The Palin Speech
P.S. Alex Massie is more insightful than yours truly.
Andrew Sullivan concludes his live-blogging of Sarah Palin’s speech with an exasperated sigh: “Reality television has become our politics.” Perhaps. More likely, politics has been a reality TV show since before John Logie Baird invented the damn goggle box. Because, yes, you choose the candidate you like best or the one that has impressed you most after a long, painfully drawn out period of interrogation, speculation and hype. Just like on American Idol. That is the way it works. Talent matters, but it’s not enough without personality, authenticity, charm, something else…
Of course Andrew’s so committed to Obama that it’s unlikely Palin could have done anything to convince him she’s not painfully out of her depth. There’s lots to like about Obama, but let’s not pretend that he’d be favourite to win this election – or have Andrew’s backing – if he were a first term Irish-American Senator called Barry O’Bama.
This race has been framed in terms of personality and biography from the beginning. Sure, Obama’s opposition to the war was vital to him gaining traction and yes he has tremendous political gifts, but, really, the Democratic primary was a Reality TV-style beauty contest and November’s election will be as well. That’s why people are tuning in.
For my money, Alex is one of the best, most insightful observers of US politics out there — he has some distance, yet he also has a keen eye and a level of self-awareness that is very valuable.
For a more critical take, Ezra Klein writes:
Over the past week, Palin had begun looking like a character from Twin Peaks. Tonight, she looked like an up-and-coming Republican politician. It was an auspicious debut, the sort of address that would be judged a success if she were a newcomer keynoting the convention. She landed clean punches, temporarily silenced some of her critics, and retold John McCain’s story with a keen sense for the drama of his experience. But I expected more. As delivered, the speech was effective as theater but curiously hollow as an enduring campaign argument: It contained the seeds of a medal ceremony for McCain, and marked Palin as a politician to watch, but it said nothing about the presidency she hopes to be part of.
Ezra’s basic take is that Palin’s speech would have been more effective had it been more specific — I hesitate to say more substantive, as I don’t think the post-Clinton Democratic trope of a laundry list of micropolicies (clean-coal-powered American-made supercars, V-chips, etc.), is substantive, exactly — and I can see where he’s coming from. But as Chris Hayes writes, there is an enduring logic to “political cant”:
So the rhetorical trick that convention speechwriters try to pull off is to have just enough substance within a statement that it seems to carry some semantic force, but remains nearly impossible to disagree with. The result? cant. “Families that work hard and play by the rules” Cant. “We honor his service.” Cant. “The choice is clear.” Cant. “This election isn’t about the past it’s about the future.” Cant, cant, cant.
What did I think of the speech? Well, I thought it was dynamite, but I just instinctively like this woman and her family, so I’m hardly the harshest judge.
i liked it. it was what it had to be. people responded how you would expect them to respond. very attractive family.
— razib · Sep 4, 07:23 AM · #
It seems likie people’s assessment of the speech is primarily based on their pre-existing views. My take is that the lead up to this speech in the press was that she was a complete buffoon and she seems to have dispelled those rumors for most people. I don’t hear much “Eagleton Redux” talk now.
— Bobar · Sep 4, 07:37 AM · #
Bummed. She had the opportunity to kind of be the female Huckabee, instead she came off like the female Giuliani. She was vicious. I wonder how many people tuned in? What an opportunity to rebrand 8 years in one speech! Bummed, bummed, bummed.
— Matthew · Sep 4, 08:48 AM · #
It’s probably worth noting that the Democratic primary could have a reality-like element (which I take to mean biography-driven) to it because there was large agreements between the top three candidates, and lest we forget, the minor differences to policy footing between them were teased out endlessly.
I think Ezra’s right though: I still am confused as to where Palin would stand on issues from timetables to abortion or anything that isn’t energy-related or biography-driven. (And even then.) With McCain’s stance? She is a better attack dog than Biden was.
— Mike · Sep 4, 12:13 PM · #
First off, she’s obviously got a crap-ton of political talent, to be able to pull off that kind of a delivery with all that’s gone on in the past week.
