« Formidable Talents of Sarah Palin: Like Her or Not, She’s A Natural Warrior Woman
Sarah Palin: Potential Downsides of Being a Forceful Woman »
A Wonderful Anachronism
This was an odd speech by Sarah Palin. She had a few genuinely good lines: the hockey mom as pit bull with lipstick was genuinely charming. The mockery of the pillars was sharp.
But the mockery got a little overboard at times. Yes, it fires up the base. But Rudy Giuliani gave them all the mockery they need. She sounded petty as the speech went on and she delved more and more into culture war attacks. Does “community organizer” poll really poorly? She and Rudy hit Obama on it a lot.
Her biographical bit was good, but it was deeply-uncomfortable to see Levi in the room. It seemed to revive all the bizarre questions of the last few days. Perhaps Rudy stepping on the intro video made this seem so perfunctory. But it was fine, such as it was.
Where Sarah Palin failed the most was in her discussion of policy. She spoke of energy in fairly generic terms, listing off the forms of energy to use but without a whole lot of confidence. On other subjects she sounded like she was running for Mayor of Wasilla again. If someone at home was wondering if this woman has the know-how to step in on Day Two to be President of the United States, that person would be left scratching her head. I suppose that was a bit deliberate, but when she had to hit her substantive points it sounded forced.
It was a real throwback to 2004. I hear some people on TV saying they didn’t bring culture war stuff, but that’s wrong. They brought up bittergate and ran on anti-elitism like it was 1992 again.
The long term effect of the speech is hard to gauge. It WILL rally the base. But what about everybody else? It will definitely rally the Democratic base too. I suppose those undecided voters or weak leaners didn’t hear enough to go either way. Some might have been turned off by her sarcasm; others might have been impressed.
I would also suspect that by taking the gloves off, Palin invited Obama to start going after her hard. She openly lied AGAIN about the Bridge to Nowhere. This will invite a full frontal assault on her honesty. The recently released e-mails from Walt Monegan only underscore the challenge to her honesty.
How does it play then? I have no idea. I’m biased. I’m a partisan Democrat who supports Barack Obama. The speech made me like her far less than I did earlier in the night. I feel much less sympathy for her over the blogger and media attacks against her. That’s what I mean by firing up the DEMOCRATIC base.
As for Republicans and Independents, I’ll defer to others.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
35 Responses to “A Wonderful Anachronism”
It seems to have fired up the Republican base. To me conventions are just one big pep rally. Even though I am voting McCain it's doesn't do that much for me. But neither did last week, even if I thought they had a good week and a very good speech.
As for firing up the Dem base, can they really be anymore fired up? I mean 80,000 people is impressive.
ELROD,
Paraphrasing my grandmother here; if you stay on the fence too long you'll get a sore crotch, which leads to my question.
What are the “moderates/centrist/independents” here and everywhere else looking for in a candidate? They've had 18 months to get to know Obama and his policies, they've had 36 years to get to know Biden and his policies, they've had 32 years to get to know McCain and his policies and judging by her history Palin is the neophyte we think she is who was chosen to placate the base.
In the past decade they've lived through 8 years of a Republican president, 6 years of Republican control of Congress, 6 years of complete Republican control of all levers of the Federal Government with all that it entails.
Please once again, what else do people need to know before making their decision on a candidate?
If possible I would like to request that my question above be bumped up to a post. I not being snarky or insulting I would really like to know what people are looking for in a candidate that has not been already presented.
Do all the critique you want, you guys, be prepared to see polls showing strong public acclaim for her speech.
If anyone wants to place money bets on this, I'm willing to.
The poll numbers will also be a great test of how much themoderatevoice.com KNOWS the middle.
With back-to-back insult fests from Mean Girl Rudy 9not wearing his signature dress this time) and Sarah Palin (whom Letterman described as “looking like a Lenscraft Model”), I thought I was watching outtakes from The Bob Saget Roast.
