Sorry, I should have been live-blogging this. I think Sarah Palin is a lot better with this prepared speech than she seemed on Friday. I still think the massive lack of vetting and her far right position on abortion is a problem, but I see what her conservative backers see in her. She could be effective.
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I sort of agree except that the speech is so filled with contempt and ad hominem.
This speech will rally the base but turn off a lot of people, I think. Combined with Rudy, this strikes me as another Pat Buchanan Culture Wars kind of moment.
Dude? Were we watching the same speech? I couldn't stand her.
Neither can I. But she ain't talking to me. I'm trying to see her through the eyes of someone who might actually be either, already persuaded, or persuadable.
The base needed the red meat, but I don't think she plays as well to the middle. That speech is a few years old.
Like Obama's in some ways, it seemed cobbled together. The amateurish bio stuff smashed up against the sneering attacks - just seemed odd.
Wait...there's some black dude in a cowboy hat singing the national anthem. I didn't know they let black people in the RNC! Much less sing the national anthem...In a cowboy hat at that...
What?!
She acted and looked like a b**** -- like a pissed off "hockey mom" who has something personal against community organizers. Sarcasm and condescension does not seem to strike a good tone to me.
And sorry, this might be because I'm from Cali, but her voice is super annoying. (By the way, I'm a girl.)
Bizarre is the only way I can describe the experience of watching this entire evening.
I think it was a pretty effective start to the speech. It was heavy on the biography, but the goal there was to make sure that it was her, not the media, who was defining who she was. She had to appear as normal as possible, like somebody you would know in a small town, not the scandal-harried weirdo that the news was portraying. I think the first part will play well.
Very interesting to note ... she mocked Obama for worrying about whether somebody would read the terrorists their rights, then made the comment later in the speech that McCain came back from "tortured interrogations." This will come back to bite her.
I didn't even watch the speech, but I know just from the abysmal expectations going in and the fact that she's apparently a competent speaker that it's going to be described as the best speech ever. TV guys love dramatic reversals.
As I said over on Making Light, the Republicans probably are going to get a convention bounce just like the Democrats did, and I don't relish the despair and moaning and railing at the sheeple that's going to go around the liberal blogs while it's in progress. I hope we can keep our heads.
No. No. No. The media is so scared of the yokels out there in America (who they've never met), they can't call out shit when they see shit.
That was shit. I'm from "Hicksville, America," and it will play with the people who were going to vote McCain anyway, i.e. the people in the convention. But my mom went to the same school as Palin and grew up on a farm. She hates this woman and just called to say how horrified she was by this.
CRAP IS CRAP, people. I'm so tired of people thinking anyone "acting ordinary" is appealing to the average folks out there.
Knowing the RNC, it's probably some guy in black-face, not a brother, so to speak.
Well, Sarah Palin may have made the Convention feel good, but her delivery is flat, the speech was riddled with falsehoods (Bridge to Nowhere being the obvious one), and I can't see that any outsider would have got anything from it except arrogance, malice and an absence of new ideas.
I don't know. I think we've discovered her signature move though. Bush had the smirk, Palin has a sneer. I think she looks like a mean person.
Jon Stewart had a good bit about it tonight, and it really makes me wonder. The Republicans have been running hard on the "Washington is a cesspool of corruption and sin" meme for as long as I've been alive. Can it possibly work this time? After eight years of George W. Bush?
I have to admit that I can't stand her voice--way to much like characters in Fargo, even so, I thought the speech was alright, and I think that she excites the base enough that the ultimate narrative around her will be that she injected enough enthusiasm into a stale campaign that she gave McCain a chance to win. She'll be a force to be reckoned with in Republican politics in the coming years.
Being a libertarian-ish, I'd be glad to see that happen, as I think that the whole country will be better off if the Republicans move away from the Southern base.
No way, would I ever vote for her, but honestly she is the kind of help McCain needed to get those still undecided voters (the ones who are looking for any reason not to vote for Sen. Obama). Coupled with the "media hates us" argument, I think the Rove-McCain folks have come up with an energizing force - even if she gets knocked off the ticket. In fact, even more so if media disclosures knock her off the ticket. Wow!
This year gets stranger and stranger.
She did her job - attack, attack, attack. I have to admit, I'm somewhat surprised by how hateful her speech was, but then again, they're Republicans. Hate is their thing. The problem they're going to face is that the Obama campaign has shown that they're incredibly good at counter-punching and the rope-a-dope.
