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At an event today at the Museum of Russian Art, the McCain campaign did not allow questions for Governor Sarah Palin, except for one asked by a reporter from Alaska who wanted to know if she'd still have time for her home state. They've got two months to go in keeping her away from real questions. But so far so good!

Here's the pool report from Maeve Reston of the L.A. Times:

Pool Report #1a

9/4/08

Minneapolis - The Museum of Russian Art Governor Sarah Palin

NO NEWS

In the midst of a private luncheon of the Republican Governor's Association (in another room), the press was ushered into an small, dimly lit adjoining art gallery.

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Last night Mike Huckabee thanked the “elite media” for unifying the Republican Party behind the McCain-Palin ticket.

“I wasn’t sure it could be done,” he said, drawing happy laughter from the crowd.

There were "boos" directed at the press stand last night, and a few more attacks before it was time to file. The media were sitting right there, in plain view, half of them in a section to the immediate right of the stage and all the rest on the left. Arranged by affiliation, they sat quietly in their assigned seats, typing on their laptops with their little hands. The New York Times reporters sat in one row, The Washington Post in another, and so forth; instead of individual desks, each of these was equipped with a long, black surface that resembled nothing so much as a trough.  read more »

Whether the Sarah Palin VP-pick ultimately pays off for John McCain remains to be seen. But for one group of Americans, Gov. Palin's sudden arrival on the national scene promises to be an instant boon: comics!

Judging from what's already made its way to YouTube  (haven't you seen this, this or this?), the moose-hunting hockey mom is in for a ribbing. So who will Saturday Night Live pick to play the small screen version of Sarah Barracuda?

We checked in this afternoon with Mr. Michaels' office in New York to get some answers, and according to Marc Liepis, a spokesperson for the show, the cast is still working on it.

They won't have to crash anything too fast either: the first new episode is slated for a week from Saturday. Here's hoping they have an easier time than they did with Barack Obama .

Former Life Magazine managing editor Bill Shapiro sent the above cover of the magazine from September 2004 (left) to Jim Romenesko's blog as a nod to Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom many have noted resembles Tina Fey.

Media Mob was just struck by how similar Ms. Fey's pose is to the most recent cover of Rolling Stone (right), which features the 30 Rock star along with Chris Rock and David Letterman.

Over at the Politico, Jonathan Martin corrects a previous report by Erick Erickson on RedState.com that claimed Sarah Palin spoke off the cuff last night rather than reading from a teleprompter. Erickson says sources close to McCain told him that the teleprompter malfunctioned during Ms. Palin's speech and consequently forced her to improvise. We can confirm that that's false: like Martin, Media Mob was sitting in the press section and could see plainly that the teleprompter was working just fine.

Funny thing though: both times Ms. Palin was called to say the word "nuclear," ("we're going to lay more pipelines, build more nuclear plants, create jobs with clean coal", "Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay") the word was spelled "new-clear" on the screen.  read more »

Sarah Palin went to five colleges in six years, and not many people at any of them appear to remember her. [A.P.] 

Contrary to a report, Sarah Palin did not "wing" her speech last night. [Jonathan Martin]

Michael Bloomberg just loved it. [Liz]

Palin did put a plane on eBay, but it didn't sell. [Spin Cycle]

The outfit Cindy McCain wore Tuesday night at the convention is estimated to cost somewhere around $300,000. [Vanity Fair]

Personnel problems in the Alaska Nation Guard have reached "crisis level." [A.P.] 

United Steel Workers say that Todd Palin's membership does not "absolve" John McCain of his long history of being anti-union.  read more »

We know Vogue editor Anna Wintour is a very big fan of Roger Federer, and we know she always shows up to his night matches, and his weekend matches. But apparently she doesn't want to miss his quarterfinals match, either--even if it is at 3 p.m. on the Thursday after Labor Day.

Eight years ago, when he first sought the presidency, John McCain presented himself to the country much the way he is presenting himself now—as a battle-scarred American hero who had endured unspeakable physical and mental abuse for his country and who had emerged from it to pursue a life of courageous and principled public service.

Only back then, the Republican establishment, which just spent the last three nights in St. Paul feting him as living shrine to all that is righteous and noble about this country, didn't see him in such glowing terms. They called him a Democratic plant, challenged his heroism narrative, and rallied around—like their lives depended on it—a well-connected son of privilege who had shown exactly zero interest in serving his country in Vietnam, preferring the comparative light-lift of the Texas National Guard.  read more »

The Federal Reserve released on Wednesday its every-six-weeks anecdotal take on the national economy called The Beige Book. Here's a grab-bag of ultimately meh numbers for New York City:

• Broadway theaters report that business "improved moderately" in July and early August compared to the six weeks before. Attendance and ticket revenues increased 1 to 2 percent annually in July and 3 percent in the first half of August.
• Average Manhattan apartment asking rents declined 2 to 4 percent in July and August compared to the same months last year (more on falling rents here). And: "The rental vacancy rate, though still below 2 percent, is reported to have climbed noticeably over the past year."
• More home sales are falling through due to tighter financing. The sales markets in Brooklyn and Queens were worse for sellers than in Manhattan.
• The number of construction permits issued in June for multi-family buildings was four times greater than in the same month in 2007. And the first half of 2008 saw 63 percent more multi-family building permits issued than the first half of 2007.

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ST. PAUL--For much of Wednesday night, the delegates on the floor of the Republican National Convention had to make the most of the tiny rations of red meat offered to them by the speakers on stage.

They happily chanted “drill baby drill” with former Senate candidate Michael Steele, but few jumped out of their seats. They applauded approvingly at Mike Huckabee’s zinger that Sarah Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States,” but they seemed a bit mystified with how his long anecdote about school desks connected to John McCain and military service.  read more »

Yesterday, Republicans, seemingly at once, started attacking Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer.

