First impressions of Palin’s speech
Delivering her address with poise, flair, intelligence, wit, and charm, Palin showed herself to be a formidable presence and a gritty fighter—with a radiant smile. Most amazing of all, she seemed to be enjoying herself hugely.
I imagine Obama and Biden aren’t feeling quite as condescendingly confident tonight as they were this afternoon. It’s never a good idea to underestimate the strength of a pit bull in lipstick.
She’s awesome. I’m watching on MSNBC for the “fun to watch Keith Olbermann squirm” factor — he’s just beside himself, suggesting the delegate count on the floor is being manipulated, and then retracting it, lol. He might cry before the night’s over.
I love the wicked twist of humor she showed from time to time — “I sold it on E-Bay” . . . “I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion . . . “
Keith Olberman looks like someone punched him in the gut!
Homerun! The woman is a master of nuance as well as a great speaker. I am very impressed – and she is the only one who has finally done it – taken John McCain’s story and essence and REALLY said it like it is. No one else has managed to do that. Not just the POW stuff, but what that really MEANS!
It was an awesome speech, she did well tonight. Looking forward to see how she does in a live debate.
I was sort of leaning towards not voting at all or voting for McCain only because I find Obama a foreign policy idiot. Now I might actually vote for McCain because I want to … scary thought.
The talking heads on the networks keep repeating “someone wrote her speech” like they are stunned. Of course someone wrote her speech, someone else usually writes every politicians speech — I think their minds have been blown away by a hockey Mom.
What I want to know is, where the hell has Rudy been hiding? I don’t remember him coming across this strongly during the primaries.
Her speech aside, I am amazed that Sarah Palin’s mere presence has turned everything upside down. For the past four days left-leaning pundits and reporters have derided her for not adequately caring for her family implying that she should be home baking cookies. Conservatives, long derided by the left as wanting to keep women “barefoot and pregnant,” defend her right to have a family and a career.
As Laura Ingraham noted the other night, she exposes the hypocrisy and fraud of the left as not really concerned about women’s rights, but rather liberal women’s rights.
Regardless of the outcome of this election, I think that tonight we have seen the opening of a new chapter in the culture war in which the silent majority has become much less silent.
I will admit my bias up front, I have been hearing about her for a while in the blogsphere and have been impressed with her record and her poise. She gave a great speech, hitting hard on the inexperience and condesension of her opponents. Her delivery did not send me into cringes (like Pres. Clinton and Pres. Bush do). She does have a slight accent that I kept trying to figure out where it might come from but her delivery was slow and measured. IMAO – Great speech, well delivered.
And she called out the following:
Obama
Biden
The Democrats
The Press
The Beltway Establishment
and served notice that win or lose she is not frightened by their attacks. She exposed them for the shallow beings they are.
Watch. She is the type of woman the Leftists SAY they admire but really fear and hate.
This is going to be interesting.
Oh, and this:
This creature calling for outright race war should Obama lose?
Now Olbermann joking about the silly ‘Wasillians’ — what a comedian! 😀
The conversational tone was more effective than a rabble rouser would’ve been. Anyone can do a rabble rouser at a political convention.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Earlier today, my skeptical heart was touched upon seeing photos of Levi Johnston’s arrival at the airport. link Levi and Bristol Palin are obviously in love. She kept looking at him with guileless moon eyes; she could not keep the smile off her face. They could not refrain from touching hands. It was as sweet as could be. Romeo and Juliet stuff.
So what is it you all are looking for?-Cassandra
I’m looking for somebody that will kill America’s enemies and stack them up like cordwood. That may seem rather simplistic, though.
Posted by: Ymarsakar at August 27, 2008 06:57 PM
Thank God some divinity was listening. I didn’t believe they were, but somebody was.
Amen.
Posted by: Ymarsakar at September 4, 2008 12:32 AM
Here is something that I believe you would of great interest, Neo.
Link
It is a post concerning itself with chivalry and how people of today can see a woman as a leader, serve it, and also love her, yet not confuse it with marriage or relationships.
Cassandra was asking, days before the Friday, what we were looking for in a VP pick.