One thing I find curious is the fact Palin an others can talk about "elite," "elite," "elite," all day but imagine what would happen if democrats where to constantly hammer republicans as ignorant, closed minded, selfish and low class? The double standard ish is exhausting, not sure I'm going to make it to November.
She is no longer going to get 5 days prep for anything other than the debate. She will stumble.
I was listening to NPR earlier (predictable) and they were saying that the percentage of black delegates is at a 40 year low this year, after an all time high set four years ago.
Also, what is with her dissing community organizers? And what was with Mike Huckabee pointing out she got more votes running for Governor than Biden did running for President? How is that a relevant comparison?
I'm surprised. I expected something smart and immensely substantive to prove her gravitas. But instead they went for culture war and rather sneering contempt. Embracing a candidate as inexperienced (PTA aside) and dismissed by the "Washington elite" may have worked back in 2000, but jeez. Isn't there a war on?
If you think Palin's been ganged up on unfairly and is plenty qualified, you love this defensive punch and applaud the sneering nastiness as turnabout. People like me just about threw up in our mouths. Ambivalents/undecideds?
I tried to watch the speech. I think I lasted all of 5 minutes! I'm so glad ANTM started tonight--I'd rather watch a houseful of crazy women try to win Tyra's approval than one crazy woman try to convince the country that she and John McCain are somehow better for America than Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I know...I'm a left wing partisan nutbar...it can't be helped.
I thought it was effective for the first half. There was a moment (around the special needs kid) that I even warmed to her. But then she went for the juglar. She holds blue America in contempt. Absolute contempt. Pure culture wars stuff. Ugh. And she likes it that way.
I'm somewhat surprised by how hateful her speech was
I dunno, if I'd gone through what she had in the last couple of days, I'd come out swinging too. I mean seriously, photo-shopped pictures of her in a bikini holding a gun?
She crushed tonight. Her audience was the base and low info white voters -- both will eat these soundbites up like candy. Will it matter?... Only if this election comes down to "who understands me?" If it comes down to "who will pull a better u-turn" or "I want something else," Obama wins in a walk.
Once again, underestimate Palin at your own peril... Someone mentioned counter-punching -- you better make damn sure you hit her above the belt or there could be hell to pay.
If you think Palin's been ganged up on unfairly and is plenty qualified, you love this defensive punch and applaud the sneering nastiness as turnabout. People like me just about threw up in our mouths. Ambivalents/undecideds?
I'm voting for Obama this time around, but I'm normally undecided. The sheer scorn she's undergone this week definitely makes me think favorably of her (though no matter how much I might end up liking her, McCain's selection process was still a travesty).
That brother with the cowboy hat scared me. I had to turn the tv.
But seriously, that was a disappointing speech. I thought McCain was hoping to get the independents. That was a red meat Republican base speech. I can't see that selling to the people outside the Republican party.
I think Obama's campaign has a good chance to try and box McCain in and tie him to Bush on the social and cultural issues. That sounded like a 2004 Bush speech.
Deleted. No way. Retype comment if you like, but without the colorful reference to Palin, please.
The whole thing had kind of a weird vibe for me. I'm not really sure what it was, but something just felt off. Maybe it was the constant pauses for seemingly no reason (expected applause? forgot the next word?), or the exaggerated facial expressions, or the barrage of "cute" one-liners like "I sold it on e-bay.".
It was fine, I guess. 80% of the audience seemed to be about to jump on stage and hug her, and the other 20% looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. I guess we'll have to wait a day or two and see how this thing pans out.
Also, what was with the tone of her voice when she was talking about community organizers? You'd think she hated them all with the fire of a thousand suns.
The speech felt, well, canned.
I didn't hear anything there that I hadn't heard as a talking point before, except maybe for a few turns of phrase designed to make good sound bytes.
Not all attacks are the same. Obama's speech was aggressive, but the attacks were direct. He didn't try to make it a circuitous or backhanded thing.
I think an interesting point is the number of times the word opponent is used, in lieu of a name. Obama's speech (as prepared for delivery) used the word once, and in a context where it made sense. "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from."
Palin used it eight times in her speech (as prepared for delivery). This phrasing is an appeal to the base which cuts out the middle. The Republicans in the room certainly feel that Obama is their opponent, as does Palin. But an undecided person by definition isn't opposed to one candidate or the other.
Also, it's just a clumsy phrase. Use the name once and then follow with pronouns. Or use something artful. "My opponent" is an appeal to being pre-decided. He is wrong because he opposes me.
