Da Coach draws crowd for Palin

Being in Illinois, we're getting only half the story of what's going on with the McCain/Palin team, but Illinois GOP National Committeeman Pat Brady, McCain for Illinois chairman Jim Durkin and a few others joined up with former Bears football coach Mike Ditka and VP candidate Sarah Palin for a hanger rally at the Arnold Palmer Airport in Latrobe Pennsylvania this morning. Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge also shared the stage.

Brady told Illinois Review the 3500 or so Palin supporters were very enthusiastic and "Da Coach" was a huge hit. "You've got to get the transcript, but he really got them going in Pennsylvania," he said.

Brady said he's not giving up on John McCain's bid for the presidency, and Republican Illinoisans are fanning out to nearby states this weekend. "We're sending a crew to Wisconsin, there's a couple of bus loads headed for Ohio, and I've been asked to go to Iowa," Brady said.

Why Iowa, we asked, is Iowa back in play?   

"The numbers for both camps must be showing the same thing," Brady said.  "Sarah Palin will be in DuBuque, Iowa on Monday and Obama's scheduled for Des Moines the same day."

Brady said he was pleased to meet Governor Palin and said "she couldn't have been nicer." 

"She gave a great speech, and the crowd loved her," he said. Palin's appearance in Pennsylvania indicates it's neck-in-neck, too, he said.

Polling indicated Friday that McCain and Obama are in dead heats in North Carolina and Missouri, and that undecideds are flocking to McCain. 

"John McCain told us a long time ago that he wouldn't show he was catching up until 40 hours before the polls closed," Brady said.  "I'm not quitting until McCain quits, and he's not quitting.  John McCain's been declared dead many times and has fought back."

"I've been a McCain fan for ten years," Brady said.  "We're doing all we can to help him become president."

Ditka's speech, courtesy of Fox News . . .

“I’m not here because I’m a Republican, which I am, and I’m not here because I’m a conservative, which I am. I’m here because I am an American. It’s time in this country you put party lines on the backburner and you put your country first.”

Ditka said, “When I was growing up, it was back in 1963. Then John Kennedy became president-he made a statement: ‘ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.’ Now, it seems to be just the opposite. This is the land of opportunity. It’s not a land of handouts. If you’re willing to work, you can find a job. If you’re willing to work, you can find a job.

I want to say how proud I am because I think Sarah Palin epitomizes all the good things, all the good values, of this country. She’s a wife, she’s a mother, she’s a hockey mom, she’s a part-time coach. She was a great leader and is a great leader in the state of Alaska, and she will make a great vice president of the United States, Sarah Palin.”

Comments

[David P. Graf]

Needless to say - I don't agree with Ditka on politics, but I still remember a time at O'Hare airport when Ditka was waiting for his jet to start boarding. He was still coach of the Bears and all these young kids suddenly saw him and ran to him. He was very gracious in how he dealt with the kids and he signed autographs and all that kind of stuff. A definite class act!

[Pops]

Get this Obama Speechwriter Wendy Button* had enough of the Empty Suit of Hope and is now backing John McCain - The Real Deal! All in Wendy's word!

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional."When we first met, Obama and I had a nice conversation about speeches and writing, and at the end of the meeting I handed him a pocket-sized bottle of Grey Poupon mustard so he wouldn’t have to ask staff if it was okay to put it on his hamburger. At the bottom of the bottle was the logo for “The South Beach Diet” and he snapped, “Oh so you read People magazine.” He seemed to think that I was commenting on his bathing suit picture.

I helped with his announcement speech and others. I worked in the Senate when he was in D.C. One day after a hearing on Darfur, we were walking back to the office. I was still hobbling from a very bad ankle injury and in a very kind and gentle way he offered his arm when we approached the stairs. But later in debate preps and phone conversations and meetings, I realized that I had made a mistake. I didn’t belong. No matter how hard I tried, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

...The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

...Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties. There was no outrage over “Bros before Hoes” or “Iron My Shirt.” Did Senator Clinton make mistakes? Of course. She’s human.

But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?

...Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”

...I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

[4McCainPalin2008]

Coach Ditka has a talent for spotting great players and speaking up for what is right. His support for the McCain/Palin presidency is terrific and his claim to being an American firstly, is awesome! Coach Ditka has solid judgment in his politics and he knows he will not go wrong with McCain/Palin--we now have the best of the best to lead Team America. Let's stay on the field and turn our opposition upside down!! I'm praying for a landslide victory.

[stargirl]

in 2004, obama was running against republican jack ryan for the US senate. obama was behind in the polls and unknown outside of chicago. obama's campaign manager david axelrod arranged for the chicago tribune and LA times to get jack ryan's divorce records unsealed, causing him to drop out of the race. the republicans asked mike ditka to run against obama, but he declined.
ever since, people have speculated whether ditka might have won the election, and there would be no obama running for president. here is an article about it, with almost 5000 thousand comments:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Could-Mike-Ditka-have-derailed-Barack-Obama-s-as?urn=nfl,115837

[don]

smart move-ditka is still a legend in western penn

[4McCainPalin2008]

Pops, your contribution warmed my heart and gave me hope that the groupies are coming undone and are seeing the light. I spoke with my neighbor a few hours ago, a black lady, and she related something that made me understand the "hooker lines" as you say, used by the liberals. She told me that they were learning that the KKK was attending Republican gatherings. I am thinking, how could that be with publicity eagle eying everything the Republican party does? Then I realized that this is a ploy to scare blacks and liberals into terrifying frames of mind. This is overwhelming for me since I love freedom for my neighbor as well as for myself. We need to get the word out that these tactics are enslaving Blacks in the "Democrat" party and making liberals more neurotic than they already are.