Here’s one of the most telling points about that speech. She and her family have withstood days of the most vicious and slimy attacks that some of the sickest and most deranged “minds” on the left could dream up, and the slavering media could spread. And then, finally, she got just a little over half an hour to speak for herself. And lo, the media — with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to attack her relentlessly — suddenly are shaken so deeply they have to give themselves buck-up messages: Stand Strong, Media! Now that’s entertainment!
I don’t know. I think her speech would have been more effective if they had had her refrain from the attacks on Obama. They totally threw away any appeal she might have had for the swing voters in the middle and went for the base instead. The only problem with that is the base has shrunk so much in the last couple of years that it can’t deliver them the election by itself the way it did in ’04. Bad move. Thank you Sarah!
There were a lot of leftists, liberals, and media pundits who still have not learned that their manipulations are false – just because you can work some strange logic around something in your head has no bearing on reality. There were MANY that tuned in tonight to watch the “trainwreck” occur thinking that their constant attacks would have her stuttering and backing down – they were wrong.
As much as I dislike Obama I have to say he has the stage presence and charisma to deliver a fine prepared speech – what we saw tonight was every bit as good as him. He doesn’t usually doesn’t do off the cuff well, we will have to wait and see how she does on that. And that is our VP against their Pres.
There were a very large number of viewers who tuned in tonight for the wreck that had the thought “Oh $%@#$!”. As of right now stunned silence and incoherent ranting is all that is being said on the left (I especially have liked the “accusation” that she has a speechwriter – yea that one will make everyone hate her as we all know reporters never read copy or few politicians have any speechwriters whatsoever!).
On some level I look forward to tomorrow, the attacks will become … savage … as there is nothing much else to say bad. We will have full on PDS and it will hurt them WAY more than anything we could ever do. OTOH I really don’t like to see politics go that way.
One part of her speech at the Convention
Compare it with her introduction speech and you can see a drastic difference.
romeo and juliet, gcotharn? i honestly hope bristol and levi ended up better than they did.
Something else: I said, a lot, back when Hillary still had a chance, that the way to beat Obama is with humor. Obama is laughably pretentious. Laugh at him. This is what Palin did tonight, and sublimely so.
Beginning with the airing of the “Celebrity” video, the McCain Campaign is showing signs they understand how to attack Obama.
Delivering her address with poise, flair, intelligence, wit, and charm, Palin showed herself to be a formidable presence and a gritty fighter–with a radiant smile. Most amazing of all, she seemed to be enjoying herself hugely.
She looks like somebody you would like to have a conversation with.
Other politicians sound like they are giving speeches. She sounds like she is talking with people. And the fact that she recycles exact speech lines from her previous speeches, even that makes her seem like us, for we do that in speeches all the time as well, for we are most proficient with familiar lines.
I think the attacks will shift big time, we will see tomorrow. if they get more savage, the bigger the backlash, several women I have talked to today were disgusted by the “view” today, said they were being totally unfair, I asked them to watch the speech tonight and they are fuming now, interesting, the more people see of her the opinions will shift, is the media smart enough to sense it and react? I doubt it. Nick you have an interesting world view. It seems like we are looking through two different prisms, why is that?
Remember when feminism was called women’s liberation? That’s what we got tonight. Sarah has kicked the man-hating gender studies experts, the Harvard-educated glass ceiling breakers, the definers of women’s issues, and the perpetual victims out of the driver’s seat. She has shown that women are truly free when they can set their own agenda and goals. And she has elevated the status of women changing diapers, serving in the PTA, helping run the family business, skinning moose, or baking cookies. She has opened up that world between welfare and CEO and said “take your pick and you can always come back for seconds and thirds.”
Sarah upstaged Rudy, who I was most looking forward to hearing. Both were fantastic, what a thoroughly fun evening, and all of them onstage after, and Sarah with her baby in her arms… This has real possibilities…
Romney and Huckabee: doubles.
Rudy: home run, baby!
Oops sorry. Sarah Palin: out of the ballpark!
Palin turned normal feminine career planning on its head. She started up a family first, then a career doing what needed to be done, outside the house, AFTER her children have become, mostly, grown.
That is the exact OPPOSITE, that modern feminism says is a woman’s ticket to having it all, a career and a family.
She’s Reaganesque. Communicator. Nuance. Conviction. Belief in all that is good. But understands that evil exists.