I think this speech was written to try to placate the base after a more liberal pick (a la Lieberman or Ridge) then hastily grafted onto Palin.
I suspect that we'll be talking about Sarah Palin for as long as she's on the ticket, which I would guess would be all the way to the election. There are enough scandals, gaffes and curiosities right now to take at least a couple of weeks to go through, and I think there will be more.
So even if she proves to be an effective attacker -- and I'm not yet convinced that she'll do more good than harm that way -- does all of this focus on Palin really help McCain get elected? I think she's going to be a huge distraction.
My summary would be: So much hate, so little time.
"I didn't know they let black people in the RNC!"
T-N C,
On Fox the camera panned occasionally to black delegates in the audience, but you really had to keep your eyes peeled. It was like watching meteors, or, as my girlfriend put it, looking for four-leaf clovers.
Re the speech: She crushed it. Lady's got some poise. I also liked that they cleaned up her daughter's self-described "F'n redneck" baby daddy/fiancee and brought him on stage with the rest of the family. Getting pregnant and marrying young: that's how they roll in AK, and she's not ashamed of it. Fortunately, there are plenty of good jobs in the oil patch up there, so the kid will be able to support his family.
I only saw clips, I was watching the Tennis.
I agree it will play well to some, but what I saw was reminded me of someone in a contentious PTA race trying to get some "gotcha's" in, and it didn't sit well with me.
boring. ineffective. felt long. themes felt old.
I'm actually relieved, she's not very 'dynamic' when giving a speech.
She didn't talk about the economy, and that "PTA mom and snowmobile hubby" stuff might work for the base, but its not going to reassure the 'on the fence' voters that she can go to leaders like Putin or Chavez with that kinda vibe.
Fred-
There's a job waiting for you in the right-wing media. You've got the whole "I don't really believe this but I'm going to say it anyway" act down like a charm.
She managed to read a speech that was mostly written before she was chosen without pissing herself. I'm wicked impressed.
I wonder what we would have seen if she'd done her own writing.
Well, at the risk of bringing in a gratuitous Tolkien reference, after I heard Palin, I felt that I had experienced Saruman's speech for the Governorship of Lower Mordor.
One good thing from my perspective, after Palin's speech, full of vim & vinegar as it was, McCain's speech will probably be a real snore fest in comparison.
That ought to take some bounce out of the step of those GOPers in attendance or watching from home.
The problem is she doesn't seem to be good enough to appeal to anyone other than the core conservative constituency. That's the news from tonight.
I have to say I went into the speech feeling like she was an underqualified yahoo and by the end she has me nervous for November. She is not a great speaker but she more than held her own and she is much more fluent than McCain. I think the low info voters will eat this up. We need to remind them that she wants to ban abortion even in the case of rape and that she tried to ban books in the Wasilla library.
Whatever. Just telling the truth... in a colorful way.
It was Geographic Condescension Night in St. Paul. First, former Governor Romney complains about the political monopoly of the Eastern Elite. Romney. As in Belmont, Massachusetts' wealthiest citizen Mitt Romney. Yes, damn those elitist easterners. Then Giuliani says Obama doesn't think Wasilla is "cosmopolitan" enough. Someone please post a link to the statement by Obama where he suggests that Wasilla isn't cosmopolitan enough. Then, Governor Lingle of Hawaii belittles the entire state of Delaware by suggesting Palin is more qualified becuase her state can eat 50 of Joe Biden's state. I'd love to have seen a screen shot of the Delaware delegation when she was spewing that nonsense. And with all the "community organizer" crap from Palin, I wonder how many evangelical missionaries, not to mention Catholic social workers, were attuned enough to realize she was slapping them in the face.
Excite the base, by all means. But in the fight for the undecideds, none of the speakers tonight did the party any favors.
Pretty much as anticipated, a good reader with unneeded drama.
She has been special in small ponds and in short bursts, she is lightweight and will appeal to a narrow scope of folks, and the legions will not take her seriously. Her events will be controlled as those for Bush and Cheney. The visuals of the family and so on was a bit much, but this is meaningless as her personal life is that; unfortunately, this saga is not over.
In sum the question is what can she do other than speak in generalities? Bush has not gone away! The convention crowd is indeed special, for most Republican events I am unable seriously listen to as they tend to tear folks down while projecting a tasteless arrogance . This has been vintage stuff for the past 40 years; on this one they didn't even try restraint. I think it may have been an early celebration of their electoral demise.