I fully expected Gilbert Gottfried to emerge and start making viagra jokes about McCain.
What I did not see in Palin was a serious person. What I did not see was someone I want anywhere near our Military. What I did not see was someone who is ready to lead anything except the next Comedy Central Roast.
Palin makes McCain look a small and desperate and mean-spirited man who will do anything to get elected.
I have no doubt that a sizable amount of the public LOVED her speech and the polls (yuck) will reflect that. She did a damn fine job of being an attack dog (what a VP candidate should do). Her type of speech presses those emotion buttons well. She's set the bar high for McCain.
Kind of strange. Obama's speech was so much superior than Biden's. And I have a feeling Palin's speech will overshadow McCain's. Actually this race would even been MORE interesting if it was Obama/Biden vs. Palin/McCain.
Just to keep this honest:
The approach the Democrats took at their convention—that all the problems in the government are Republicans fault, and that McCain will be just like Bush, and that Democrats are the uniters and Republicans are the dividers, and that the economy we've been living through in the past 8 years is comparable to breadlines in Soviet Belarus—is not any more accurate, positive, or substantive than anything that was said at the Republican convention.
So the question isn't what did Republicans say wrong—but whose rhetoric will Americans buy? And I think there will be positive reaction to Palin's speech.
All I can say is I've talked to a few Hillary supporters, women in their fifties and sixties who were warm to McCain but intensely turned off by his choice of Palin, for different reasons. I think their minds were made up by the end of Labor Day weekend. They're going for Obama.
dear redfish
I must make a distinction between “the middle” and the truth
If “the middle” decided that torture was a good thing, most readers of Moderate Voice would still oppose torture.
The claim here at Moderate Voice is not that MV readers are blind followers of “the middle”, but rather that we search for common ground and that we try to get at what is true. Not popular with the middle, but true.
Palin is a great Host of The Barack Obama Roast. She is a female Gilbert gottfried. What she is NOT is a serious person who has thought about what AmericaN Power is, why we should use, when, where, and how. If a person was looking to put their mind to rest about McCain's judgment in choosing Palin, s/he would find ample reason to fear any McCain/Palin Administration.
George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 by “the middle' who have buyer's remorse and will be paying for his actions for years to come.
dear tjproudamerican,
I'm glad you believe in “the truth”, but thinking the Democratic convention speakers were honest while the Republican convention speakers wasn't isn't “the truth”.
I'm also glad you believe in “the common ground”, but I could easily argue McCain's policies represent “the common ground” more than Obama's.
But at any rate, if the moderate voice doesn't claim to represent the middle, then the site shouldn't be called the moderate voice.
well said, tjproudamerican.
no mention of the torture — er, “extreme interrogation,” redfish. i wonder how mcCain tolerates these people after what he survived and the T word his own party doesn't use anymore.
I thought Palin was incredibly condescending and both she and Giuliani were excessively sarcastic and belittling. I don't remember that kind of petty tone at the Democratic Convention. Am I wrong? (Also, frankly, she reminded me of some girls in High School that I hated)
onleyone,
I'd guess the middle doesn't support torture, but doesn't believe the Bush administration created a police state where everyone will be whisked away and tortured, either. They think Bush fumbled on the Iraq war, but don't think Bush intentionally lied to get us into war. They support getting out, but not before it makes sense to get out.
The middle doesn't hate Bush, they think his Presidency has been a disaster–but less because of his policies, and more because of the divisiveness in his term—which is as much due to Democrats as due to Republicans. Democrats won't get away with blaming divisiveness on Republicans.
Thats why Congress' approval ratings are lower than Bush's, and both candidates are talking about getting beyond partisanship.
You seem to be fairly new around here. The Moderate Voice is not uniformly centrist or moderate or Independent. It's a group blog with writers from across the spectrum. I'm a moderately liberal Democrat – more a Democrat than a liberal. I'm relatively conservative on abortion and free trade but liberal on church/state separation, death penalty and health care. Others here are more solidly libertarian or more populist than me.
elrod,
I'm not new, I know that the goal of the moderate voice, instead of being centrist, is to have people from across the spectrum, but when I read here, I almost uniformly find the blog posts left of center.