Will the viciousness of the process crush that life spirit? Or will she transcend it all, and, dare I say, deliver us from evil?
From a fiscal conservative and a little left of center social policy guy [other words I don’t like gov’t/people restricting (pvt/personal) liberties] her speech wasn’t a Home Run but it was good. She is likable, folksy, and well-spoken. I don’t like the fact that her daughter and beau are being dragged into the public eye over something that a few years ago [and if they were a minority] would’ve triggered hoots and howls of “welfare mommas” and derisive comments about premarital sex. I like her feisty style and its one of the reasons I have liked McCain, plus he is more “centered” than the supposed “conservative base” of the RNC. He is running to the right to energize the base and get out the vote, he is shrewed enough to know that breaking the mold [with Palin] was smart move that appeals directly to voters Obama has trouble connecting with. However, don’t fool yourself, his track record is the way he will govern and many in the RNC didn’t like it then and you probably aren’t gonna like it when/if he gets in the White House.
Really, our country needs to reshape our political party’s in to 3 new ones: the crazy eco-wackos anything goes left liberals, the crazy morally corrupt right conservatives [who for the moment have accepted the reality of premarital sex] and a CENTRIST party for the rest of us [and majority of us]. See I’ve pissed off everyone, I’m sure, on this board but that is how many of us independent-minded people think and we’d take the centrist part of RNC and DNC with us. I vote – still just not sure for who I will cast my ballot. I urge everyone to look at non-partisan analyses of our candidates economic, foreign policy, and social/societal plans. Reread the Constitution and see who is upholding it. Forget the Hannity’s and Olbermann’s of the world and decide for yourself.
Watching her, I remembered a great novel “One fled over cuckoo nest”. This a wonder how a single person with resolve and conviction can turn upside down a long-established social order, which seemed unmovable.
“This a wonder how a single person with resolve and conviction”
It’s not just resolve and conviction – though that is a major part of it.
I said in another recent thread something similar – the left (and to some extent the right) have been playing a con game with us. They harp on what should happen and then imply that they are those people. Fact is little of the country is actually center or left – the majority is what one would call “conservative”. Those con artists know this and use it to their advantage. No candidate runs anywhere close to “left” after the primaries and there is a reason for that.
We see it now in the left trying as hard as they can to convince us that Obama is strong defense, low spending, low taxes, low govt influence, and a wealth of conservative principles. They (rightly) point out that the right has betrayed those princicples and then imply that they would be better. Few buy this and all know it to be a con.
The right says that’s what they are, however the attacks from the left hit home because, well, they aren’t that. They know they only have to be better on those issues to win and run accordingly. It’s sorta like saying I don’t have to outrun the dragon to keep from getting ate, I only have to outrun the halfling. While not exactly a con game being happy with a 9% approval rating because your opponent only has a 5% isn’t exactly good for the country.
The above gets us to where we are today – congress with an approval rating in the single digits and the presidency in the 20’s. Everyone knows they are being conned, only the ones that are pushing the con job are happy with it (and think no one else notes the lies as everyone is stupid).
And then – well – one shows up that *is* that. The leaders of the right are confused as this person is *actually* doing those things. However the base and most independents are quite happy. The left is, well, crazy because suddenly they can’t point to the person and say “Look – they aren’t what they say they are but we are just that”.
Reagan was just that too – time will tell if Palin is. She certainly has the markings to be that and I hope she does. The left will (just as they did with Reagan) rant and rave about how out of step they are with the country while they go on to dominate during their terms.
The Repubs Contract with America was the same thing, they just betrayed that shortly after passing it. Unfortunately that was the biggest con job – IMO that is one of the biggest causes of our current approval problems. Had they stuck with it and be damned the leftist media harping and their own greed (I think it took both) then we wouldn’t be in a great deal of the mess we are today. Too many had high hopes, while true some of those hopes were unrealistic the end result was FAR from trying hard to keep with them.
Lastly I note something from one of my favorite authors – Isaac Asimov. In his foundation series one of the central themes is that people are easy to control and predict, a person isn’t. A great deal of what we are seeing in Palin is that “person” thing – I think McCain saw this and ran with it. For those that have read the Foundation series you will know what I mean by Palin is The Mule (for those that don’t – read the series, it is quite interesting as both a good Sci-Fi story and political commentary).
