by Gun Week staff

It took Democrats only moments to unleash the attacks on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin after she was selected by Sen. John McCain on Aug. 29 as his 2008 running mate, and in the process, the Democrats may have alienated millions of Americans who live in rural areas and small towns.

The choice of Palin took a lot of people by surprise, while also taking a fair amount of wind from the sails of Democrat Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who had concluded their nominating conventions in Denver, CO, only a day before the Palin announcement.

Palin is a life member of the National Rifle Association, a hunter and angler, and is widely viewed as a reformer even within her own party. Her husband, Todd, is an Alaska native and commercial salmon fisherman, and also works on the North Slope.

In short, Palin is about as independent as they come, and Democrats made it quickly obvious they don’t care for that—and apparently neither do many of the Democrat-leaning media.

She came under immediate attack in much of the press and among commentators, even before they learned that her unmarried 17-year-old was five months pregnant. Even as the talking heads on television puffed up the story on the younger Palin’s pregnancy, they kept wondering whether they should make so much of a private family story. They did report, however, that the girl was not going to have an abortion but was planning to marry the child’s father, which may resonate differently with voters than journalists and commentators might expect.

With the threat of hurricane Gustav, the Republicans were forced to tentatively open their nominating convention in St. Paul, MN, which was expected to solidify the major party candidates for the presidency and vice presidency. Meanwhile, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who had dropped out of the GOP nominating race, had scheduled a separate rally of his supporters across the river from the GOP convention in Minneapolis.

Ten third party presidential candidates and another seven independents will also be on the ballot in many states. Two them, Ralph Nader as an independent, and former Georgia GOP Congressman Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate, will be on the ballot in 43 states and could have an impact on the race between Obama and McCain. Most observers contend that Nader’s votes cost Gore the 2000 election in Florida.

The media and political cartoonists immediately targeted Palin after McCain selected her as a running mate. Her pro-conservative, pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage record got top billing. CNN even showed her shooting in many stills they acquired.

Anti-gun Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who once worked for the Clinton Administration and is a likely candidate to be appointed to fill Obama’s Senate seat if he is elected on Nov. 4, blasted McCain’s choice noting, “is this really the one-heartbeat-away he wants to put in the White House?”

Democrats took a dim view of Palin for being a former small town Alaska mayor with “little experience.”

It was nearly identical to a remark from Barack Obama’s campaign spokesman Bill Burton, who stated that “John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

The remarks reminded many of Obama’s gaffe last spring during a fund raiser in San Francisco in which he talked about rural Pennsylvanians and those who live in “a lot of small towns in the Midwest” for being wary of government and political candidates.

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Obama said.