Sarah Palin and The GOP's Charli Baltimore Plan

When Politics Became The New Hip Hop, Vol. 2.

We found out two things the night of October 18th, 2008:
1. Republican V.P. nominee Sarah Palin is a good sport.
2. She is down with the GOP (the Gangsta Opportunist Party).

Last weekend, a record seventeen million viewers watched as Gov. Paliin played along with the SNL Weekend News. Amy Poehler spat a catchy gangsta rap -- a song that Palin "refused" to perform, wink-wink -- which included references to: John McCain, Barack Obama, a moose caught in the Northern Lights of an Alaskan drive-by, and the view from her front porch to Red Square. As the yuk-yuks rained down on her pretty head, Palin stayed true to the endgame, raising her hands in the air and waving them like she just didn't care.

But, Sen. McCain, Gov. Palin and the GOP actually do care. Their campaign is losing altitude, and the bloom of Palin's rosy "you-betcha" is beginning to fade. Although her face-to-face with doppleganger Tina Fey was designed to create some positive spin for a few days, the buzz saw of reality is beginning to cut into the drive train of the Straight Talk Express.

Watching Palin sit through the SNL skit, it amazed me how politics and Hip Hop have established some sort of weird intertextuality, to borrow the phrase from post-constructuralist Julia Kristeva. It's everywhere: Barack Obama's Jay-Z-like brush-off of an opponent's mudslinging from his shoulders. Countdown's Keith Olbermann presenting a nightly segment on the foibles' of Sen. McCain, "McCain In The Membrane," a nod to the 1993 classic by Cypress Hill, "Insane In The Membrane." Rachel Maddow's (another rising star on MSNBC) subtle "99 Problems" allusion to McCain's woes during her show last week (another Shawn Carter reference). How 'bout Gov. Palin's own "shoutouts" to her Wasilla crew before her debate with Sen. Joe Biden, a futuristic-throwback to New York's first Hip Hop radio jock, Mr. Magic, who coined the phrase over a quarter of a century ago on WBAI-FM.

And then there was Karl "MC-Rove-The-Practicing-Philatelist" Rove and his 16-bars-of-weird at the 2007 Annual Radio and Television Correspondent's dinner. With a recent survey voting white lyricist Eminem the greatest rapper alive, one would think Rove would've stepped-up his game from the dated Steve Martin/King Tut-strut, clumsy delivery, and goofy lyrics. Rove's performance wasn't just surreal; it was a jovial but vitriolic dismissal of Hip Hop and it's practitioners. Not unlike his mentor, the late Lee Atwater, the notorious Ronald Reagan-George H.W. Bush-whisperer of Republican advisers. In a compelling N.Y. Times piece dated October 6, 2005, columnist Bob Herbert unearthed an 1981 interview Atwater gave to political scientist Alexander P. Lamis, which decodes the GOP's gang signs:

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

''And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me -- because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'"

Atwater loved delta blues, even played guitar with Percy Sledge and B.B. King, but his love for the melody did not extend itself to Lil' Willie Horton. Atwater was a sensei in the Washington beltway jiu-jitsu of benign contempt.
The same benign contempt that twisted the pretzel logic coming out of the McCain-Palin camp last week, masked as a charm offensive. Kill em' with a Colgate smile and flash 'dem pearly-whites through clenched jaws. Hall and Oates once crooned, "Sarah/smile/won't you smile/a while for me?" and she did; with her Diane Keaton cheekbones, Geena Davis lips and lethal assassin eyes, Palin held it down for the Gangsta Opportunist Party. Smiling Sarah endured the punch-line lampoon attacks from Fey, Poehler, and Alec Baldwin, who actually called Palin "that horrible woman", as he stood next to her and Lorne Michaels offstage (of course, Baldwin "thought" Palin was Tina Fey in Palin-drag, wink, wink).

The same benign contempt was on display in St. Paul, Minnesota's Xcel Arena during September's Republican National Convention. A RNCC that at times looked like a hall full of Les Miserables, as they listened to Rudy Guiliani's wild-eyed, Jean-Valjean-in-Brioni routine ("Drill, Baby, Drill! You guys are ready to break out!"), and D.A. Arthur Branch's--in an amazing Sen. Fred Thompson impersonation--condemnation of Barack Obama and his astute choice for vice president, Joe Biden.

And then Sarah Palin took the stage and shut it down. She spun her irresistible yarn about life as a hard working wife, mother, and Governor of Alaska. She was the around-the-way-girl from the 'hood of Wasilla, who shook the good ol' boys network on their shaky bridge to nowhere. The hockey mom who had mad love for her home-girls: she called them pitbulls with lipstick. When Palin said the word "pitbull", I immediately thought of the rapper Eve and her self-appointed, "pitbull in a skirt"-title and her hit track, "What Y'all Really Want".

