is she well-spoken? yup. can she deliver a zinger? sure can. is she really tina fey? nope (she's tracy flick.) do i know anything more about her today compared to yesterday? nope.
can you win a presidential race by being snide, cynical and sarcastic? why not – the republicans have done it before.
here's what i think: i think sarah palin has the republican base fired up, and rightly so.
- she's as pro-life as you can get (not even in cases of incest or rape)
- she is a global-warming doubter,
- she wants creationism taught in public schools,
- she does not support same-sex marriage,
- she is under investigation for abuse of power,
- she supported the bridge to nowhere and kept the money,
- she wanted to ban books at the public library,
- she's "pro-gun",
- she delivers a heckuva bitter speech (for all her talk about bitter)
and seriously. what was that about?
tons of rhetoric, lots of slapdowns, but unbelievably short on substance. "i was a small town mayor earning $65,000 a year while you were a...pffft! community organizer!!?? (earning $13,000 a year a driving a beat up blue honda civic.) loser!!"
here's what else i think: democrats (and independents) are pretty damn smart. and the more you slap down our guy, the more you try to belittle him, or bully him, the more cynical and snide you become, the more hopeful and proud we will be. and the more pissed off we will get. and what happens when we get pissed off?
we vote.
Unfortunately, negative campaigning more often has the result of suppressing voter turnout. (Which is why Republicans do it -- the wealthy and upper-middle class will always turn out no matter what, because they know it benefits their short-term material interest.)
ReplyDeleteAll they want to do is make enough people feel like they don't like or can't trust Barack Obama (and it will be for some vague, generalized "gut feeling"), and they win. Not because more people agree with them on the issues (because they don't).
Our job is to remember that it is, as the man says, not about Barack Obama himself. It's about where we want to be in the future, and whether we would like more of the same as the last eight.
And the Tracy Flick comparison is dead on. (Or Harriet Miers, but she lacks the aggression.)
Amy in Milwaukee
I was wondering the same thing. There was absolutely no substance in her speech at all. Oh and did anyone notice all of the attacks on the media. That is a true sign of desperation.
ReplyDeleteThe republicans are going to have a hard time attacking the media with McCain as their guy. The media have given McCain passes through most of this election cycle and his entire career and they've been blowing things completely out of proportion about Obama's pastor etc... If I have to watch two different loops of Reverend Wright again and again and again and again and again and again and again, you can't make the argument that the media is in love with Obama. While simultaniously McCain has gotten a pass on things like confusing Sunni with Shia, him not knowing what countries border Iraq, The support of funding for Viagra but not for education about birth control, him calling Cindy McCain a c*** in front of the press and that incident got no press, and the list goes on and on.
So Palin and other republicans need not come crying to me about a liberal leaning in the media. It is non existant. Alas her base thinks there is. That is red meat for her base.
amy, i think you're right about negative campaigning. i guess i'm hoping that most democrats feel the way i did last night, as if my best friend were getting beat up on the playground. i wanna jump in the fight, and kick and punch and...well...vote.
ReplyDeleteand there's early evidence (very early) that independent voters in michigan as well as nevada did not respond well to the speech.
Check out the video on this Huffington Post:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
Konrad
That's the first thing I thought of when I saw her - Reese Witherspoon in ELECTION.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that the Alaskan accent sounded so much like MILWAUKEE. My husband says she sounds like Bobby's mom in the cartoon show BOBBY'S WORLD. I'll have to take his word for that.
My students, many of whom are 18 and will be able to vote, are reacting in horror to this woman. The Facebook statuses I'm reading are hilarious and very encouraging. (One student did post, "Yay Palin!" but oh well)