Her going overboard on Obama, and McCain is about all she could do; this comprised most of what she said. She did make a number of false statements. What she missed on community organizing is not to be underestimated; these were working people, the kind she was attempting to attract. Knocking Obama does not expand her or McCain. Adults of all ilk will not be too pleased. Yes, the spin carriers will applaud loudly through the news cycle...........
I'm interested to see how this plays out with independents and undecideds. Most people here seem to think the tone of the night was overly partisan and attack-happy. Over at NRO, they can't stop gushing about how everything was perfect. A few of them even claimed they wish the Democrats had been so classy with their convention, which I felt was pretty rich.
Anyway, that's about what we expected. Now how did it play with the people who haven't already picked a side?
The Republicans are using her as the attack dog but I hope she can take punches as she likes to throw them.
The speech was written before she was picked. They made changes after she became the VP pick to include her story.
Tomorrow, McCain will remind the American public why Obama/Biden is a better choice.
Obama/Biden
Mr. Coates said:
"I didn't know they let black people in the RNC!"
I saw a few Bob Barr Republicans.
I agree with Jeremy; I only watched a few minutes of the speech, but the timing was definitely screwy, lots of applause lines with the applause a beat or six late. Not that it makes the slightest bit of difference.
Also, stick me in the tundra, shoot me from a plane & call me sexist, but the foreign policy talking points sounded completely undigested. I have no doubt that her years as a small-town mayor and months as a small-state governor have admirably qualified her to read from a teleprompter. Go America!
Guys... it's going to be culture wars for the next eight weeks. It was their only hand. Matthews called it straight away, Buchanan is in love with his pitchfork carrying Nascar princess. Get your game face on and play to win, she's is electrifying the base of the GOP.
I kept hearing about McCain's supposed accomplishments and how he'll fight for the American people, but what legislative accomplishments can he point to? McCain-Feingold? Please!
I can't believe how everyone is gushing over her speech. It was amateurish and small-minded, and not very well delivered. It might have been a great speech at the governor level, but this is prime-time, baybee!! This was not a national campaign-level speech, I'm afraid. I half expected her to demand better food out of the school cafeteria.
Where was the case for electing her and McCain except that she personifies small-town values. This makes her qualified??
If America falls for this crap, we're doomed.
At its core, Palin's speech was noxious, toxic, venomous bile. The snarling, mocking contempt she displayed for Obama was disgusting. She's a religious fanatic and a flaming hypocrite.
The attacks on community organizing are disgraceful, and I hope Obama pounces on it. He should give a speech (maybe not tomorrow, to show McCain the same respect he was shown last week, but Friday at least) specifically detailing his experiences with the DCP and saying, "look, this is what Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani were mocking."
If the Republicans want to make this a culture war and take the side that pokes fun at volunteerism, they can go right ahead.
A successful Republican is Ronald Reagan, who understood that you have to appeal to American optimism to win the public. To gut emotions.
Obama totally gets that. Apparently, he understands Ronald Reagan better than either the Republican nominee or Sarah Palin do.
Even the way McCain and Palin interact seems stiff and unappealing and fake. Contrast that to Biden and Obama, who hug each other, grin, clap each other on the back, and seem to genuinely be enjoying themselves in front of the crowd when they're up there. They both seem comfortable in their skin. Whereas McCain doesn't, and Palin seems a bit ... I don't know. Not quite open. I think unless you're already a Bible-thumper, you still have a sense of not knowing who this person is.
I know this is exciting the base. But I can't believe that the hate-mongering will win over more than that. I think that's a missed opportunity for McCain-Palin to be more aspirational and natural.
Where does she get off playing the media's victim? She set herself up for all this just as Obama put himself in a position for attacks re: Rev. Wright.
She hops on a ticket despite having laughable experience. Of course she'll be mocked for it. While I think it's pretty foul of people to photoshop her in a bikini, perhaps she might have considered that posing braless for Vogue was a tad tasteless for someone with aspirations to be anything but the next Heather Locklear. Of course she'll be mocked for it. She opposes sex-ed and her teenager is now pregnant and engaged to another 17-year-old. Of course she gets mocked for it! Her husband's in some secessionist group. She flew back to Alaska after her water broke(!), despite knowing her kid was disabled. Hello?
Look, I'd never want anyone scrutinizing my life and family like this. This is why I have no intention of volunteering myself to be one of the 8-12 people per decade subject to this scrutiny. Palin knew how trashy her background was, and stepped into the limelight anyway. Nothing on the list above is distorted - it is what it is.