As Palin tore a page out of Atwater's crooked-fingers-sideways-talk-claim-yo'-set-handbook (reducing Obama to a "community organizer"), I watched her gaze. It was steely, cold, and almost clinical, like Geena Davis's "Charli Baltimore" character in Renny Harlin's 1997 action-thriller, The Long Kiss Good Night. Davis portrayed a New Jersey "skating rink" mom haunted by memories of life as a CIA assassin, and then while cooking dinner one night, gets ambushed right back into that world. Sarah Palin is Sen. McCain and the GOP's Charli Baltimore: Gov. Hockey Mom activated as "black ops" to thwart the first serious black presidential candidate. A serious candidate and a real contender--regardless of Obama's race--whose new ideas and soaring oratorio in Denver the week before, along with the country's growing hunger for change, potentially steered Obama's Epic Cycle-ride right into the Oval Office. However, Palin's convention performance had wooed both the Republicans and the media into a Reagan-esque euphoria. Her successful appearance not only seemed to knock Sen. Obama's historic night right out of the headlines, but it gave John McCain a major bounce in the polls. There was also an assumption that with Gov. Palin on the ticket, some of Hillary Clinton's disappointed and angry supporters would cross over and give McCain the edge in the voting booth.

But then came the other Charlie, as in Gibson. And then Katie Couric. And then George F. Will. And then Walt Monegan. And then the debate, with a calm, collected, and very human Sen. Joe Biden. Next, Peggy Noonan and David Brooks. Finally, worst of all, a fractured Wall Street and a broken economy. By the time Gen. Colin Powell (the other American war hero), a staunch--but not stagnant--Republican, endorsed Senator Barack Obama on NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday, October 19th, 2008, Gov. Palin's wowerful was beginning to seem dull-and-gone.

Many of Sen. McCain's closest friends and associates--including Gen. Powell--were puzzled about his judgment, and just who and what McCain was morphing into. Why would this honorable man hire the same Atwater/Rove-ian element that had so viciously "tar-babied" his last presidential bid? What about the promise to run a clean campaign, which was now soiled by innuendo and fraudulent accusations? How could he pick someone so frighteningly sketchy on the Constitutional powers of the vice-presidency? Does Sen. John McCain regret choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate? Did his Charli Baltimore pump-fake backfire? With less than two weeks left in the most important presidential campaign in modern history, it begs the question: will Palin's lip-shtick be the political kiss-off for McCain's long good night?

Follow Barry Michael Cooper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BarryMichaelC

Comments

[MeiLing]

I think there were a lot of gambles in this election that went bad for both McCain and the RNC. They gambled with the Public Financing thing because they thought that they'd bring in way more money thru the RNC than a "community organizing" black man ever could or the DNC. They gambled on the pick of Palin to steal the Hilary voters and that her charisma or sex appeal would somehow blind all men to her utter lack of intellectual curiousity.

It is clear that that the Repubs have vastly under-estimated their opponents and the game! And this has been a whole new ballgame!

As a disgruntled Hillary voter, I was initially intrigued by the choice of Palin for McCain's VP. I knew she was on the list beforehand, but at that time had no idea that someone like her would ever make it to the position of Governor of a state in the US! Didn't take long for my intrigue to turn to complete horror and disgusted fascination! I also could not believe the speech that she gave at the RNC! Yes, she's a performer but who in their right mind would be inspired by such a mean-spirited and snarky speech. I guess I know the answer though - mean-spirited and snarky voters!

Poehler's Alaska Rap was just payback in the karmic scheme of things for Palin's RNC speech!

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

A whole new ballgame, indeed, MeiLing! I agree. Great insight and thank you for posting!

[erniehotsauce]

Maybe the analogy between politics and hip-hop only seems so relevant because it's election season, but at least for the time being, it's omnipresent. Like in this video of some middle school kids who changed the words to T.I.'s "Whatever You Like" to be about Obama vs. McCain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj5eWRzDhNI

Good catch, though. Would Bill Clinton be politics' R. Kelly?

[2belinda]

Palin has trouble verbally communicating her ideas because what she would like to say is in direct conflict to what she must say. So she often sounds like she isn't making good sense. It's why she seemingly speaks in gibberish and her followers listen in jabberwocky.

