The Left is Scared to Death of Sarah Palin

Since John McCain announced the selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, the masses of the Democratic Party's hard left have been jumping over themselves to smear the Alaska Governor with vicious innuendo and ugly untruths.

Friday's initial water-cooler chatter alleged that "McCain and Palin must be sleeping together." Then some ridiculed and twisted Palin's comments on the responsibilities of the vice president. This morning the wackos at Daily Kos are alleging that Palin's son, Trig, was actually born to her teenage daughter, and thus the Governor's engaged in a "cover up."

I'm sure there are plenty more smears flying around the fever swamps of the leftosphere, but its noteworthy that there's some speculation that even Barack Obama's official campaign may be behind an attack on Palin claiming that she favors gay marriage.

With this in mind, William Kristol explains the left's utter terror at the rise to power of Sarah Palin:

A spectre is haunting the liberal elites of New York and Washington - the spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism, rising out of the American countryside, free of the taint (fair or unfair) of the Bush administration and the recent Republican Congress, able to invigorate a McCain administration and to govern beyond it.

That spectre has a name - Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska chosen by John McCain on Friday to be his running mate. There she is: a working woman who's a proud wife and mother; a traditionalist in important matters who's broken through all kinds of barriers; a reformer who's a Republican; a challenger of a corrupt good-old-boy establishment who's a conservative; a successful woman whose life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief; a lady who's a leader.

So what we will see in the next days and weeks--what we have already seen in the hours after her nomination--is an effort by all the powers of the old liberalism, both in the Democratic party and the mainstream media, to exorcise this spectre. They will ridicule her and patronize her. They will distort her words and caricature her biography. They will appeal, sometimes explicitly, to anti-small town and anti-religious prejudice. All of this will be in the cause of trying to prevent the American people from arriving at their own judgment of Sarah Palin.

Kristol continues, suggesting that Palin's opening remarks upon being selected as running mate left even those "not predisposed to support her" in awe of the Alaska Governor's composure and powerful presence.

It's not surprising, then, that Rasmussen finds 53 percent of the public viewing Palin favorably (and note that just 43 percent viewed Joe Biden favorably upon his selection as Barack Obama's running mate).

Interestingly, Palin's favorables were stronger among men, which moved a radical feminsit blog to make allegations of sexism, claiming that "men are feeling positive toward her because they are attracted to her."

So, the Democrats' general election smear campaign is off to a roaring start already, and the GOP's not even begun its convention to formally nominated its own candidates.