Rasmussen finds that only 25 percent of likely voters think the financial bailouts were a good idea. A full 56% think they were out-and-out a bad idea. [Note: the 19% who are still undecided on the issue should have their voter registration cards taken away. How can you not have an opinion on this vital issue by now?

Unsurprisingly, political insiders don’t share this view:

There also continues to be a strong divide between the Political Class and Mainstream voters. While a strong majority of Mainstream voters are still against both of the bailouts, at least half of the Political Class think they were a good idea.

This dichotomy is supported by a recent Politico poll:

Only 27 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 61 percent who think the nation is on the wrong track. Likewise, when asked whether the national economy is heading down the right or wrong track, just 24 percent chose the right track, compared with 65 percent for the wrong track.

Yet among the 227 Washington elites polled, more think the country is on the right track, 49 percent, than the wrong track, 45 percent. On the economy, 44 percent of elites think the country is on the right track, compared with 46 percent who believe it is not.

Politico also found that compared to mainstream Americans, the political elites were more supportive of Obama, less supportive of Palin, and tended to think of the Tea Party movement as a “fad”. And that’s just sad.

Further, a Bloomberg poll shows that 7 out of 10 Americans see even more joblessness and an increasing deficit, believing that the country is mired in recession.

Seven of 10 Americans say reducing unemployment is the priority. At the same time, the public is skeptical of the Obama administration’s stimulus program and wary of more spending, with more than half saying the deficit is “dangerously out of control.”

If Obama’s “stimulus” had actually created jobs instead of rewarding failure, the recession might be in the rear view mirror and public opinion would be much different. Instead, 70 percent think the economy is still in recession and 13 percent think we are headed for a double-dip. Meanwhile, real unemployment hovers just short of 22 percent.

Amity Shlaes compares today’s economy with that of 1932, the end of Hoover’s presidency and just when things started getting better. She notes that although there are factors that differenciate the two, there are a number of similarities. Read the whole thing, but here’s the money quote:

The takeaway from 1932? Resetting the euro’s criteria for existence and member countries’ obligations when it comes to bailing out one another should happen sooner rather than later. Democrats and the president should ignore unions and cut trade deals with Latin America. John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, supported tax cuts. Obama can too, or at least block rate increases. The president might also want to suppress his lawyer- Keynesian reflexes and reconsider policy when it comes to wages. But the 1932 crisis talk actually impedes such consideration.

If anyone believes that these can take place in today’s partisan environment just hasn’t been paying attention. Get settled folks, this recession isn’t going away any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Bankrupting America, Bailouts and Other Bad Ideas, Stimulus and Other Failures, Rising Unemployment in America, Unions and Other Drags on the Economy, Political Elites and Other Yammerheads, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

Ted Nugent makes his observations about Sarah Palin. Read it all. Money quote:

I’d be proud to share a moose-barbecue campfire with the Palin family anytime, so long as I can shoot the moose.

Now that’s funny, I don’t care who y’are.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, Remember November

Available from Patriot Depot.

Personally, at this point I’m more concerned with surviving "The Change".

So PBS anchor Gwen Ifill will "moderate" tonight’s debate between the vice presidential candidates.

Michelle Malkin notes that Ifill’s book, Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, will be hitting the bookshelves on the day that she believes B. Hussein Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States:

My dictionary defines “moderator” as “the nonpartisan presiding officer of a town meeting.” On Thursday, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill will serve as moderator for the first and only vice presidential debate. The stakes are high. The Commission on Presidential Debates, with the assent of the two campaigns, decided not to impose any guidelines on her duties or questions.

But there is nothing “moderate” about where Ifill stands on Barack Obama. She’s so far in the tank for the Democrat presidential candidate, her oxygen delivery line is running out.

Indeed, the liberal media strike again.

I love design on the t-shirts over at VoteBitter.com.

The myth that anti-Christian fanatics seem to take the most glee in is that she attempted to ban books from the town library while serving as mayor. This has been repeated often, even making a story in Time Magazine and Salon (2), and an email with a list of 90 books that Palin supposedly attempted to ban is shooting around leftist inboxes as we speak. (The list is fake, ripped off from this page.)

All this, according to the Wall Street Journal:

As it turns out, not only was the list a fake, but when the Anchorage Daily News investigated the story, it found no evidence that Palin had ever sought to remove books from the library. [City librarian] Baker (who was then named Emmons) did tell the local paper back in 1996 that Palin asked her, in the Daily News’s words, "about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose." Emmons "flatly refused to consider any kind of censorship."

Kilkenny makes an appearance in the Daily News story, quoting Palin as asking Baker at a City Council meeting, " ‘What would be your response if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?’ " Baker’s response was firm and negative, according to Kilkenny, who acknowledges that Palin did not cite any specific books for removal.

The chairman of the Alaska Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee tells the Daily News that there is no evidence in her files of any censorship at the Wasilla library. As for Baker’s resignation, it appears to be unrelated to the putative censorship.

So not only is the book banning story patently false, but another piece of the "retribution queen" story takes a hit.

Sarah Palin’s favorite meal? "Moose stew," she said, "after a day of snowmachining."

How does she justify hunting moose for the stewpot? "It’s never bothered me," she says. "That caribou has had a good life. It’s been free out there on the tundra, not caged up on a farm with no place to move."

Bumper sticker on the back of Sarah’s parent’s truck: VEGETARIAN—OLD INDIAN WORD FOR "BAD HUNTER

How does she keep in shape: running

She was running 7 to 10 miles almost every day but switched to aerobics classes at her gym when she became pregnant. She has worked her way back up to running three miles every other day.

