Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge told a crowd of over a thousand Iowa Democrats tonight that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin "annoys" her.
"I debated on whether I should even bring Sarah up tonight because, you know, I think the bloom is off the rose here," Judge said. "…But if you go to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, you do expect to hear ‘Freebird" so, for just about a minute here, I want to talk about this on-going situation between Sarah and me."
In mid-September, Judge said Palin, who has said she has field dressed a moose, had nothing on her because Judge has castrated calves on her farm near Albia, Iowa. "Of all the women in the United States of America, why did John McCain pick Sarah Palin?" Judge asked, and the crowd applauded. "If she is qualified to be the vice president of the United States, a heartbeat away from the presidency, why didn’t Barack Obama call me?" There was laughter from the crowd of Democrats.
The lieutenant governor continued on that theme, suggesting she and Palin had other similarities, like they both wear glasses and they both love their kids. "I can probably get past the ‘aw shucks’ business and the ‘you’re darn right’ stuff. The winking is super annoying," Judge said, to more applause and cheers from the crowd. "…In the final analysis, I’ll tell you why she annoys me so much: when John McCain picked this woman to be his running mate, it was a reckless, arrogant act."
Women in the crowd got to their feet to applaud. A woman in the crowd shouted: "You go girl!" and Judge replied: "Thank you," before concluding her nearly 10 minute speech.
Judge was one of the many politicians who got to speak before former Vice President Al Gore, who was the keynote speaker at the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2008 Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. Gore, by the way, had been listening to Judge’s rant. "Patty, I would pay money — I’d pay a lot of money to watch you and listen to you debate Sarah Palin," Gore said with a laugh. The crowd cheered and whistled. "If there’s just some way that we could arrange that. Why don’t you call up Larry King?" As you may recall, Gore — as the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee in 1992 — faced down Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot in a highly-publicized joint appearance on The Larry King show on CNN.
Click on the audio link below to listen to Judge’s nearly 10 minute speech.