckabee in a dress

I'm going to say it. democrats screwed up BIGTIME by going after Sarah Palin's personal issues. It is moronic to spread rumors about false pregnancies and Down's Symdrome babies -- it did nothing but throw oodles of symapthy her away and allow her to hide behind this wall of impreviousness when it comes to public criticism.

(The fact that the McCain campaign even THOUGHT about instituting a media blackout on Palin, and it didn't became a major story inofitself, goes to show just how much the media was cowering in the last couple day's of the convention)

If none of the family stuff gets brought up, Democrats could instead have spent the past two weeks painting her as Mike Huckabee in a skirt, or pointing out what a weak record she has as both a governor and mayor.

Here's a quick list of fun facts:

That she's a right-wing Pentecostal wacko: She believes in prophesies from God, feels that the Iraq War is part of God's plan, and asked high school students to pray for a new gas pipe through Alaska. She also wants creationism taught in schools and belongs to a church where the pastor believes that Alaska will become a refuge for saved souls during the Apocalypse.

As mayor, she governed a town that charged sexual assault victims for rape kits, and raised taxes to pay for the construction of a new sports complex that still has the town tied up in litigation. She also reportedly asked the town library how she could go about banning books.I n addition, she is anti-gay rights and anti-abortion, even in instances of incest and rape.

As governor, she did put the former governor's jet on Ebay. But it failed to sell. So she had to hire an outside firm to sell it at a loss. She may have cut millions of dollars from the state's budget, including money for hospitals and social service agencies, but she has also overseen an average 10% increase in spending since taking office. She's also hired oil lobbyists onto her staff, and hired other lobbyists to advocate on behalf of the state for pork-barel spending. Plus there's the whole firing the public safety commissioner for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law from the state police thing.

Now I'm not going to go as far as Salon.com did in this column, but i do think attacking Sarah Palin the ultra-conservative would have been much more effective than attacking Sarah Palin the mother.