bostonpatriot

John McCain has chosen Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. Much speculation, including on this website, has been over the choice of VP and what that would mean for the presidential race. Clearly the race for the Whitehouse restarts today with candidates on both side that represent the diversity of American identity and offer exciting choices for many that have felt un or underrepresented in Washington Politics.

Sarah Palin has seen a meteoric rise in politics every bit as remarkable as Barrack Obama’s. At 44, Sarah Palin has been governor for two years after being elected in 2006. She is known in Alaska politics for taking on the good old boy network of political corruption. Notably, taking on the chairman of her own Republican party over ethical violations. At over 90%, she has one of the highest favorability ratings of any state Governor.

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Obama’s acceptance speech

For those of you that missed it

My play by play:

First 2 minutes … Obama says thank you 30 times while the crowd cheers

And wait wait… he accepts the nomination. (Real nail biter there.)

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The numbers are still being tabulated by the government bean counters, or make that baby counters.  But if the trend holds then the number of Baby’s born in the US will have set a record in 2007.

It was 50 years ago, at the height of the last great US baby boom that the US set the record.  In 1957, there were 4.3 million births and there hasn’t been a bigger year since then.  With the US population more than double the size it was in 1957 that means the birthrate, the number of babies born per thousand women, is still much lower than it was 5 decades ago.

The shear number of kids entering schools in the next few years will likely tax school systems (and thus tax-payers) which haven’t seen numbers like these in decades.

The last time, baby boomers created a social revolution in the 1960s.  Today’s baby surgers, growing up with the Internet and a far different set social norms, are likely to make their mark in ways that won’t be apparent until many years from now.

It was a story 22 years in the making. Superstitious fatalism was shown the door Tuesday night as the Celtics 39 point win over the LA Lakers completed a 4-2 championship series victory. The Celtics team has had a rough time rebuilding after the “Big Three” years of the 1980’s. Celtics tragedy, with Len Bias’ and Reggie Lewis’ tragic deaths having led some to believe that the Celtics and not the Red Sox were Boston’s cursed team.

There will only be talk of victory during the parade scheduled for Thursday in Boston as the City celebrates and congratulates the Celtics on a hard won victory.

by Pat O’Reilly

A majority of US Presidents have been state governors before they were elected. It makes sense that Americans would choose a president that has executive experience over legislative experience given the president is primarily responsible for running the government and not making laws. That’s why 2008 is such a strange year in American politics, because no governors are likely to be on the ballot in the general election this Fall. At least in the top spot. Instead it looks increasingly likely two US Senators, Barrack Obama and John McCain, will be the two-party nominees. Even more stunning a fact considering the record low public approval ratings of Congress. Ratings which fall short of even President Bush’s record low job approval polling.

So, it wouldn’t be that great a leap to suggest that the nominees might look outside the beltway to the 50 US Governors for their short list of potential Vice Presidential nominees.

A look at the breakdown along party lines shows us that John McCain’s short list is a bit shorter than Barrack Obama’s, with just 22 Republican Governors to choose from. That’s of course assuming that both candidates stay within party lines. [Read more →]

by Pat O’Reilly

When you get to print your own money, then what does debt really matter? That seems to have been the unspoken question of perennial deficit spending by the US Federal government over the last quarter century. It is a question that came up again with the plan to borrow another $150 Billion in order to give short term stimulus to our economy. And it is a question that has come up every year since the United States military has occupied Iraq.

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