A star is born

September 3, 2008 · Filed Under zeitgeist

Now that was a speech!

On a night when some heavy-hitters (Mitt, Huckabee, Rudy) brought out their “A” games, Sarah Palin blew them all away in her national debut. And that’s saying something, because I loved Huckabee’s line (which I posted about earlier), and Rudy delivered a boatload of bloody red meat to the Republican base in his speech. Rudy was funny. Rudy attacked Obama & Biden. Rudy mocked Obama & Biden. Rudy praised McCain. Rudy praised Palin. Rudy was the “Mayor of America” that everyone loved so much.

And Sarah Palin made us forget that Rudy even spoke. She exceeded all hopes (much less expectations) that party loyalists had going in. Even after the past 5 days of unvarnished bile that’s been directed at her and her family by the nutroots on the left.

Her goals for the evening:

Introduce herself to the nation? Check!
Lay out her experience & bona fides? Check!
Be likable, approachable, & “real”? Check, check, and check!
Be loyal to her sponsor & put the top guy over? Check!
Be an attack-dog (but do so respectfully & truthfully so as not to alienate)? CHECK!

A couple of my favorite moments (though it’s hard to pick out just a few…) would include:

The hockey mom & pit bull joke
Piper licking her hand to slick down Trig’s hair
The promise to be an advocate for all families with special-needs children

The common thread of these three examples/moments is this — they illustrate a realness and/or relatability that Palin possesses. “The Common Man” type of vibe that hasn’t truly been seen in the White House since Harry Truman. (Reagan knew how to project it, or at least its essence, even if he no longer had it — he still knew how to draw upon it & communicate with it. Bill Clinton knew how to empathize with it & use it, but I don’t think he really “got” it or liked it…) Sarah Palin was born, raised, and lived in a type of normalcy that the vast majority of Americans exist in their whole lives. She exuded that from the podium tonight, and it’s a big reason why the speech resonated so deeply and was such a big success. Kudos to her, and kudos to the McCain camp for recognizing it & understanding it’s appeal on the ticket.

I watched the coverage on MSNBC, if only because I wanted to see/hear Olbermann & Matthews be really uncomfortable with all of the rhetoric launched against their beloved Dems. Here’s the thing — Palin’s speech was so good, that in the immediate aftermath, Matthews was admitting that he thought it was a good speech, and even Olbermann was grasping at straws to try and find criticism.

Think about that. It was so good that even MSM Obama shills were stunned by it.

There might not be too much happiness tonight in Camp Obama, methinks. Tee hee.

-ghp

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Tags: government, mccain, palin, politics, republican