Palinmania is sweeping the nation and nowhere is newfound love for the Sarahcuda more evident than on YouTube, where video tributes to Sarah are going up every day. Some of my favs:

Some of you may be wondering about the picture of Palin on the cover of Vogue. Yes, she was interviewed for Vogue (Feb 2008 issue) and there were pictures, but the cover is a Photoshop fake. Nice job, though.

"I don’t want you to look mean," the editor told the governor when she arrived. "Just don’t smile."

"OK." Palin looked skeptical. "I’ll try." She folded her arms and looked straight into the lens. As the camera clicked, the corners of her mouth began to twitch.

"This is really hard for her," her spokesperson observed from the back of the room. "She is always smiling."

After a dozen or so clicks, the tension was too much. "OK," the editor relented. "Go ahead and smile."

"Thank you!" she answered, releasing the expression like a caged animal. Outside, the dying winter sun briefly lit the mountains with a rosy light and then was gone. "She really is a breath of fresh air," the editor said as the photographer packed up his equipment. "It feels like a new era in Alaska."

And how did the move from mayor to governor happen?

When term limits forced Palin out of the mayorship in 2002, she was appointed chairman of the Oil & Gas Conservation Commission by the Republican powers that be. The position seemed like a dream. With four children to raise and a husband whose blue-collar job pays an hourly wage, the six-figure salary was more than welcome, but it didn’t take her long to become disillusioned by the unethical behavior she witnessed firsthand. "What I saw was so obviously wrong. I was so disappointed and shocked," she says. "Oil and gas revenue account for more than 80 percent of the state’s budget, but Alaskans were never going to trust us if that was how we conducted business." When her complaints were ignored, Palin saw no choice but to resign in protest. The once golden girl was suddenly out of a job.

Palin spent the next year at home, focusing on her children. But if politics is a disease, she had caught it bad. When the gubernatorial election rolled around, she waited for someone within the party to run against a governor whose disapproval ratings make George W. Bush look popular. Switching to the Democratic Party was never an option for Palin, a pro-life, free-market, NRA supporter whose most fervent wish for Alaska is to open up areas of federal wilderness land for oil development. So she stepped up to the plate and ran a campaign composed mostly of friends, family, and small donations made by people who had never before contributed to a political race.

Now that’s a little inspiring, giving up a great primary income for principles.

Palin is also the object of a Newsweek article, although it is hardly complimentary (given the left wing nature of Newsweek, this comes as no surprise). Money quote:

In the battle with Obama and Joe Biden, the McCain campaign will emphasize Palin’s executive responsibilities, her judgment, her instincts, her reformist credentials and her fighting spirit. Aides might encourage her to take the lead on energy issues, emphasizing one policy area she’s very familiar with. They’ll also play up her small-town roots, trying to draw comparisons to Harry Truman. Palin herself made two references to Truman in her nomination speech. "Long ago, a young former haberdasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency," she said. Then she quoted the writer Westbrook Pegler: "We grow good people in our small towns with honesty, sincerity and dignity." The analogy is strained. Truman served for 10 years in Congress before becoming vice president. But Palin does have similar spunk, and she does come from a small town. For better or worse, she’d bring those small-town values to Washington.

And that about sums up the view from the left — she will be taking redneck, rifle shooting, moose hunting, commercial fishing, oil drilling values to Washington, because she has changed the dynamics of the race to the point where Obama will be playing catchup all the way to November.

Willie Brown of the San Francisco Gate (yep, the lefty rag in California) has this to say about how Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign:

Suddenly, Palin and John McCain are the mavericks and Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the status quo, in a year when you don’t want to be seen as defending the status quo.

From taxes to oil drilling, Democrats are now going to have to start explaining their positions.

Whenever you start having to explain things, you’re on defense.

HT to AllahPundit at Hot Air, who also points out a Gallup poll that puts McCain/Palin ahead, outside of the margin of error, even though one third of the polling was conducted before McCain’s acceptance speech. In other words, there’s more post-convention bounce coming, although we all know those don’t last. Still, a McCain bounce on top of this Palin bounce may be significant after all.

“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let’s be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”

Courtesy of Gerard Baker of the UK Times. If you are a Palin fan, or a disgruntled conservative, read it all.

HT to Dean’s World

According to Nielsen Media Research, Sen. John McCain’s acceptance speech drew the largest commercial TV audience in the history of televised political conventions.

Recent numbers:

John McCain	38.9 million viewers
Barack Hussein Obama	38.3 million viewers
Sarah Palin	37.2 million viewers
Average for GOP 3 days coverage	34.4 million viewers
Average for Dem 4 days coverage	30.2 million viewers
Joseph Biden	24.0 million viewers

That’s right, while Sarah and John brought the average viewership for the GOP convention up, Joe Biden actually depressed the viewership average for the Democrats. Rethinking that VP choice there, Obama?

Reuters notes:

By comparison, 34.9 million U.S. television viewers watched the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics in August and talent show "American Idol", the most watched TV show in the nation, averaged 28.1 million viewers last season.

Maybe Joe would have done better if he had tried singing his speech.

Interestingly, Obama’s historic acceptance speech was only the "fifth most-viewed, non-sports program among African American households in the last 11 years." What do African-Americans think is more important?

1. Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary (2001)
2. NBC Movie of the Week: The Temptations Part 2 (1998)
3. Primetime Special Edition: Whitney Houston (2002)
4. Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding Part 2 (1998)

And there you go, a nice snapshot of the American voting citizenry.

[Note: Nielsen, of course, fails to include non-commercial channels like PBS and CSPAN.]