So she needs to get over herself, or redirect the conversation to something more substantial. Or both.
Deleted. A string of ad hominem does not a comment make.
Palin's speech was toxic, venomous bile filled with lies. Palin is a religious fanatic and an insufferable narcissist.
You know, I love reactions and predictions, but I have no idea how this will play.
On the one hand, I don't think this one will win independents who actually heard the speech. It was, to be blunt, two-faced. It started out all home-y and sweet, talking about her kids and her husband and small-town values...and then she tried to paint Obama as a two-bit charlatan who'd give his country up to win an election. Those kind of attacks will turn people off, because they imply that roughly half of America is either duped or stupid.
On the other, that's not what the media will report. Almost as soon as she finished her last line of vitriol, Wolf Blitzer was talking about how most Americans' first impression of Palin would be "positive." No one, I think, was expecting such a harsh offensive, and, so, the media will still be applying the "Hey, does she do anything insanely stupid?" standard in their analysis.
So, the question is, which matters more to independents: the actual speech or the coverage?
I hated it, but my Jewish swing voter mom says she loved it. Who knows. I thought the family stuff was mawkish, the praise for McCain made her sound like a schoolgirl with a creepy crush ("that's the kind of MAN I want as President..."), and the Obama-bashing, while effective, wasn't really what she needed to be doing. Oh, and the policy stuff was exclusively about energy - leading one to wonder why McCain just doesn't tab her for the Energy Department. Funny how she threw in all these names of foreign oil exporters to make herself look halfway knowledgeable.
Well, that was exactly what I was expecting. Palin did nothing to answer the questions of her skeptics while riling support from the base by throwing the Red-est of meat to the rapid throngs: East Coast Elites, Hollywood Liberals and the Liberal Media. They've just spent the last segment on Larry King arguing about sexism and if Palin could be an effective VP as a mother of four. What they are not talking about is whether she's fit to be second in line for the presidency period. The one thing that could be construed as surprising was the strong tone she took in the speech, trying to belittle Obama's time as a community organizer, but not mentioning anything that's happened in the past fifteen years. If Republicans think this is going to be successful, I would suggest that they review the primary tapes. You can't come at Obama more aggresively than Hillary Clinton did. You want to continue to portray Obama as nothing more than a celebrity, you do this at your own risk. Setting expectations low with an opponent as skilled as Obama (or conversely, a neophyte such as Palin) is a dangerous proposition. The mentioning of "holding the waters back" was ESPECIALLY CRASS, given the events of Gustav. Again, once the utter spectacle of this thing dies down, it's toast. Why? Notice no mention of Ferraro and Clinton, unlike the last two stumps. Palin, after three days, is already being repackaged as Dick Nixon Jr. It's the hardhats against the longhairs. What happens when her "reformer" credentials get decimated in the next couple of weeks? Palin is also another variation on GWB. She's the kind of person you'd like to have a beer with and, yes, have your kids on her kid's hockey team with. To paraphrase the man himself, "fool me once, shame on...you...fool me twice...can't get fooled again".
Ta-Nehisi (I haven't been reading you quite long enough to know what your boys call you - but as a brown man I can say my brown wife would like to stalk you and I just think you're "cool").
I've been riling myself up all night about the vast differences between "media bias" and Barack Obama vs. Sarah Palin.
On one hand you have a white woman with a 17 year old pregnant daughter and you're from the backwoods and the baby daddy describes himself as "a f***'in' redneck"... yet it's sexist to suggest this a story when she spends 1/3 of her introduction to a vast swath of the country focusing and parading said family in front of TV cameras and press releases. On the other hand if we reverse roles (as the McCain campaign apparently would like us to do via their most recent ad) and made things a mirror image of media stereotypes you'd have:
A black man, with a black teenage daughter who is about to give birth and marry another black teenage father who self-describes as a "f***in' pimp" - and yet McCain can parade the guy around in a press picture avail and if this were Barack it'd be the worst thing in modern political politics.
Do you need further evidence that we haven't come nearly as far as we think we vis a vis race and stereotypes? Do you doubt this would happen?
Views? Can you calm the wifey down before she throws my Wii through the window?
Why the ELITISM and CONTEMPT when it comes to community organizing??? Someone has to do this type of work. It should not be looked down upon. I volunteer in my community and less fortunate communities whenever I get a chance and it is hard work trying to get anything done.
Perhaps she will appreciate the merits of organizing if they come up short of votes on election day. You can see where Obama has carried thru into every state in the primaries.
