Maybe We Should Get Helmets? Palin Warns 'Hang on to Your Hats!'Photos/text By Renee Burrell
Supporters cheered Democrat Senator Joe Leiberman who introduced Palin. "She's so strong. She's so capable. She's so competent . With your help, and God's help, she will be the next vice president of the United States!" CLEARWATER - It's easy to see why Republicans are calling Alaska Governor Sarah Palin "Ronald Reagan-- in a skirt". The vice-presidential candidate was in her element connecting with the crowd at Monday's early morning rally in Coachman Park. "Man, some of your signs just make me want to cry," she said." "Thank you so much, you guys." In her 20 minute speech, Palin repeated assurances that the McCain-Palin administration will implement spending freezes in government and other reforms to get the economy back on track and bring relief to the middle classes. She warned, "Florida, you know that you're going to have to hang on to your hats because from now until Election Day, it may get kind of rough." Palin criticized Democrat nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) by playing on his campaign slogan that promises 'change' and McCain's record of having actually worked for it. "There are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are some candidates, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change." Palin introduced a new message that stresses the need to question the Chicago political machine that launched Obama’s career, considering his history with some of Chicago's most radical and politically connected personages. Palin referenced Obama's political and professional partnering with student antiwar activist/FBI named domestic terrorist turned University of Illinois Chicago Campus professor, William Ayers, who in the 1960s took civil disobedience for change to a destructive level. “Turns out," said Palin, "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers. And according to The New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.” "And there’s even more to the story… Barack Obama said Ayers was just someone in the neighborhood. But that’s less than truthful. His own top advisor said they were, quote, ‘certainly friendly.’" Ayers is married to fellow Weather Underground member, Bernadine Dorhn, and is the son of deceased prominent Chicago businessman Thomas G. Ayers, a close friend of Chicago's Mayor Daleys and former Northwestern University Trustee. Coincidentally, Palin highlighted the Obama-Ayers connection on the anniversary of one of Ayer's group's bombings. On October 6, 1969, the Weathermen took credit for bombing a Chicago landmark statue of a policeman erected in Chicago's Haymarket Square in 1889. The Weathermen, many will remember stood out amongst other anti-war groups because unlike the majority of young people protesting the Vietnam war and government and military actions, they were not peaceful. Their agenda was to destroy capitalism to create a classless society. They were unsuccessful, but did get attention by detonating small bombs on some big targets--most notably on the Pentagon and the Capitol Building. The group drew public rage when they were named as being behind the bombing and fire of the Manhattan home of Judge John Murtagh, the New York State Supreme Court justice who presided over the trial of the 21 Black Panther Party members indicted for that group's plots to bomb New York City landmarks. In an April 2008 issue of City Journal magazine, Judge Murtagh's son, Attorney John Murtagh, a professor of public policy at the Fordham University College of Liberal Studies and a Yonkers, New York city councilman, wrote about the night of the bombing and his belief that Ayer's group was behind it. Murtagh wrote, "As the association between Obama and Ayers came to light, it would have helped the senator a little if his friend had at least shown some remorse. But listen to Ayers interviewed in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, of all days: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Translation: “We meant to kill that judge and his family, not just damage the porch.” When asked by the Times if he would do it all again, Ayers responded: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.” On Obama, Murtagh concluded, "Nobody should hold the junior senator from Illinois responsible for his friends’ and supporters’ violent terrorist acts. But it is fair to hold him responsible for a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates, and friends, and for showing a callous disregard for the lives they damaged and the hatred they have demonstrated for this country. It is fair, too, to ask what those choices say about Obama’s own beliefs, his philosophy, and the direction he would take our nation."
 During the Vice Presidential debate against Democrat Joe Biden, Palin said she wished to bypass the mainstream media and speak directly to the American people. Monday she voiced what many have been wondering about Barack Obama's life in Chicago before his run for the presidency, including the influence his minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright who espouses black liberation theology, held over him for the 20 years Obama attended his church. "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more," asked Palin. "Because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country."
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