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PALIN AS 90s FLASHBACK.
I misunderestimated Governor Palin in two respects. First, I expected her inexperience on a national stage would show through more in her coming-out speech. I don't need to add to the hours of tv commentary in noting that she handled herself, the crowd, the text, and her own story in a confident and, at times, quite appealing way. And while her introduction of Todd the First Dude, Track, Bristol, Willow, the adorable Piper and the baby Trig reminded me of Family Feud, I have to admit I'd probably be rooting for the Alaskans against the slightly more restrained (and outnumbered) Obama clan from Chicago.
But I also misunderstood the political role she would play, and to some extent that role changed in the last week of meltdown. I didn't think, as Chris Matthews did, that she was just a shiny object to wave in front of Hillary Clinton supporters. But I did think that she was picked because she was the closest thing available, even if it required jumping her to the head of the class, to the next wave of the Republican Party -- the Sam's Club Republicans who could combine social conservatism with an appreciation for the real needs of vulnerable working families. There was a tiny bit of that -- the talk about the First Dude being a union member and the promise to be an advocate for families with special needs children. (This is my least favorite trait in modern conservatism -- the carving out of a sympathetic exception for the single family need or health problem that you have personal experience with. When a man did it -- Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon -- I called it "Miss America Conservatism," in the sense that each Republican has his or her little platform issue -- in Smith's case, mental health funding, because of his son's suicide -- that shows their soft side, and then they go back to the demeaning pageant of cutting taxes and slashing Medicaid. The lesson in having a child with special needs is not "we need more attention for kids with special needs," it should be, "life hands out lots of difficult circumstances and lots of families need different kinds of help, so we're all in it together.")
But at any rate, that was a minor note of the speech. The major note was one of fierce, sarcastic, unrelenting partisanship, amped up, as Josh Marshall notes, by following immediately in the wake of Rudy Giuliani's ugly attack, delivered with the passion of a man who for much of his mayoralty had been held to account solely by "community organizers."
And so Palin's was not the face of the future GOP. It was the face of the Republican Party that got so carried away with itself that it impeached Bill Clinton. It was the face of the self-righteous, nasty party of Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Bill Frist, and George Allen. It was the face of Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney, not the softer and superficially more accomodating tones of Ronald Reagan and, to be fair, the election-year George W. Bush.
This was exactly the face of the Republican Party that people have been voting against since at least 1998, when Democrats gained in congressional races amidst impeachment. It's certainly the face of the Republican Party that voters rejected in 2006, when they turned out Allen, Rick Santorum, DeLay, and others. And the fact of being a woman does not soften the partisan face; hard-partisan women like Linda Smith in Washington have had no more success outside of the reddest states than their male counterparts. (Which is why McCain had no pro-life Republican women with experience to select from.)
On top of the fact that Palin's retro approach has consistently failed, it also provides the perfect foil to Senator Obama's cross-partisan pitch. The challenge for Obama was to assimilate the Democratic nomination and a fundamentally progressive agenda with a cross-partisan, new politics tone and attitude. That required some cooperation from the Republicans -- he had to paint a picture in which they were partisans and he (and Biden, et al.) were able to get beyond that old partisanship. McCain, who had cornered the market on bipartisanship, made that move very, very difficult. So did Palin in her first presentation as a different kind of Republican last Friday and on Labor Day in Dayton. But the Palin we saw tonight is a perfect foil for Obama, allowing him to retain the cross-partisan, forward-looking vision, in contrast to the 90s-style, sarcastic partisanship exemplified in Governor Palin's speech.
It would be interesting to imagine the kind of speech that Palin might have given had she not been savaged for most of the week and needed to go on attack. I suspect it might have been one that did not quite lift the crowd out of their seats, but one that would have offered a much smaller target for the Democratic Party of the future.
-- Mark Schmitt
COMMENTS (14)
Real Reason why McCain chose Palin : Sexist and condescending
PROOF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apdFC-vh6Ng
Also his poor record of voting against equal pay for women and opposing Equal Roles for Women in the Military should be the business of American women voters.
Posted by: Sara | September 4, 2008 3:22 AM
You are being way too much of a wussy. Liberals still cannot take their own side in an argument aggressively. "Such an appealing family, oh so sweet, much better than the black family"...blah, blah, blah. I thought her speech was beyond God-awful, and it would be nice if some supposed liberals would get off their fainting couches and get some red meat in their mouths. I will bring the smelling salts, the scotch, and few barbells to help you next time.
Posted by: JGH | September 4, 2008 3:24 AM
Don't kid yourselves, progs, Mr. O is mighty worried, so much so that he's back on the blow again. And he's got Assholerod hooked on it too.
No joy but plenty of dope in Duddville tonight.