I also dont know if she should be that dismissive of someone who received more than 18 M votes and actually won his nomination. She simply appeared one day and wants to start building pipelines and drilling in the ocean. I dont think so. Not just yet or ever. Must go register people to vote.
'Community organizer' is apparently now the Republican euphemism for the N-word. The spirit of Lee Atwater is alive and well in St Paul, and I don't think that hour of Ace of Base will go down well beyond the base.
Speech sucked...Republicans just lost the middle and made Obama look like the total class act he is.
"her far right position on abortion is a problem"
On pure electability, why? According to this NYT poll (which is consistent with several other polls), 64% of all voters want abortion rights curbed somewhat or eliminated altogether, while 54% of DEMOCRATIC voters share that sentiment:
Style and substance.
Right now, on the substance, they've got nothin' so they have to go all out on 'style' - in this case, style being the attacking, sneering us versus them type of politics.
She did a good job of it, and delivered her lines well.
I keep thinking back on what Josh Marshall calls the bitch-slap theory of politics. Tonight, Guiliani and Palin went HARD after Obama - lots of lies/distoritions for the "opponent", as well as the mocking. Some smash mouth.
But smashing mouth back, never seems to work well for democrats, and ignoring the attacks never work for Democrats either.
One possibility, Obama has to define McCain - basically, I think, as an incompetent, shiftless fool.
Incompetent in the economic sense. "would you trust your economy to the guy who can't count to 10 houses?"
Shiftless - in terms of his policy changes over the past 7 years - keep the thread started by Kerry.
Foolish - in stringing together his long uncomfortable pauses and bumbling responses that have been captured on Youtube.
This way, you define McCain - in his character, by using truth about the policies and the history.
Standard culture war drivel, Pat Buchanan with a pretty face. Ok we get it they really don't like us coastal liberals and don't consider us part of their America.
Th eoBama campaign has a great lenghtly repsosne out that details all the outright lies she told, not that anyone will actualy call her on it, that would be sexist I guess. The Washington Monthly has a post linking to it.
The content of Palin's speech was garbage but her delivery was effective. She's going to be one nasty candidate. I can't wait to see her get beaten on election day. After her venomous personal attacks, I'm looking forward to seeing her shell-shocked reaction when it's made official that Obama and Biden are victorious.
I see what her conservative backers see in her. She could be effective.
Very true. Those who wanted to set expectations low for her didn't help--she's an unknown! Clearly she must be uber-qualified, a quality we look forward to seeing in numerous interviews.
Talking points:
She's qualified, per Biden. She's 44, natural born citizen, and a governor. Talking about which experience counts drags us into the Obama v Palin frame the right wants. This is Obama v McCain.
Is she prepared? She should have been all over the talk shows this past weekend. What are her positions on issues broader than firing the librarian who won't ban books for her in Wassila? She "took on the oil companies" by getting them to cut even larger checks for the citizens of Alaska than the ones they'd cut the year before--I don't see how this translates to the broader country as economic or energy policy.
The focus is John McCain's policies and record of flip-flopping whenever the right whistles in the past 3 years. Getting dragged into Palin minutia keeps the focus on biography and off issues--if it isn't clear to people that they're trying for an issue-free election that's all about John McCain Was a POW and Sarah Palin Was a Hockey Mom, they haven't been watching this past week.
What TNC said about bait still holds true. A lightning rod for left attacks, some of them offensive. (Evangelical social conservatives know families in which the mother works full time, in which the dad stays home with the kids, in which a teenager gets pregnant. Really. They do. These people are in their churches and families, and no one cares about the hypocrisy of attacking it in others and accepting it amongst your own because the left is just as guilty of this. It's a losing frame.) We've had a week all about Palin, in which I heard from both NPR and TNR about Jamie Lynn Spear's gift of pink buppies. Issues will work better.
She's a politician, if she can't read a teleprompter with a well written speech on it she is in the wrong business. Of course she looked good and it went well. The content was typical and the talking heads are predictibly fauning.
What I am looking forward to is her first press availability, up until this moment she has been hidden in a closet and they can't do that forever no matter how much they wish they could. And we can hope they will ask her about troopergate, the bridge to nowhere, raising taxes, cutting funding for social programs, her own personal rev. wright and so on and so on.
Re: This is the way religious believers react to anything that threatens their faith.
Who is threatening anyone's faith? And if Christianity is about kicking people for real or imagined slights then I must be reading the wrong Gospels.
