Some quick takes on the GOP convention so far:
The two things I note are Palin's hard right persona, which according to pre-speech polls, at least, doesn't play as well as the McCain people assume, and the McCain camp's rocky relationship with the media, which deliberately got a lot worse to shield Palin and score political points with the GOP base.
Sarah Palin's speech, as expected, was well delivered (never doubted, really), very well received in the hall (never doubted), and not a game breaker. What wasn't said is far more important than what was. This is a candidate of the hard right social conservatives, and we saw why. Nonetheless, you can't win with social conservatives alone (ask the "feeling validated" Pat Buchanan how that goes down.)
This was an ugly, sarcastic speech, with a great delivery, but that's exactly who they are, so good that it's out in the open. She gave them what they wanted: a base election, from Mommy wars to cultural wars. We'll see if that's what the country wants. So far, the answer is no.
Roger Simon is right. If you bring up your family as a talking point, you can't get away with wanting two kids spotlighted and the others ignored. And now that Palin has brought up special needs kids, her record in Alaska for funding programs (see Hilzoy) should legitimately go under the media microscope. That includes her mayoral years.
You are looking at the next generation's Phyllis Schlafly.
In fact, if Sarah Palin fails in her bid for the VP slot, it will shine a cold light on the soap salesmen as well as the Buchananite pitchfork brigade.
I have never believed that McCain could get moderates and social conservatives at the same time. We'll see if I'm right, but I saw nothing at this convention to convince me I'm wrong.
Having Rudy lead off with terrible things about experience maybe wasn't the best idea. Nothing this candidate presented makes her more qualified for the job. And there are tremendous question about her, still. They have not been silenced by this convention. And having led off the convention with phony "service to Gustav", the Palin line about community organizers seems as petty as it makes the entire convention gimmicky.
Speaking of social conservatives, McCain has married them. His loss. When he had guts, he told Robertson and Falwell off as the agents of intolerance that they were. But that was a different McCain. This McCain gave up Ridge and Lieberman for one last cynical reach for the brass ring. All the POW references in the world can't change that aspect of his character.
Ridge and Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Kay Baily Hutchinson, and Jodi Rell all remain more qualified than Palin. Of course they are pro-choice, and therefore persona non grata. But if I were they, or Pawlenty or Romney, I'd be mighty pissed.
And lest the "yeah, but Bush won with Quayle" refrain start, the competition on the other side is a bit different than Michael Dukakis, taking the summer off to govern in MA.
Numbers: More than 21.5 million people watched the second night of the 2008 Republican National Convention — a 17% decrease from the 26 million viewers who tuned in last week for day two of the Democratic National Convention. They'll have done better last night... we'll know around 3 pm EDT what the numbers look like.
Running against media elites when you're the Straight Talk Express is silly. What's more important is that the Republicans in general and Palin in particular are losing the tabloids. Having a dysfunctional family is interesting supermarket checkout material, not a qualification to lead America in the 21st century.
She's also lost the late night comedians. Neither is a good thing for Palin.
The media elites are showing deference McCain doesn't deserve. After botching and then lying about Palin's vetting, McCain deserves whatever he gets from the media.
Watching the lukewarm applause for Mike Huckabee's shout-out to Obama's historical candidacy reminds me how bizarre it is for the Republicans to be using Obama in their ads (Chris Shays, Gordon Smith) and Hillary in their speeches (drooped by Palin when she got booed for it.) Huckabee looked like an also-ran. Not his best speech, and not at all charming. That added to the hard-right feel of the night. How does that help McCain?
Watching Rudy reminds me why people from NYC disliked him so much (I'm a native NYer) in the latter part of his tenure. How does that help McCain?
So where's the meat? Where's the economic particulars? How is this convention accomplishing anything other than uniting a Republican minority party?
McCain has one more night to save this convention (if they actually intend to win) and make it reach the wider audience. I don't think he's up to the job. In fact, Palin actually made his job harder by setting a higher standard for speechifying.
--This blog material brought to you by DemfromCT on the http://www.dailykos.com/ website.
It is important to note the outright lies that Sarah Palin will need to answer for. Just click here (she mentioned it AGAIN in her speech last night! and here (she should never have said she was not involved).
Here is a video of what Sarah Palin thinks about the job of the Vice President.
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Compliance is Not Consent
5 years ago
4 comments:
Ever since the 2004 presidential election, I have maintained the best thing Democrats could do is to run the Republican ads that are on country and western stations in urban markets. There wouldn't be an undecided moderate or independent voter in the country.
After hearing Sarah Palin's speech two nights ago, I was really worried. Here was a snarky, Ann Coulter wannabe; just the thing to bring the wing-nut vote out of the woodwork. All of a sudden, the election was about personalities, and red herring social issues again instead of the result of the disastrous results of eight years of Republican rule.
Then I listened to John McCain last night, and saw the corner the GOP have painted themselves into. Ever since Goldwater's landslide 1964 loss (In your guts, you know he's nuts), they have taken care to present their "were just folks" pablum like McCain's speech. George Bush ran as a moderate in 2000.
With Sarah Palin, have they finally brought the true face of the Republican party into prime time?
My day off, and I had some errands to run; listening to the car radio, it appears the Republicans are sending a very mixed message. Will they go with the moderate, maverick, McCain message, or the divisive,spit-in-your eye us vs. them Palin message?
It was hilarious listening to a leader of the pro-choice Republican movement trying to justify supporting Palin. Her logic: She expects the Democrats to retain control of congress, and they "better damn well do their job" and block McCain's judicial nominees!
Grey Fedora,
Will you please provide an example of the "Republican ads that are on country and western stations"??? I don't believe I've heard one and am curious why it would help.
Thanks!
Politicians Lie, Numbers Don't-
And the numbers show that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans.
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008, at 1:49 PM ET
If you're wondering why a formerly honorable man like John McCain would build his presidential campaign around issues that are simultaneously beside-the-point, trivial, and dishonest (sex education for kindergartners, lipstick on pigs), the numbers presented here may help to solve that mystery. Since the conventions ended, McCain has mired the presidential race in dishonest trivia because he doesn't want it to focus on what voters say is the most important issue this year: the economy.
There is no secret about any of this. The figures below are all from the annual Economic Report of the President, and the analysis is primitive. Nevertheless, what these numbers show almost beyond doubt is that Democrats are better at virtually every economic task that is important to Republicans.
In other words, there are no figures here about income inequality, or percentage of the population with health insurance, or anything like that. This exercise implicitly assumes that lower taxes are always good and higher government spending is always bad. There is nothing here about how clean the air is or how many children are growing up in poverty. The only point is that if you find the Republican mantra of lower taxes and smaller government appealing, and if you care only about how fast the economy is growing, not how that growth is shared, you should vote Democratic. Of course, if you do care about things like economic inequality and children's health, you should vote Democratic as well.
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