In Lewis Carroll's poem some of the words actually have meaning, some are made-up and some are portmanteaux (combining 2 words to make one; "mimsy" combo of miserable and flimsy). At first listen "Jabberwocky" sounds like something important is being said because of the rhythm of the words. After a second listen some will decide that much of what is being said is nonsensical but others still will figure out that some of the words have a not so hidden meaning/message. (ex. "brillig" - four o'clock in the afternoon)

It was easy for Palin to "throw hands" on SNL. Rap in some ways mimics Palin's speech pattern. How many watchers/listeners of SNL actually understood the words Amy Poehler was rapping?
For folks who are easily influenced, Palin's nonsensical, disconnected words during interviews say the key words they all want to hear.
So they think.

[Chenita]

Nice! Great comparison.

[Olampean]

Good rap, sir. Sums it up nicely.

[Rapid Ray]

Palin's negation of Obama's nomination speech didn't wait for the Republican convention. It started 18 hours later as an entire country went into a mad scramble to find info on "Sarah WHO?"

That in itself is very telling of the cultural changes we take for granted.
Technology that was once reserved for colleges and CIA operatives are now either in the palm of you hand, across you lap or in the corner of the living room.

Google's hits for "Sarah Palin" skyrocketed. Blogs lit up, websites were created and the lead in to Palin's speech was almost epic. The viral was making her appearance more important than McCain's and he was the one running for President.

How many people outside of Michelle Bachmann's district now know where to send a check to her opponent. That one instance shows far an away the impact social networking and technology has.

It hasn't been the MSM, but largely the investigations of average people that have done the leg work. For the first time, voters were able to vet each candidate independently via their own keyboards.

The cultural change of widespread open sources of information has had far more impact on politics that any of the "change" the candidates offer.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

Good point, r.r., and thanks for your post.

[billbb]

Brother Ray, I think you have something there!

How many times this cycle has the Republican "(He/She) never said that!" spin machine been thrown off balance by posts available to anyone with a couple of minutes and a few mouse clicks? The vaunted Rove lie factory has proved far less effective than in previous cycles, since the Internet is providing a certain amount campaign karma: anything you lie about has blow back against yourself. Accuse your opponent of being elitist and your Neimann-Marcus bills show up. Claim you never supported that and any intelligent eight-year-old can check your voting record, and maybe even read the original bill. Say someone is affiliated with terrorists and a million people can run the name through Wikipedia, and find that the "terrorist" is a professor of education who was once a member of the Weather Underground 25 years before McCain was trying to keep regulators out of Lincoln Savings for his pal Keating.

If it is hard to lie, then the answer, it seems, would have been easier. Tell the truth and have something to say. If you oppose your opponent's positions, say why. I note that the Obama Biden website has a long and detailed list of everything they intend to do. The John McCain website has a list of everything they think Obama wants to do.

This leaves me thinking: Who is John McCain, and what ever happened to the honorable man with the same name?

[crzy]

You forget the "Left Eye Lopez" reference at the VP Debate. wink - wink. Nice read.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

You know what, you're right and thank you for that reminder. Thank for your kind words and thank you for posting!

[Jahsmah]

G-to tha iz O--P!
That is too funny! My husband and I have been talking about this for some time now. A while back, I knew it was over when I heard 50 Cents' "In the Club" on CNN! It never ceases to amaze me how black culture is both reviled and embraced by mainstream all at once. There is a love/hate relationship in America with black culture. On the one hand, there will be a denunciation of our culture as ignorant, foreign, and, for no lack of a better word, "ghetto." On the other hand, it is seen as cool, embraceable, and above all, profitable. Our creativity is second to none and this makes me believe that all the more.
Thanks for such a great post!

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you so much for your kind words! I appreciate it!

[JDeezy]

I really liked your article, but don't you get the sense that McCain Palin is a "throwaway ticket"? I mean, after what Rove did to McCain last time, you figure the the RNC owed McCain a nomination. However, after the Bush administration, and the likely "throw da bums out" mentality that tends to emerge after particularly polarized administrations, the republicans winning in November would have to be viewed as a long shot. So you can't nominate somebody for VP that will get sullied by being included in this ticket. Palin is one and done. On some level, doesn't it feel like the RNC has taken a shot at this election with McCain (who will never run again because of age, etc.) and an unlikely and decidedly non-presidential, albeit oddly charismatic VP choice on purpose? Why waste strong candidates on an election that is favored to go the democrats way? I get the vibe that the republicans are essentially sitting this one out and preparing for 2012.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

Hey, that's another way of looking at it. I like the insight, and thank you for posting and your kind words.

[uberlefty]

This isnt Dole/Kemp 96. If HRC, Dodd, Edwards, or Biden had been the candidate we might have seen less of a fight. Obama sets a dangerous precedent for minority participation in the process. What will be next, a Hispanic, Asian, or Native American president? The white guys and gals at the top have done a good job of keeping us focused on Euro/American issues. The last thing they want are Americans paying attention to Africa or Latin America. A President who doest share in their European ancestry runs the risk of upsetting Americas continuing exploitation of the Third World. We were willing to step in to protect white Europeans in the former Yugoslavia but stood by as Rwandans slaughtered one another. Now its Darfur we are doing nothing about while we propose spending billions and have sent troops to Georgia. An Obama administration is a game changer in ways that truly threaten the status quo. They will stop at nothing to stop it even if it means a McCain administration.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

You are on point uber...thank you for this post.

