What we saw last night from
Ellie May Sarah Palin was more of the tired culture wars from the 90's and the last gasp of Rove's 2000 and 2004 base mobilization strategy. Ideas be damned. Policies be damned.
The problem for the GOP is that after 8 years of Bush their base has shrunk significantly and the Democrats has grown.
The problem for the GOP is that the economic woes facing the nation are very real and it's clear that McCain and
Ellie May Palin have no solution other than 4 more years of George W. Bush. The Obama campaign's job is clear, continue to tie John McCain to George W. Bush. Have your surrogates continue to point out that
Ellie May Sarah Palin is far outside the mainstream of American politics, that her tenures in Wasilla and Juneau are full of scandal and that she has a clear issue with telling the truth - see the Bridge to Nowhere nonsense for starters.
Ellie May Palin did exactly as expected, she delivered a good speech to the base light on substance but loaded with attacks. I say bring it on. Democrats are not going to be intimidated and once the glow of the RNC wears off this weekend we'll return to the steady drip of scandals and lies coming out of Alaska.
McCain's campaign is in just a desperate situation as it was this time Tuesday morning. One speech to a room full of true believers changes very, very little. Elections are not decided on one night, rather they are decided by the fundamentals and the fundamentals are all still on Obama's side.
2 comments:
I hope you're right.
Last night sent a shiver up my spine. Between Jonathan Martin's 8/28 Politico story on Rove's hand in killing Lieberman's V.P chances and Max Blumenthal's 9/1 post on TheNation.com claiming that Palin was actually chosen by the Council for National Policy, I have arrived at the very same point you have: this pick was all about re-igniting the culture wars and getting suburban soccer moms, evangelicals, and assorted other Christian supremacists in lockstep with each other and the GOP on a McCain-Palin ticket.
I, however, am not nearly so optimistic as you. If there is one trait that has defined the American voter for the past two decades it is putting emotion before reason. The GOP has apparently decided to take a break from homophobia as a national campaign strategy and have once again returned to the baby-thing. This time around, they not only have a love child to love, but a special needs baby whose mommy promises to be the next best thing to happen to the developmentally disabled since Sargent and Eunice Shriver.
The modern American voter is more influenced by imagery than information. The use of the pregnant daughter, pregnant daughter's sperm donor, and the passing of the down's syndrome baby between family members and Cindy McCain was a perfectly-staged scene in this kabuki we call democracy.
Speaking as a midwesterner, Palin will play huge in the midwest. Her speech is slow, confident, measured. She emphasizes vowels over consonants (like we do) and her somewhat flat tone causes any little emphasis to have great effect. I can guarantee McCain will get a decent bump in key states like MN, WI, and OH just on the basis of her speech-making abilities alone.
The lack of content and substance in both her speech and resume does not matter to these voters nor many other GOP and center voters.
What does matter is CONFIDENCE. Bush's swagger won him 2 Presidential elections. Sarah's sass could help McCain do the same.
Not really sure what you expected. It's not the VP's job to talk about policy in their convention speech. Just look at Biden's speech last week.
Post a Comment