Posted by: O's Dealer | September 4, 2008 4:23 AM
Interesting, Mark. You and Ross Douthat seem to have arrived at the same strategy from essentially opposite directions:
http://tinyurl.com/5qb22g
Even though Douthat is Palin Superfan #1, I don't think he's playing B'rer Rabbit in this post.
A lot of the left blogosphere is essentially saying "the gloves are off now: game on!" and that certainly is emotionally appealing. But I suspect you might be right. The only way McCain gets to 50+1 is to gin up the right-wing base and at the same time win back reality-based Republicans and the independents. That was always a contradictory, near-impossible task, and while the Palin pick spectacularly achieves the former, it completely forfeits the latter. Obama/Biden have an opening to lock down the middle for good if they continue to present themselves as the only grown-ups in the race. Let the surrogates go medieval on Palin, and let Obama continue acting presidential.
Posted by: Incompetence Dodger | September 4, 2008 6:13 AM
I think the intent is to let Sarah Palin play attack dog and prove to the doubtful base that McCain did not pick the wrong VP as his first presidential decision.
Palin should not overshadow McCain's speech to be given today. But McCain will have to appeal to independents. The top ticket is his to make.
Posted by: T961585 | September 4, 2008 7:18 AM
Someone would should tell them not to demean community organizers.
BECAUSE THEY WILL ORGANIZE A COMMUNITY AGAINST YOU.
Posted by: Timothy Sanders | September 4, 2008 8:22 AM
All the wingnut chest thumping here only emphasizes the point the Mark is trying to make.
But he is wrong in one respect - Palin was Palin. No "attack" (read: exposure of the ugly truth) was unwarranted and nothing she said was hers alone. Her speech was, after all, a careful script supplied to her by the self-same forces of partisan snarkiness that have been there all along (to the great detriment of America and the world).
That was her (and their) best shot. And it could not help but fall short, because it contained no weight, offered no hope, was devoid of vision.
Those of us who hope for a better future (instead of a desperate, angry clutching at the past) can only hope that enough Americans are tired of this charade. I know the rest of the world has been laughing at our antiquated clown act for a long time now. But that's what you get when you hand the keys to the bus to a bunch of Bozos...
Posted by: Dan | September 4, 2008 8:26 AM
Yeah... Obama's at 50% and McCain never manages to crack 45%. I'm sure he's terrified.
The Right wingers weren't up for grabs in this elections. This convention has solidified one belief I've had for a while: Republicans know they are going to lose. The only question is, how badly. If they thought they could win, they'd be talking about economics and trying to appeal to the center. But they don't think they can win, so they are trying to gin up hatred on the right to keep their loss as narrow as possible.
Posted by: Soullite | September 4, 2008 8:28 AM
Palin got her start by politicizing the previously nonpartisan Wassila's mayor office. The fact that she'd be a full-throated attack dog is no surprise.
Posted by: American Citizen | September 4, 2008 8:50 AM
Pundits are pleasantly surprised that she can read a generic right-wing speech (mostly written before she was even picked) off a teleprompter? Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations...
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | September 4, 2008 8:59 AM
*bzzzzt* wrong again. She picked up the "cause" of "small town," rural America. You know, home of the "bitter" knuckle dragging troglodyte.
She's there to make sure Ohio and Colorado (evangelical, no new tax pledged, did Obama just run an abortion ad?) stay red. I think you'll get Nevada, though (legal sluts are good).
Obama needs to remind rural America that apart from drilling (and reforming the DC sesspool) she's all snark.
She also lied about his policies, which they've been doing for months, and which seems to continually elude the media.
What's wrong with you?
Posted by: Anonymous | September 4, 2008 9:54 AM
She's there to make sure Ohio and Colorado (evangelical, no new tax pledged, did Obama just run an abortion ad?) stay red.
Bad strategy in Colorado. Colorado Springs and the Western Slope will go Republican no matter what. Denver, Boulder and the ski towns will go Democratic no matter what. All of the play is in the suburbs between Colorado Springs and Denver, and Denver and Boulder.
And the thing is, whether or not these swing voters will vote for the Republican hinges on their perception -- if they see the Republican as a tax-cutting libertarian, then they'll vote for him/her. If they see the Republican as a mean-spirited fundamentalist, they won't. I suspect that Palin came across much more like the latter than the former.
Posted by: Joe | September 4, 2008 1:17 PM
Think about it
Question: What's the difference between George W. Bush in 2000 and Sarah Palin in 2008?
Answer: Lipstick
Posted by: Michael Powers | September 4, 2008 6:11 PM
You know, I'd forgotten about your Miss America Conservatism post, but it's spot on, especially for last night's speech.
Posted by: Chris | September 4, 2008 8:53 PM