Palin at the RNC
As Jason reported earlier, Sarah Palin - John McCain’s running mate - performed exceptionally well at this year’s Republican National Convention. A lot of people were unsure whether she would be able to rally the base and others. Well, most of them stopped wondering after her speech; it was a slam dunk. One moment she was funny, the other aggressive. The one moment she explained why people should vote for her and McCain, the other she completely destroyed Obama. This Governor of Alaska may be from a small town, but she wiped the floor with the big-city liberals in charge of the Democratic Party. Her best line of attack was probably experience. Democrats accused Palin of not having the experience to be vice president. As she explained, however, such criticism is slighly ironic coming from Democrats; after all, their candidate for the presidency has little to no experience himself. He was, as Palin said, a community organizer, whereas she, Palin, was mayor of a small town. The difference between the two? Well, in the words of Palin, the latter was much like a community organizer, ‘but with responsibilities.’ Ouch. Progressive bloggers had been attacking Palin for days. Ever since McCain announced Palin would be his running mate, the far-left attack machine did what it does best; spread disinformation about conservatives. They all hoped - and thought - that Palin would perform badly at the RNC. After all, she is a conservative woman from a small town; someone like that cannot possibly do well. Sadly for them she did. She even impressed her most fervent critics; American ‘journalists’ working for the country’s more ‘liberal’ newspapers and news organizations. What is quite interesting about the attacks on Palin is that Democrats seem to compare their own presidential candidate to the vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party. They do not compare Obama to McCain, no, they compare him to Palin. If that does not make sense to you, well, you’re not alone; it does not make sense to me either. Her speech at the RNC should give conservatives hope that she will be able to pull this one off; Obama has a better shot at winning in November for a variety of reasons, but it seems McCain made quite a good choice for his running mate. It is difficult to imagine another Republican who could have delivered such a good, and well-timed speech as Palin.
Palin’s speech seems alright. I wouldn’t call it a home run, althought it certainly excited the home crowd.
A couple of wonkish/nitpicky things. At one point she says she didn’t need polls because she knew each of the families. That’s mighty easy to do when you have a population of 1100, it’s impossible to do when you have a population of 300,000,000. The belief that you can know all Americans is often suggested by politicians, but this stuck out like a sore thumb.
She also mentions supporting disabled children, which was kind of odd to get a huge cheer from the crowd. I mean a small applause is expected, but things like the Americans with Disabilities Act has been a pushing point of Dems traditionally (with the noteable exception of McCain) I wonder how this segment tied with McCain’s previous statements sat with business leaders within the GOP…
She mentions that she used veto effectively to cut spending, and insinuates that McCain can do the same. Alaska has a line item veto. Because she doesn’t mention this I’ll assume that she was just doing it for effect and really wants a line item veto for the federal budget (which I think is a great idea). It’s a bit sneaky and disengenuous, but nothing more than your traditional rabbel rousing simplification of reality.
She restates many of the same energy lies of the GOP and insinuates that domestic drilling programs will significantly (or even noticeably) reduce our dependence on foreign oil or change gas prices. She talks about domestic energy production and comes very close to directly claiming that this would help the average american family, and that this would prevent iran from ‘threatening to cut off about 1/5th of the world’s energy supply’ Well, guess how much of the world’s energy supply Iran controls if we go full bore on domestic drilling… about 1/5th. Then she actually claims that we have "got lots of both [oil and gas]"! This distortion of reality I find a much more objectionable than the veto stuff because it’s just fundamentally flawed. She then goes and states a list of other projects to help reduce dependence on oil, but it’s clear where her priorities are, and they are backwards when you consider the facts.
Her attacks at Obama range from moderately substantial to obvious distortions, pretty much par for the course. Some things she says honestly scare me. Like when she says something like ‘terrorists are still out to kill us and Obama wants to read them their rights’. #@($@ ya I want their rights read! Because I don’t want anyone anywhere, for any reason to believe that there are ’some people’ that don’t deserve rights. It is litterally a founding ideal of this country that every person has unalienable rights. It is a scary and very un-American thing to suggest otherwise.