I would appreciate a blog that focused on centrism as a way of governing though, if that ever came up.
I'm not sure it sold that well outside the hall, to be honest. Republican women will love it. But I suspect a lot of others saw it as condescending and sophomoric – especially for a first major speech. I mean, it's one thing for Rudi Giuliani to do what he does. But Sarah Palin is just making a first impression. And if you're not the GOP base, you heard nothing of substance and lots of sarcasm. Does that appeal? Who knows. But by tomorrow the commentary will be a bit more sober (speeches are always praised on the night of).
Yeah, to be honest, it has leaned left of late. In the past – when Michael van der Galien posted here – it was more right leaning. It changes over time as Joe gets new posters on board.
The blogroll is great though. Should be some good centrist blogs in there.
elrod,
It all depends on whether you think the public will believe the criticism she's lodging. And I think people will see her comments about Obama's record as a way to defend her record, as she's come under fire for the last few days.
To chime in off topic on the political nature of TMV, a lot of its current leftward tilt also seems to be which bloggers post more. Joe keeps inviting in various moderate Republican types, but with only 2-3 exceptions, we only seem to get about 1 post a week or even less from them, while the more liberal ones are posting almost every day.
As for the Palin speech, the Yahoo AP feed listed pretty much all of her attacks and that she has a great family. That's cool and all, but a radio show host can do that. I want to know if she's ready to be President, which involves more than attacking the bad guy. So off to read the text of her speech to see if she ever got around to her actually governing.
It strikes me that republicans, in order to get very excited, must be willing to suspend thier knowledge of how badly they've performed during the last 8 years. Afterall, we have an actual record that isn't going to change just because a lot of rhetoric and spin are bandied about. Isn't there something rather obscene, or at the very least, inappropriate in all the celebration. What on earth do they have to feel so jolly about? Think about all the unnecessary lives lost, all the national treasure lost, all the missed opportunities, our damaged reputation, our damaged economy, all the division among our citizens. These things didn't happen by accident. This is what people will be remembering come November, long after the conventions are forgotten.
She sounded petty as the speech went on and she delved more and more into culture war attacks.
Bill “Slots” Bennett thinks this is the way to go.
Community organizer is being used as a sort of code to the base. Think community = ghetto and organizer = activist. Thats why it was being thrown around a lot tonight. Be afraid of the scary black man. I think we'll see more of this in the homestretch strategy for McCain.
redfish:
can you even say it without a mental flinch? was mcCain TORTURED in vietnam? or is it the Newspeak that you speak: “enhanced interrogation”?
i don't consider myself a leftist; i'm anti-affirmative action; i'm open to the death penalty for the worst of the worst; i believe abortion is okay for the embryo but more troublesome in the fetal stage; i think some guns should be banned but not others. it's what i like to call a “reasoned” stance.
imo, polemicists like ann coulter have pushed us so far to the right that even mcCain isn't conservative enough; hell, buchanan comes off as a “moderate” compared you some of you folks, at least to my ears. i can and do have rational conversations with paleo-conservatives; they accept “reasons” and “evidence”. they demand more than trite platitudes — they really do want answers, many of them….
it's sad, really. the neocons, assisted by the fundamentalists, have carried the whole party off into outer space, and your average member of the “base” is just along for the ride.
From redfish:
I agree that the current trend of active bloggers at TMV tends to be a bit more to the left of the spectrum. There are a couple of posts here and there that are far to the left, and I tend to wince at those as much as I would any that were from the far right.
What I particularly enjoy at TMV is the fairly decent level of discussion about those posts that happens in the comment section. As the election grows nearer, the quantity has picked up quite a bit from what I'm used to… but I still value not being called various terms from either fringe when I add my input. Besides, life's too complicated to let one label define you
.