Second, I wouldn’t go so far as to say whe was “vicious.” Partisan? Yup. But what do you expect from a keynote address at the Republcian convention? Her job is to somehow get McCain in the White House. Like it or not, most clear-thinking indviduals will not be voting for her for President, so she has to somehow make McCain better. Hence the rhetoric.
Finally, I was at once both incredibly impressed (particularly with the 2-memoirs-but-no-legislation line about Obama, is there anything more true than that to describe the guy?) and also really sobered by the speech. Impressed by the delivery, the tone, the strucuture of the speech. Sobered by the fact that she’s not really going to differ herself from McCain’s policies, specifically his foreign policy, which would be true breath of fresh air from a (supposed) Buchananite.
In the end, the same climate exists for this election. I’m afraid the Obama-Biden-Pelosi-Reid (shudder) government is no more less likely today than it was 2 weeks ago.
One note – Andrew Sullivan would only have approved of Palin if she somehow morphed into someone like….well….Andrew Sullivan.
— mattc · Sep 4, 12:23 PM · #
Sarah Palin was very impressive. She’s a charming attack dog with great comic timing. It’s unfortunate that she spoke right after Giuliani, though, because the repetition of some of his barbs made her seem a little more vicious, a little less fresh. Still, this was an unquestionably auspicious debut. She came across as smart, tough, warm and authentic. I can’t help but wonder what she might have done with four extra years before running for national office. (Obama had some time after his star-making turn at the DNC.) Sarah Palin is a political star in the making, but the question is whether she can shine fast enough to win this election. And whether any more revelations from Alaska will hurt her. I am a Democrat, but I can acknowledge a natural politician when I see one.
— elliott · Sep 4, 12:53 PM · #
As someone that thinks she is a joke for the most part, let me throw something against the wall and see what you think.
The most compelling part of Palin’s story is that she chose to have a down syndrome child. Given that, she could be an incredibly compelling voice for the Pro-life movement. But to do that effectively, I don’t think she can become a typical-Pol, which seems like what she is being encouraged (rhetorically) to become. She gave an effective speech for the base, but I didn’t find anything persuasive in it to change my mind. I have lived the last 18 years in Abilene, Texas, Atlanta, and New Hampshire (after growing up in CT) so I’m fairly sure my problem isn’t being a ‘cosmopolitan elite.’
Anyway, I am pretty much a committed democrat while being incredibly squishy on abortion. So I am mostly just trying to get at what I think could be an effective Pro-life voice but I think the more she is asked to fill a culture-warrior role she will lose that effectiveness. I doubt I am explaining this very well. Just my 2 cents.
— Jeff Pollner · Sep 4, 02:42 PM · #
Bummed. She had the opportunity to kind of be the female Huckabee, instead she came off like the female Giuliani. She was vicious.
What possible evidence did you have that the Republicans were interested in abandoning viciousness as their most basic political strategy?
— Freddie · Sep 4, 03:16 PM · #
This is as good an opportunity as any to voice a bit of a frustration of mine. There is this notion that McCain is running the dirty campaign here, with the implicit corollary that the Obama camp has consistently taken the high road. I don’t buy it. There was the ‘100 years’ of war that McCain never advocated. There was the ‘dollar bill’ comment, meant to imply that McCain would cynically exploit Obama’s race against him. There was the moment Obama accused the National Right to Life Committee of lying about his vote on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois.
This mud is on the Obama campaign itself. If you want to broaden it to the party generally, I think the treatment of the Palin family should be enough to illustrate that the Democrats are not above the viciousness Freddie so rightly decries.
I don’t like the distortions the McCain camp has propagated either, but let’s be sure that we understand the Democrats are not angels.
— Blar · Sep 4, 03:58 PM · #
This morning I met a middle-aged, professional woman from rural NW Ohio who told me tears ran down her face as she listened to Palin’s speech last night.
She sounded as if her political priority is national security, so was a likely McCain voter already.
But those tears say something.
— Julana · Sep 4, 05:54 PM · #