More trying to control the news cycle stuff. Lots of one-liners, no real substance. That's not the way to introduce yourself to the people who haven't really heard that much about you.
I guess they've decided that the only way to win is an all-out culture war. It makes me look forward to the next 8 weeks even less.
Does anyone else think that her dig at Community Organizing is going to come back and haunt her? Considering the reaction of some of the reporters after the speech (especially that one guy on CNN who has parents who are Austin community organizers) and the pissed off email I just got from David Plouffe, I have a feeling her little slam on community organizers is going to show up in an ad before long.
That speech was written under two false pre-conceptions 1) nobody had seen Obama’s ads or speeches and 2) the viewer was a total moron. It was condescending and sarcastic in a time when they GOP doesn’t get to tell us how great they are and what they will do. People are tired of Bush’s condescending attitude, but it took the media a while to pick up on that. The entire night sounded like a party ready to take on Mondale in 84, with themes from the 80’s and issues of low salience today. The speech itself was self-contradictory. How can you claim change and experience at the same time? How can you run against DC when your party is in power and you’ve been in DC for years? How are you going to shrink the size of government when continuing the Iraq War and started brand new energy initiatives? How can you be for small government staying out of people’s lives yet against community organizing? The festishization of state power and the guise “responsibility” is authoritarian and creepy. What does victory in Iraq even mean anymore? Nobody bothered to define it.
She makes one speech on energy, yet Obama has had energy ads out for about a month that got seen all over the Olympics. Obama’s message was that McCain is a good man who loves America but is just wrong. He seemed like someone wanting to bring people together, get people organized to tackle big issues together and be able to converse with each other under good faith. The Palin speech was just “fuck you hippy” in response.
Also, at least 38 million people heard Obama’s line about the gates of hell and the mouth of bin Laden’s cave. Palin had no real rejoinder to that beyond Bush-style mocking. She had nothing to say about Afghanistan and seemed wanting to save face instead on Iraq.
It is also terribly cynical and sick to use your teenage daughter’s pregnancy, complete with her husband-to-be not looking like he wants to be there, as a campaign prop. You don’t get to use the fact your daughter did something stupid as a reason to tell us “elitists” how moral you are.
The good thing about Palin's speech is that the expectations for her have been raised. Days prior, there was concern about, essentially, how gentle the Obama campaign would have to be with her, not taking the chance that they could be charged with bullying a poor defenseless working mother. Now, since her base and others thing she nailed her first speech, she's "established" herself as a "force"; by my thinking, the Obama campaign can now swing away.
Final point: I do agree with the poster who said that she had 5 days to get ready to read a prepared speech. What she proved to me last night was that she could smile, talk, and read at the same time. How she stands up in debates or more rigorous interviews remains to be seen.
It's times like this that I really miss Tim Russert. God I'd love to see her on Meet The Press and have him go after her, forcing her to come up with off the cuff responses.
Last night was appalling. These guys seriously think they can win by repeating the 2004 formula. If it works this time I'll weep for my country and our future.
Up until this moment she has been hidden in a closet and they can't do that forever.
I'm starting to wonder--per Marc Ambinder's question about whether they want to go to war with the press and Al Giordano's response that that may be their precise plan and it could work--if this is exactly what they mean to try.
Forgot to include something Sean at 538 said--she fires up both bases. And in a year when far more people identify as Dems or left-leaning indie, that will be a problem.
From the way her roll out went, I think the McCain camp was aiming for a double* with social conservatives and at least a triple with independents and Hillary voters. What they got was a home run with social conservatives and a strikeout with independents and Hillary voters.
Both of the Globe's pro-Hillary editorialists, women older than myself, have produced pro-Obama, anti-Palin editorials that seem to have a strong Carville subtext: "I'm insulted that you thought this would actually win me over, and I see positive things in Obama that weren't clear to me before." The Republicans have adapted to that, and she's done talking about how wonderful Hillary and Geraldine are. Time to move into the next phase. (Incidentally I'd love to see Hillary out there making the case against McCain's policies and for Obama's policies--THIS is what a woman in full command of all the issues sounds like. Let that silently contrast to Palin's refusal to do interviews. Those on the left who want Hillary v Palin are demoting Hillary and promoting Palin, a stupid tactic.)
*Sports analogies don't come naturally to me so I apologize if this actually makes no sense and I've suggested the Republicans play cricket or something.
