A governor's resignation: $40,000
The feeling afterward: priceless

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's mid-term resignation is estimated to have cost the state's citizens at least $40,000. Among other expenses, it cost the state approximately $14,100 to swear in the current governor, Sean Parnell, on July 26, 2009, according to results secured by The Associated Press. The state spent another $3,328 to move Palin and her family out of the governor's mansion.

The global stock markets have lost $29 trillion dollars in the last year, cutting the average stock in half. But that's no reason for despair. Alaska governor Sarah Palin is running for vice president and she does not need to use her own money to pay for her liberal, elitist, anti-American, terrorist, gotcha-journalism wardrobe makeover or to fly her children around with her on junkets.

For that, she is confidently charging the Republican National Committee and the taxpayers of Alaska. How so? The RNC paid $49,425 for shopping sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York; $75,062 for her to shop at Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis; and $4,716 on Palin's hair and makeup through September.

That's not all though. Alaska paid $21,012 for personal junkets like hotel and commercial flights so her three daughters could join Palin to watch the first dude in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the Palin attended a five-hour conference and stayed with daughter Bristol for four nights in a luxury hotel.

John McCain has made several unexpected moves during his campaign. For instance, he picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice president. After an initial surge of support, her charming personality has given way to revelations about her lack of familiarity with the issues and Troopergate -- which led a bipartisan committee to conclude that she violated an Alaskan law prohibiting abuse of power. Now McCain may be questioning whether this maverick move hurt him more than it helped.

McCain also decided to suspend his campaign last month to deal with the financial crisis. Coincidentally, this decision came just a few days before McCain was to debate his opponent during a week when he was down in the polls. As it turns out, McCain resumed his campaign in time for the debate but without fixing the crisis. Did this maverick move strengthen McCain's image as a strong, effective leader?

At the end of a week in which the S&P 500 fell over 18%, more than it ever has in any previous week in history, some in the Republican party are questioning whether McCain's campaign is functioning as well as it could. Former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, has suggested that what McCain needs is a "broad vision of how he would lead the country through the economic crisis," according to the New York Times. This comment suggests a maverick move that McCain could take to revive his chances: replace Palin with Romney.

Much of the focus in tonight's vice presidential debate will be on whether Democrat Joe Biden or Republican Sarah Palin says anything stupid. Odds are fairly good that one or both of them will stick their foot in their mouths in front of millions of TV viewers.

Though I am a political junkie, I am hoping that tonight's festivities are gaffe-free. The economy is in such a horrible state that Democrats and Republicans have to raise above partisan politics. In particular, they need to do something to address the heart of the problem -- the millions of people facing foreclosure. Many of them are there because they purchased homes they could not afford. I have heard all of the talk of letting the market correct itself and of moral hazard. That's simply not good enough.

I find it difficult to believe that the U.S. government lacks the resources or the know-how to figure out which homeowners should be helped and which should be left on their own. Why is it so impossible for the U.S. Congress to include some relief in the $700 billion bailout to Wall Street for homeowners? Housing advocates and some bankruptcy judges are arguing that judges should have the power to change the terms of mortgage contracts for people who have sought protection from their creditors. That seems like a sensible idea to me.

Unfortunately, I am not expecting much substantive talk about the economy tonight. Palin, the governor of Alaska, is being kept away from the press after making a fool of herself in some recent interviews. The Tina Fey caricature of her as a loudmouth hick appears to be taking hold. Polls indicate that most Americans believe she is not qualified to be president. John McCain is the only one who seems to think otherwise.

WSJ Magazine has a story on Sarah Palin's exercise of choice, running. It's interesting that the story must have had a four month lead time -- well before John McCain chose her as his VP candidate. The piece paints her as someone who ran five to seven miles a day before she became pregnant, at which point she did aerobics. Sounds healthy to me.

But it's McCain's health we have to worry about. Now it's come to light that although Palin could be a heartbeat away from the presidency, she doesn't know what Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) are. CBS News reports Palin said that they "have become too big for the taxpayers." But the taxpayers never owned them or paid taxes to support them. Thanks to Hank Paulson, we may spend as much as $800 billion of taxpayer money bailing them out. So if Palin is going to be president -- assuming 72-year-old John McCain needs to step down -- someone better get her up to speed on what's going on outside of Wasilla.

And aside from the glowing fitness report, there's some bad news about Palin. She has tried to "cover up investigations of her firing of a public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called 'October surprise' that would produce embarrassing information about her on the eve of the election," according to Capitol Hill Blue.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin told Colorado voters that Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) have "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers."

Oops. The reality is that, as privately-held companies, Fannie and Freddie took no money from the federal government and it is only now that they will become a liability for taxpayers. The Huffington Post reports that "The major concern about Palin's position on the ticket is that she lacks the economic and foreign policy wherewithal to serve as vice president. This certainly doesn't help on that front. At the same time, the remark went almost entirely unnoticed over the weekend and discussions on the developments of the housing market can be difficult to process for even the most attuned voter."

When Palin made the remark, the audience cheered and McCain clapped -- meaning that neither the Republican Presidential candidate nor the Vice Presidential candidate, or even their supporters, understand the roles of Fannie and Freddie. More troubling, McCain told The Boston Globe last year that "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," and, here's the real kicker, said that he would look for someone who was a true economics expert in his VP pick.

Apparently that didn't happen, and voters will have to decide whether they want to vote for a ticket that doesn't have two supply curves to rub together.

Right here, in my hometown of Minneapolis-St.Paul, the Republican National Convention is set to begin. The hotels, restaurants and bars are abuzz and a table for four is a tough reservation to secure!

The convention has been tempered down as the nation watched Hurricane Gustav, the first and most important priority. As the hurricane dwindles into just a huge rain storm, the convention can resume its course.

They say that once the conventions are finished, the nation truly focuses in on the presidential election. The 15% or so who watch the primaries in earnest will be joined by the other 85% who have tuned out. Well, now it's time to tune in. Both McCain and Obama have interesting and fascinating backgrounds; both have come such different paths to their respective party's nominations.

Many said Obama is inexperienced, until his campaign totally outmaneuvered the Clinton machine -- so much for inexperience. Senator Joe Biden brings 36 years of Washington experience to the ticket, although I'm not sure if that's really relevant in this election.

McCain electrified the Republican base by naming Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Her experience is also limited, although she does have executive experience, far more than Biden, Obama and McCain combined! The addition of Governor Palin has, at least locally here in Convention City, mobilized a great number of voters who were warm, maybe lukewarm, to Senator McCain. Many in Minnesota thought our governor, Tim Pawlenty, would grace the ticket with McCain. Politics makes for strange bedfellows though.