[klo]

That's what I was thinking.
Thanks for putting it to words.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you very much and thank you for posting.

[spartanmom]

That is what I have been saying.

The repugs knew on some level that this financial meltdown was coming and were just hoping that Hillary would be the candidate and would win just to have the economy go into a tailspin. Then they'd be all set for 2012 and still have enough clout and organization to start rebuilding for an eventual permanent repug imperial presidency.

But Hillary didn't get the nom. and the economy didn't hold out long enough to hang it on the Dems.

Now the really really dark side of the Republican Party will have to wait until 2016.
Let's hope for some serious attrition.

[urweatherman]

The GOP knew the meltdown was coming and tried to do something to fix it. Please do your research and you will find that the democrats blocked any regulation that would have prevented this debacle. I say it was a democrat conspiracy, just to win this election and gain power by placing blame and lying (with assistance by the mainstream media). They believed that the people would be fooled by it and they were right. Its a flashback to the 70's and we will need another Reagan in a few years to correct the blunders that the dems have gotten us into.

[vdub4]

brilliantly stated, mr. cooper. thank you.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you for your kind words, Vdub4. I appreciate it!

[Sassys]

You betcha...Palin will be back to haunt us all with her smarmy comments and total lack of intelligence...and I predict that the same "adoring" crowd will vote for her again...only she will lose in the future as much as she will lose on the 4th of November 08....They say you can't teach an old pit bull new tricks...they are right.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

I like your insight. Thank you for posting.

[southernsepia]

Very well written. I've made note of these cultural shifts as well. Don't forget the "fist bump" aka pound.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[klo]

How cool it is that you responded to many who made comments.
Very nice of you.
Good luck.

[kylie]

Seems the Empress has too many clothes(with very expensive price tags), not enough political knowledge, and too many secrets seeping out.
"Down-home" seems to carry corruption, and problems with keeping the country girl out of the big city temptations.
Trash-mouth rallies that engender division, hate, lynch-mob mentality just don't seem to be working for the McCain/Palin team!

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree. Thank you for your post.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

It seems the winds of blow-back have begun to swirl for them. I agree, and thank you for posting.

[looseisnotlose]

Charlie Baltimore? That seems kind of random. Did you choose that movie because (SPOILER ALERT) it involves a false-flag terrorist operation against the U.S. by parties within its own intelligence community and pinned on Islamic radicals? Because that is what Charlie Baltimore was supposed to stop. Or do you just like the rapper?

Most importantly: "Their campaign is loosing altitude..." I'll let you guess my problem with that sentence.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate your insight, and we are free to disagree. Thank you for your post.

[grayforester]

Looseisnotlose didn't disagree with you, Mr. Cooper. He or she asked whether the context of your reference to the Renny Harlin movie involved the false flag terrorism angle of that story, and I think finished up by pointing out that an extra vowel kept their campaign from "losing" altitude in your essay.

Uninvited proofreading is irresistible to a certain kind of reader (like me, I'm ashamed to say) but it is usually uncharitable and generally felt to be rude. Spell check will draw attention to non-words, but it won't help with real words chosen inaccurately.

[looseisnotlose]

Sorry to be rude. I'm not joking when I say that I created this account to correct people's grammar (not yours in particular). Now I'm actually making comments and feel like a jerk when I do the grammar thing.

I'm not trying to disagree with anything in the article. It's just that when I think "Long Kiss Goodnight" I think "False Flag Terrorism." Other than that, it seems to be kind of an obscure reference. Given point about hip-hop imagery in the article, I honestly wondered if the rapper might have something to do with it.

I sometimes come across as negative because I don't state where I'm coming from. I agree with the points made in your article, except I'm even more cynical. Sarah Palin was a stunt from the beginning. When people started attacking her right away, I wanted to call for restraint because I knew the Republicans would harness the backlash. Then the Gibson and Couric interviews came out, and I (and everyone) realized that she really was 'that bad.'

[Sebastos]

The link (in the main text of the article) to Bob Herbert's 2005 article is currently broken (as of 2008-10-22). I was able to get to the story by editing the URL to yield the following:

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/opinion/06herbert.html

I hope this can be fixed in the main text of the article.

[Barry Michael Cooper - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you I just notified the webmaster. I appreciate you pointing this out and thank
you for reading!