Wel, from the comments above, it's apparent that the Palin speech was a great success. The Dems hated it and they are talking about how mean it was, blah, blah, rather than about how stupid and ineffective Palin is, which is the meme they had the previous couple of days. Of course, VP candidates are supposed to be mean, so that won't stick and the Dems will have to find some other tagline to stick on her. Good luck with that.
I watched Gov Palin speech for I think about 10 to 15 mins before I just crashed(I know I saw the "if you have a special needs child you have a friend in me" part and the family showcase-was or was it not a total creep out seeing Cindy McCain holding Trig and no members of her family in sight). The applause never seemed in sync w/ the talking points. As she wasn't attempting to win me over I felt ....
What is significant is that the Gov fell into the Candidate Palin vs Gov Palin trap. Best it is all on tape. Gov Palin gutted funds for Special Needs in Alaska(it would be fantastic to find out she did it in the last budget knowing while PREGNANT w/ Trig he had down syndrome). Gov Palin has been taking back leases from oil companies that are not drilling where they already have permits so why drill in ANWR). Gov Palin has been both for and against the Bridge to Nowhere and against earmarks(I saw this on CNBC this morning-I can't believe the pro's didn't cut this out of her speech).
Start the side by side Candidate vs Gov ads now. I am sure there is video and audio tape. You get to bury her on many non social issues. The situtation w/ Trig is just icing.
"The Republicans are using her as the attack dog but I hope she can take punches as she likes to throw them."
Indeed. And, given that she came across as a thoroughly viscious thug, no matter what Biden or anybody else says about her she can't get away with the "oh, they're attacking poor widdle me" schtick conservatives pull when people tell the truth about them.
I dunno, she seemed to stumble a lot. I mean, she's clearly got charisma, and is a better speaker than John McCain, but she didn't seem entirely comfortable. Perhaps it was being in a venue that large, perhaps it was the one-size-fits-all speech, but considering she was in all-out attack mode, it didn't come out at smoothly as it ought to have.
Sarah Palin = Tom DeLay in a pantsuit. That's what I saw last night.
Did you think she was going to fall off the stage? Were our expectations really set that low? Facts remain:
- She attacked Obama for never authoring a "major bill" despite his having authored over 150 in his time in the Senate alone. Maybe there weren't any to her liking....
- There is an inherent contradiction in running as the "small town" party when you are, in actuality, the party that thinks $250,000 is "middle class"
- It's AWKWARD that the first female Republican on a major ticket is sharing that ticket with a man who has voted against equal pay for women
- She has serious problems that have yet to be addressed on foreign policy. For those comparing her experience to Obama's, Obama is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That doesn't pass the smell test.
- "Drill Baby Drill" is not "taking on big oil". Cognitive dissonance will collectively catch up to us all.
I mean, that's not even the litany. AGAIN, once the spectacle dies down, people are going to realize this is the exact same campaign the Republicans ran in 2004. What's sad is that people are touting her as the "future of the Republican Party". That mean, for the foreseeable future, we have no chance of ridding ourselves of this ridiculous Red/Blue culture war divide. The term "East Coast Elite" and "Hollywood Liberal" are going to get trotted out and taken for another walk around the block. And they're talking about Todd Palin staying at home with the kids right now on MSNBC. Good god. We are lost.
Give the analogy prize to James Fallows: It's as though Barack Obama chose Al Franken as his running mate, and Al then gave a riproaring redmeat speech at the convention. (Especially if this was a low year for Dems who were casting about for a sign they could turn their chances around.) The base would be thrilled to see those guys pounded hard; the rest of the country would not be impressed with the Dems' seriousness.
"That speech was written under two false pre-conceptions 1) nobody had seen Obama’s ads or speeches and 2) the viewer was a total moron. It was condescending and sarcastic in a time when they GOP doesn’t get to tell us how great they are and what they will do. People are tired of Bush’s condescending attitude, but it took the media a while to pick up on that. The entire night sounded like a party ready to take on Mondale in 84, with themes from the 80’s and issues of low salience today. The speech itself was self-contradictory. How can you claim change and experience at the same time? How can you run against DC when your party is in power and you’ve been in DC for years? How are you going to shrink the size of government when continuing the Iraq War and started brand new energy initiatives? How can you be for small government staying out of people’s lives yet against community organizing? The festishization of state power and the guise “responsibility” is authoritarian and creepy. What does victory in Iraq even mean anymore? Nobody bothered to define it."
- Reality Man
That is a seriously great comment.
I really don't think people are stupid. They're going to see through this act. The Republicans are running the 2004 election all over again at a time when they've been completely discredited. I don't think it's going to work.