Sarah Palin

From the Democratic side, there are calls for GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to release e-mails sent to her husband from her private e-mail account.  These demands are part of a state probe of Palin's firing of Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner.  This is not dissimilar to ongoing litigation in New Jersey, where Republicans want Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine to release his personal e-mails to Carla Katz, who was the head of the state’s largest public employee union and the Governor’s girlfriend.

Corzine has refused to release the e-mails, arguing that they are personal and would violate his right to privacy.  His spokesmen say that the lawsuit was politically motivated and dismissed it as a Republican tactic to embarrass the Governor for political gain.

Quinnipiac: Obama 48%, McCain 45%: Getty Images Photo
The contest between Barack Obama and John McCain in New Jersey is too close to call, with a new Quinnipiac University poll showing the battle for the state's fifteen electoral votes at 48%-45% among likely voters.  Obama led McCain by ten percentage points, 51%-41% in an August Quinnipiac poll.

This is the fourth independent poll within the last week to show New Jersey as an emerging battleground state in the presidential campaign.  A Monmouth University/New Jersey poll released this morning shows Obama leading by 8 points, and a Marist College poll released Friday night had identical numbers to Quinnipiac, 48%-45%. A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll from last week had Obama up by six points.

“The McCain-Palin ticket has narrowed the gap dramatically, but it will take more than this post convention bounce for the Republicans to win in true blue New Jersey.  The upcoming debates probably will provide a clue to whether Sen. McCain can build on his current momentum, or whether the tide will turn back to the Democrats,” said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. 

State Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth), left, and Assemblywoman Alison McHose (R-Franklin).: Politicker photo

TRENTON - They think she’s getting a bum rap early because she’s a woman, and rather than languish on the sidelines, senators Diane Allen (R-Edgwater Park) and Jennifer Beck (R-Rumson), and Assemblywoman Alison McHose-Littell (R-Franklin) made a statement today of Republican unity on behalf of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Calling themselves "Palin’s Truth Squad," the three legislators stood up for the Republican nominee for vice president, arguing that Palin’s success and home state popularity contrast sharply with that of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

"Look at her public policy on spending," said Beck. "Alaska is a more self-sufficient state. In his first year as governor, Jon Corzine raised spending. (In contrast), she is taking the right steps."

Responding to a column Carla Katz published on PolitickerNJ and The Star-Ledger that was skeptical of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s reform credentials, Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson shot back, accusing the former union leader and Corzine companion of being a hypocritical “special interest peddler.” 

”Carla Katz’s op-ed yesterday is just what we’ve come to expect from her: half-truths, smears, and the politics of greed and self interest.  John McCain and Sarah Palin represent a threat to Ms. Katz’s special interest influence peddling and her op-ed should be taken for what it is – the pained wails of a special interest leader who’s way of doing business will come to a much needed and abrupt end when John McCain and Sarah Palin move into the White House,” he said.

They say that if you put a billion monkeys in front of a billion typewriters for a billion years, one of them will write a Shakespearean play. Or maybe throw feces at each other -- but then they'd look like a political campaign.

So, searching the web for the answer to the question: "What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney?" I found at least a billion sites that gave the same answer: Lipstick. LOL.

So, now that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has officially been anointed as Republican VP candidate Palin, it's time to figure out the actual differences between Palin and the current vice president.

She is reported to be smart, tough and a politically savvy working mother.

She has become the subject of celebrity-style media interest and of an astonishing barrage of stories and photos about her and her family -- some real and some fabricated -- winging across the internet.

Her arrival on the scene has triggered endless kitchen table discussions about parenting, work, teenage pregnancy and feminism. Her name has outpaced Google hits for "Paris Hilton" and "Michael Phelps."

Her speech to the Republican convention met with such breath less excitement from the mostly male delegates that I wondered if she had appeared, as depicted in that now-famously faked photo, in a flag bikini with a rifle rakishly held aloft.

To view more cartoons by Politicker.com editorial cartoonist Rob Tornoe, click here.

Brian M. Hughes, Mercer County executive: Politicker file photo 

Arguing for why voters should choose Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes today contrasted the tax cut proposals of both Obama and his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Simultaneously, the McCain Campaign unveiled their new television ad, "Lipstick," which punches back at Obama in defense of McCain running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

In his Statehouse press conference this afternoon, Hughes argued that Obama’s plan cuts taxes for 95 percent of American workers and provides tax relief to middle class families, while McCain’s plan offers zero relief to 2.8 million New Jersey families, and offers only a $125 benefit to others.

Cites views and lack of experience as cause for concern

On Election Day 1872, Susan Brownwell Anthony, a life-long Republican and community organizer, boasted to a friend that she had "positively voted the Republican ticket -- Strait." Two weeks later, she was arrested and eventually tried and convicted for illegally voting in a presidential election -- a right women were denied for another half century. She never paid the fine.

This year's historic candidacy of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama wouldn't even be possible without the work of organizers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin might not even be allowed to vote, let alone run for office had it not been for women's suffrage leaders like Susan B. Anthony.

But that thought probably didn't cross her mind last week at the Republican National Convention when she compared her experience to Obama's: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

It's a farcical insult, especially when almost within the same breath, Palin told us that her own political career began with a community organization. "I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better," she said without a hint of irony.