"What in God's name is a community organizer?" asked George Pataki at a breakfast.

"What do they do?" Giuliani implored during his speech last night.

And Sarah Palin, in her enthusiastic address, said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

So community organizers are now organizing themselves.

John Raskin of the West Side of Manhattan, founder of Community Organizers of America, has already launched a Web site (Community Organizers Fight Back) demanding that Palin apologize.

Of course, they're not exactly the target demographic for Republicans, especially in New York.  read more »

Media Mob has learned that The New York Times will make an announcement later today that it plans to cut the number of sections it has in the paper during some days of the week and it will fold in the Metro Section and Sports section into other sections of the newspaper.

According to newsroom sources, the Metro Section is moving into the A-section and the Sports section will move into the Business section for some portion of the week.

The move is being made to save money on printing. According to one newsroom source, neither metro editor Joe Sexton nor sports editor Tom Jolly was "thrilled with the decision, but they understood.  read more »

ST. PAUL—Eight years after he first ran for president, Senator John McCain of Arizona accepted his party’s nomination tonight with a speech that touched necessary bases, but was considerably less well received than the one his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, delivered the night before.

The speech was short on applause lines, and the early inconvenience of a protester in the rafters booing with a “McCain Votes Against Vets” sign in his hands didn’t help. Nor did the response of “U.S.A., U.S.A.” from the crowd, an attempt to drown out the heckling. McCain even seemed bothered when people applauded at his mention of their home states as he told the sad personal stories of victims of economic circumstances and a casualty of war.  read more »

The last remaining major private landowner in the footprint of Columbia University's planned West Harlem expansion issued a lengthy critique of the state's use of eminent domain to acquire his property, laying the groundwork for a legal battle that will likely lie ahead.

Nicholas Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-it-Away Storage, released the critique as the state today holds its second of two hearings on the proposed use of eminent domain. A wealthy landlord and developer who said he expects to fund a lengthy challenge, Mr. Sprayregen owns multiple warehouses in the footprint.

In the documents submitted to the Empire State Development Corporation today--the state agency that uses eminent domain--Mr.  read more »

At the Entourage season five premiere Wednesday evening at the Ziegfield Theater on 54th Street, attendees would have been forgiven if they assumed, incorrectly, that the premiere was being filmed for some meta-meta-upcoming episode. There were screaming fans, and the boys—Adrian Grenier, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, and Jeremy Piven—were dressed in suits, and stopped to pose for photos and sign autographs. Two episodes from season five, which starts Sunday, were screened for an audience that included several guest stars from the upcoming season—Leighton Meester from Gossip Girl, Friday Night Lights producer Peter Berg, Sopranos daughter Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and rapper Bow Wow.  read more »

In two separate speeches yesterday, Rudy Giuliani lauded the virtues of Sarah Palin’s small-town executive experience.

During an address to the New York delegation at the Marriott hotel in Minneapolis, he said “Sorry Senator [Obama], if the city is not big enough for you--they are probably that group of people who cling to religion and guns.”

And during his keynote address to introduce Sarah Palin at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul later that evening, he said “I’m sorry Barack Obama doesn’t feel her hometown is,” he paused, “cosmopolitan enough.”

But during his own run for president, the size of the city apparently mattered to Giuliani.  read more »

Republicans have spent much of the past week scoffing at claims that Sarah Palin's political experience—which includes six years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and 20 months as the governor of the 47th largest state in the union—raises questions about her preparation to lead the United States of America.

In particular, they have played up Palin's "executive experience," calculating that the repetition of this term will lead voters to ignore or overlook the fact that 87 percent of this experience was in a town with a population roughly three times larger than that of a large college dormitory.

"I find it reminiscent when I hear Democrat party leaders and their surrogates questioning Sarah's experience," Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle said at the G.  read more »

Coney Island's Astroland will have its last day this Sunday. Then it's over for the iconic amusement park, according to reports out this afternoon. A deal couldn't be reached by 1 p.m. today between Astroland's operator and its landlord Joseph Sitt, who has big plans for the area (if the city doesn't get its way first).

Here's the Post's take. Here's an emailed statement from Lynn Kelly, president of the Bloomberg administration's Coney Island Development Corporation:

Today’s announcement that Astroland will close after 46 years should be a serious wake-up call to those who have stood back and watched as the fate of Coney Island has been left in limbo without any safeguards for its future.

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Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John McCain will appear on Sunday talk shows, but not Sarah Palin. [via The Plank]

Tonight in his speech McCain will talk about bipartisanship and his P.O.W. experience.

Police blockaded a bridge to keep hundreds of protesters from marching to the R.N.C. earlier today.

Leon Neyfakh describes the awkward scene during Mike Huckabee's speech, when he blasted the press as they sat nearby.

Pro-Palin writer Ross Douthat thinks the best strategy for Democrats to deal with Palin is to stop paying attention.

A woman from Palin's home town who observered her in many rolls, has  read more »

One constituency in particular has proven especially fruitful for the Republican Party through the years: Prominent football coaches. For whatever reason - a natural sympathy for autocratic leadership, perhaps? - the G.O.P. has had no shortage of sideline generals to showcase through the years, a tradition that the party will renew tonight when former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs addresses the convention just before 9:00.

Other well-known coaches who have assumed prominent roles in Republican Party politics through the years include:

* Bud Wilkinson - Led the Oklahoma Sooners to three national titles and 145 victories - including a 47-game winning streak between 1953 and 1957 - before seeking to parlay his in-state popularity into a 1964 U.  read more »