My experience from 2006, Peter, is that the name calling will ramp up the closer we get to November and the tension rises. Then in mid-November, civility may return for a bit.
Also, to add, yeah, there are a couple bloggers here I generally ignore, without naming names, and I'm sure that's okay. There probably are a bunch of commenters who scan past my diatribes as well.
I think pacatrue is absolutely correct about the relative number of posts from the bloggers who are left leaning vs. those who are more centrist or moderately conservative. It does lend a decided tilt when that happens, and even though those who are more left leaning aren't far lefties, (policy wise), they are decidedly immoderate in tone and it makes the whole blog much closer to a Daily Kos tone than it used to be.
What rubbish. Code? To the base? That would be, what, McCain's “base”?
Would that “base” include people so clueless about Senator O's lineage that they have to be nudged into awareness of it? If so, show me one of those people. (it requires finding two of them to be properly referred to as “the base” by the way). Good luck.
Barack, given his manners and his upbringing and his Harvard credentials isn't going to be “scary” to ANYONE because of his lineage. What makes him potentially scary is that he's the most extreme liberal we've been asked to vote for, probably ever, and he thinks we've forgotten his OWN publically-stated assessment of himself — that is, when he said he would not be sufficiently experienced to make a run at the presidency in '08.
Could we please declare this a psychobabble-free zone? There are so few of them on the internet/
redfish said: “… but when I read here, I almost uniformly find the blog posts left of center.“
One reason this has happened was that a group of conservative front pagers and posters exited TMV in mass when they were told that they couldn't control / censor the comment sections “al la Redstate”.
Anyone to compare The Moderate Voice to DailyKos is either trying to create a new talking point OR has no working knowledge of either… Whatever the reason, it's a silly argument.
Are you lefties really that desperate? Why the most _pathetic_ fiction? There was nothing odd, anachronistic, vulgar, or whatever other BS you can make up (out of desperation or envy, even?) about Palin's great speech last night, which was well-received nation-wide.
Palin is well-received by Americans and was a surprising and appealing choice by McCain. All week her selection (and the scummy attacks from the predictable kinds, from the predictable sources) has boosted the appeal of the McCain ticket and even makes victory in November reasonable to contemplate. You hate that!
“compare The Moderate Voice to DailyKos “
*** FACT *** This site is a Moderate Daily Kos.
Non-liberals are often treated on here worse than “heretic” Fox is treated by the rest of the media for frequently swimming against the liberal, Democratic tide.
DLS,
Funny that you would complain about people being treated badly at TMV. Here is one of your recent posts:
Here's another:
You sure know how to pack a lot of insults into a small space.
onleyone:
I have no idea on earth why you would be surprised by this, but I agree with you that the Republican party this year has had an increasing push towards purity among its ranks, and its going to have an effect of narrowing its base.
They only won the Congress in 1994 because they gave the impression they were closer to the center than Democrats, and that they were a big tent party.
I just explained in my previous comment that I think most Americans are against torture, so obviously I have no problems saying it without a mental flinch. However, the picture that Bush's opponents are painting, by implication, that we're living in Terry Gilliam's Brazil and government squads are breaking through roofs to carry away people to be tortured, is just hysteric.
I'm not a Republican and I agree with Obama over McCain on several issues, but I also don't think social conservativs and neo-conservatives are evil, scary people.
I find the neocon goal of a constant worldwide battle against tyranny scary. Laudable in an ideal world, but scary. Especially if the plan is to implement that goal with military force instead of organizations like the Peace Corps or Doctors Without Borders that actually do provide the tools to fight tyranny.
The US does not possess the wherewithall to police the world, and the sooner we function more as citizen of the world and less as global policeman the sooner we will be welcomed in countries where the arrival of our president is currently protested en masse.
Wow! Now the comments section is turning into a debate about The Moderate Voice… sheesh!
redfish:
i did misread you on the torture issue. for that, i apologize.