I could somewhat see her point, not being particularly thrilled with either of the major parties or their offerings at the moment. But I felt I knew about the three other main players, and Palin was completely unknown to me. As a responsible citizen and all that, should I not familiarize myself? Besides, it isn't often you get to see such a ... a... (searching for proper astronomical metaphors here – comets? meteors? novas? ah, yes, de stella nova, that's it) a rapid and explosive rise to prominence in the political universe, accompanied by tremendous blasts of hot gas. I was assured by right-sided commentators that Gov. Palin was a great speechmaker, what with all the sportscaster and beauty-pageant training, and besides, she's so effin' hawt!!! Meanwhile, the leftosphere was doing its best to make Palin into a combination of Daisy Mae Scragg and Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. Either way, it was clear that this would be an important moment in the whole campaign.
Reaction? My first thought was, Hey, she sounds just like the school secretary in 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' (not that there's anything wrong with that). Then she introduced the family, which seemed to go on for a long time, but I guess that's fair, since nobody knew anything about them less than a week before. Then she got into the meat of things, and it was a pretty good speech, by modern political standards, which is to say it wasn't really very good, but it was better than most. To be fair, I think the convention can take some of the blame for that, because the audience was so pumped up on adrenaline and MSM-hatin' that they cheered practically every sentance, whether it formed a whole thought or not. The basic pattern seemed to be: {bumper-sticker political thought} wild cheering and applause {bumper-sticker political thought} wild cheering and applause {bumper-sticker political thought} etc....
Again, I didn't catch any other speech at either convention, so evaluating this one out of its context may not be fair, and certainly most people seem to agree that it was a good speech. It just didn't make me sit up on the couch and say, "Damn, that was a good speech". (Full disclosure: the last time I did have that reaction was to Bill Clinton's acceptance of the nomination in 1992.) She's a good public speaker, with a relaxed and conversational tone. I thought the line about Obama's styrofoam columns was pretty good, as was the "community organizer" jab. "Too sarcastic?" Right. Whine some more, I'm sure America really finds that attractive in a candidate.
A visitor from Mars, listening to the speech and its railling against the Washington status quo, would probably think that no Republican had had a hand in the federal government for the past decade or so, and I suppose that goes hand-in-glove with McCain's "I'm an outsider! Really!!" schtick. But it's not really a schtick in Palin's case, is it? At the moment, she really does appear to be a truly novel thing on the political landscape, a genuine non-establishment, non-elite outsider.
What does all this mean for me as a voter? I don't know. Probably not much, as Palin's not running for President, despite the efforts of the D's to convince me that McCain is going to keel over dead on the afternoon of Jan. 20th, 2009. As I noted some time ago, I disagree considerably with McCain, Obama, and Biden on most policy issues, and Palin at the moment looks like a younger Phyllis Schlafly*. Perhaps if someone can convince me that she's really Margaret Thatcher with a hunting license, it might cause me to view McCain less disfavorably.**
*Not a good thing.
**Do. Not. Like.
Well, if you want just one way she's far more Thatcher-ish than, say, Senator Clinton, there's the fact that she's married to a Dennis Thatcher, not a Tony Blair.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy on September 7, 2008 01:41 PM
I like her. I dislike McCain. I'm scared of Obama.
At least half of the people who were cheering at the R convention were probably thinking: Woohoo, we might actually be saved from Obama now, and this woman might one day displace the ineptizoids and be elected President herself.
Who knows if she's like Thatcher. Time will tell. I'm just happy to learn that someone who may be less statist than today's average Republican office holder may have the political skills to be effective on a national level.
Posted by: Jonathan on September 7, 2008 05:14 PM
If she is indeed less statist, that will be a good thing. I'm willing to concede that that is within the realm of possibility.
Re-reading what I wrote, I notice that that I took the speech out of the context of the media frenzy of the last week. Palin demonstrated some pretty major mad political skillz in handling all that with aplomb, IMHO. If she can keep that up under what will certainly be withering hostile fire for the next 60 days, then maybe she's right for the job after all.
Posted by: David Fleck on September 7, 2008 09:33 PM
Well, I certainly don't know her positions well, so I'm not sold on her yet. It seems that her personal beliefs are closer to Schlafly than Thatcher. However, she does not appear to try to use her office to impose her views. She believes that abstinence before marriage is what should be practiced, yet has stated support for teaching contraception. She believes in creationism, but says it should not be part of the curriculm. She does not support same-sex marriage, but vetoed a law that would have denied same-sex couples benefits.
At this point the worst I've heard is that she asked the town librarian about removing books from the library, if it was 'needed'. However, she never actually requested that any books be removed.
It seems to me that we could do far worse than Sarah Palin, and up until two weeks ago I was pretty sure we would.
Posted by: Ignorance is Bliss on September 7, 2008 09:52 PM