Palin will suffer some from what the parties have been doing to some extent – after the number of times people have been burned there is not way they will accept it at face value (while excited that someone may be there I still have mostly a wait and see thing going). As a number of things about her time will tell, however were I a dem I would be quite worried. If she does half as good as she looks to be likely to do you will not see the Whitehouse for another 12 years (and simply declaring her a lightweight or not policy heavy enough will not hurt her in the least any more than it will kill Obama – you are going to have to mount a real challenge or hope that she falls apart in off the cuff debates).
Theatrical people know that even a great actor can not outperform on the scene a living dog: it is authentic, while he isn’t. That is why there is such a furore in a political theater: the apperance on the scene of an authentical figure immediately dwarfs all con-artists.
I love the contrast Palin brings to the table. Let there be no mistake that we Americans have elitist snobs running our country and this has GOT TO CHANGE!
I sure the he** wouldn’t want to submit an inflated travel voucher to her Administration!!
You won’t see that kind of behaviour broadly adopted without media literacy, media reform, and a massive change agenda shared by government and citizen groups.
Check out the Lincoln-Douglas debates from 1858 and the substantive content (even in the heckles from the floor). Why were debates 150 years ago so much more substantive than they are today?
btw, BVCurtis, NeoNeocon is a media pundit…
excellent!
Living in Connecticut, one is obliged to follow UConn basketball. A few years back the school was blessed with Diana Taurasi; probably the best woman player. Geno Auriemma was being interviewed in October about the chances for another national title. He put on his Philly wiseguy smirk and said, “We have Diana, and they don’t.”
As a Republican, I would now like to declare, “We have Sarah, and they don’t!”
Even if you don’t agree with her positions there’s no denying she is a surprisingly good speaker. I was blown away by her confidence and relaxed manner. She doesn’t use any stentorian tricks yet makes her points very well. She was incredibly and, again, surprisingly, good.
Conservatism is back… And it wears lipstick!
I missed the speech. I was up with a sick two year old. But it’s fascinating to read the diametrically opposed views from left and right bloggers. If you only read one side you would think it was either ridiculous or awe inspiring.
My take at this point: The right is praying she’s a Gipper and not a Quayle. The left will hammer at her carefully, but the intent is to really characterize McCain as foolish and incompetent. They want to keep this election about McCain and Obama. If the GOP continues to characterize Palin as a populous hero, the Dems are in trouble.
Nick:
I don’t know. I think her speech would have been more effective if they had had her refrain from the attacks on Obama.
Nick, as Obama attacked his opponents in HIS acceptance speech, he didn’t follow your advice. Any comments? Or is it that Democrats are permitted to attack, but not Republicans?
Such as the Obama bundler who attempted to storm the stage during Palin’s speech? Any such equivalent behavior from Republicans during Obama’s speech? Hell, no.
Such as the Obama bundler who attempted to storm the stage during Palin’s speech? Any such equivalent behavior from Republicans during Obama’s speech? Hell, no.
This is like how come Americans don’t use suicide tactics to kill civilians and why our rules of engagement doesn’t permit the torture and summary executions of people we find on the battlefield.
Winning the war between two different factions that use two different means of warfare, that has nothing to do with it.
The important issue is ensuring that one side gets all the advantages while the other side gets all the criticisms and NONE of the advantages. In fact, they will get the criticism for a tactic but get none of the advantages from that tactic at the same time, while the other side gets none of the criticism but all of the advantages.
That’s the goal. The goal isn’t to help America win. The goal is to beat us.
BVCurtis, all of the conservatives I know (actual people, not shibboleths) do not deny that teens have sex and women get pregnant before they get married. The difference is what happens next?
1) Aborting the baby?
2) Deciding to have the baby?
If the choice is made to have the baby, what comes after that?
1) Father skips out of the picture and mom goes on welfare?
2) Father marries mom and works his ass off to support the wife and child?
From my experience, conservatives work hard to convince women to keep their children (or allow them to be adopted) and for the man to step up to the plate and be a husband and father. We used to call them shotgun weddings.
Teen pregnancy is certainly an issue for conservatives, but the majority of social and economic problems result from children being brought up without fathers. Some would go so far as to claim that it is the single most important factor in determining life outcomes.
–The New Centrist