One thing she does very well is to use diction. ‘A journey of personal discovery’ has a lot of selfish and bad connotations. And frames arguments pretty well in ‘good’ language. She is almost as good as Obama in defineing an ‘us’ without alienating a ‘them’. She also does an excellent job of being a character supporter for McCain, and paints him as a hero.
So, all in all, she seems like a completely compotent politician, who has views that I strongly disagree with. I don’t think this is the type of speech that will win many moderates as both sides are talking about change/reform with only slightly different emphasis, but it could certainly energize the base.
hmmm, in reading over Michael’s post a second time something stuck out at me. The comparisons between Palin and Obama. I did it in my comment as well. It seems that there could be a decent line of attack for Dems if they turn that to a Palin vs McCain comparison. What if Palin’s speech is better than McCains? What if she does better against Biden than McCain does against Obama in the debates? It could tie in to the preexisting (probably unjustified) fears about McCain’s age, AND the belief that Bush was a weak president controlled to a large extent by forces in his party and his own VP. I bet it would make Karl Rove smile.
Do you think in Party meetings someone brings up Disabilities - and the members go - heck no! Sorry, just seems like a thought of yours that was not thought out very well.
I took from this - Bush didn’t veto - we will.
Since nobody knows for certain how much Oil is there, it cannot be fundamentally flawed. Alaska and other states have amazingly vast quantities of Natural Gas, with estimated 200 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas in the form of hydrates. You can look up the US Geological survey if you do not like their reality as well.
Since oil demand has grown at a steady level, yet lower than GDP it shows that our intensity for oil demand does use reducing of dependancy. It clearly does have an impact, but we’re looking forwards, not backwards.
I like her views and am glad they differ from yours - but I agree that she’s not going to get the Moderates - she will solidify the base.
Cheney hands down beat Edwards in any possible way imaginable - except in the Liberal mind. To hear their ilk speak - Edwards did a doo-doo and made Cheney eat it. So it won’t matter, the GOP base will love it, the Liberal base will hate it.
about disabilities. No one is going to come out and bluntly say, "oh I hate those disabled kids" but actions taken by the GOP over the last 30 years have tried to downplay the benefits given to diabled people in the name of employer choice. Like I said, a cheer is expected, but the size of the cheer seemed to be at odds with the history of the party. That could signal a change in the party, or a disconnect between the voting Rep and the people who create policy for the Reps.
On veto. The whole point is that McCain CAN’T veto like she did in Alaska. Do you seriously think she is saying McCain would veto an omnibus spending bill and shut down the US government? No more money for troops in Iraq, or anywhere else, no more money for state infrastructure work, tens of thousands of blue collar government workers not getting paychecks. It’s just a bluff that will always be called. Line item veto changes all of that, but she didn’t bother to actual deal with those issues.
OMFG, the ‘we don’t know how much oil there is’ meme is rediculous. The ammount of oil is bound by the limits of reality and we can make reasonably accurate assumptions about the ammount of oil. You might as well hope that God almighty himself will step down and give us gassoline in prepackaged barrels as hope that the OCS containing enough oil to call it ‘a lot’ compared to world supply. Go find anyone who is willing to actually put a number on the ammount of oil that scales to near the ammount of oil available to Iran or Saudia Arabia or Russia.
I’m not exactly sure what you are trying to get at talking about oil demand… It seems to me that you are kind of making my point for me. It is decrease in oil demand that has the potential to change the future, not increase in oil (especially domestic) production.
To my Palin vs Mcain idea. It was certainly a one-off idea, and has a small chance of actually happening. However, there are still may Reps who are unhappy about the last 4 years, and don’t want a repeat of Cheney/Bush, so invoking Cheney here I think is not the best counter-argument.