Palin Usurped "Concession" Speech

In their new book Sarah From Alaska, Shushannah Walshe and Scott Conroy have provided drafts of two versions of a speech that vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was to have delivered on Election Night 2008 in Phoenix--if only John McCain and his top brass, including Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, had allowed her to do so.

Headlines reporting the story in the Los Angeles Times declared "Sarah Palin's Speeches Were Ready but Never Seen -- Until Now," while ABC posted its story as "Sarah Palin's Never-Heard Concession, Victory Speeches."

While Palin did not deliver her concession speech on election night, she did, in fact, deliver most of it, nearly verbatim, only eight days later at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association on November 13 in Miami, Florida.

Here are two examples:

Concession: My fellow Americans, tens of millions of you shared our convictions and gave us your votes. And I thank you for your confidence. For us, it was not our time ... not our moment. But it is our country ... the winner will be our president ... and I wish Barack Obama well as the 44th president of the United States.

RGA: Tens of millions of Americans shared our convictions and they gave us their votes. ... But for us, it was not our time. It was not our moment. But it is our country. And the winner will be our President. And I wish Barack Obama well as the 44th President of the United States.

***

Concession: I will remember all the young girls who came up to me to our rallies, sometimes taking off from school, just to see only the second woman ever nominated by a major party in a national election.

RGA: For years to come, I'm going to remember all the young girls who came up to me at rallies to see the first woman having the privilege of carrying our party's VP nomination.

Walshe and Conroy spin a fascinating account how Palin's concession speech, crafted by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully and his associate Lindsay Hayes, became a final skirmish in what had become an ugly and open civil war between the McCain and Palin camps during the GOP campaign. It got so bad, according to Walshe and Conroy, that Schmidt ordered the lights be turned off on Palin, fearing that she would still try to deliver the speech and steal McCain's final dignity from him at the close of the campaign.

Palin clearly built her remarks at the RGA around those crafted by Scully and Hayes, whose salaries as speechwriters were paid for by the Committee to Elect John McCain. Virtually every thought or phrase in the Scully-Hayes concession speech made their way into Palin's RGA remarks. While Scully acknowledged that he was aware of their use, Palin did not notify McCain's top senior advisors that she was going to be hijacking these remarks at the RGA (one told me that he was completely unaware), even though they had been paid for by the campaign.

While Palin made a number of small changes to the original concession speech and added many additional comments to her RGA remarks, there was one significant change that she made in the eight days after they were crafted. The original read:

And when a black citizen prepares to fill the office of Washington and Lincoln, that is a shining moment in our history that can be lost on no one.

In Miami she removed what, in the original context, was a rather awkwardly constructed, if not disturbing, racialized reference to Obama, to:

And as he prepares to fill the office of Washington and Lincoln, know that this is a shining moment in American history.

Few people beyond Scully probably were aware that Palin had incorporated the remarks into the RGA speech. "[Palin] was so polarizing," Walshe and Conroy conclude in what is an otherwise surprisingly empathetic portrait of Palin, "that she inspired a civil war within her own campaign during the final days before the election."

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn's book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin's Press in spring 2010.

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn's book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin's Press in spring 2010.

 

Comments

[MissSunshine]

I was wondering what the title of your book was, and you are right on target. This woman will give you more material than you can use.

Like many, I was impressed when she was first introduced by the GOP for the Republican VP position. I was quickly disillusioned when I read that she fired the librarian (Mary Ellen Emmons) and museum director (John Cooper).

But the quote of her saying that the Branchflower Report absolved her from "any hint" of unethical behavior pushed me right over the edge. Yes, she did have the authority to fire ("re-assign") Walt Monegan, and she could have stressed that point and closed the discussion down with any number of "I will be vindicated soon" variations. But she went well past that point, and it was a wonder her pants didn't catch on fire there on camera.

Why? Why? Why? I can only speculate that she lies compulsively, even when contrary facts can easily be verified. Or perhaps, it is a form of power for her, to see what she can "get away with" - the more outrageous the lie, the more "superior" she is to those around her.

I hope you know in advance that SP and her fans will take every chance to dismiss your book as mere trashy gossip. Please reference EVERYTHING and indicate clearly what your source was. An index would be nice touch. Thank you for your work.

[marko77]

Sarah Palin recently made a big deal out of the "In God We Trust" on coins - that is, she tried to make President Obama seem un-religious by saying "what kind of White House does this?" She's preaching to her fundamentalist extremist base, and it turns out this occurred during the Bush Administration.

Where's the news articles on this latest snake-like move by Sister Sarah?

[Deli]

Not to mention that baring false witness is a sin and she does it by rote.

[johnnygoodwud]

'floridafun', the book tour schedule was somewhere on huff. yesterday

[D Right One]

I think a lot of people hate on Palin because she's gotten this far on fluff and charisma.

[SimonSezz]

No.It's because she's a liar, uniformed, and is trying to impose her will on the country.without being elected to any NATIONAL office....That's why.......­..........­..And it's not hate it's............. DISDAIN

[joyce2]

Merriam-Webster defines a “rogue” as “a dishonest or worthless person,” with the flattering addition that a rogue person exhibits “a usually inferior biological variation.” By the way, those choice words only apply to rogue the noun. Rogue the adjective denotes a “misleading” and “corrupt” person.Did palin even lookup what the word rogue means before she started using it.IMO fits her to a tee misleading and dishonest as they come.

[mlaiuppa]

I'm sure she considers it a synonym for maverick.

[mudkitten]

What are you? Using a dictionary? Some kind of an elitist?

[TRYKER]

Wait a minute, why would McCain speech writers be writing a concession speech for Sarah Palin? They told her she wouldn't be giving a concession speech.
What, they wrote her a speech just to pacify her demands for a speech she wouldn't be giving?
One can only conclude that they led her to believe she would be giving a concession speech...then they abruptly changed their minds for some reason. Why?

[faith]

Many people conclude that Palin's confidential air and can do approach means that she is smart, capable, and right. Let's compare Palin's personna to a lesser charismatic speaker, such as former President Jimmy Carter. President Carter may seem less confident, certainly less colorful, when he speaks, but it is because he measures and considers his words and his acts. He is, of course extraordinary, and his books are worthy of serious contemplation. America has gotten drunk on sound bite technology and "emphasis speaking". It does not necessarily follow that because a speaker acts self assured, and presents a "by gum I am right-always right" attitude, with a little theater or edginess, that the words spoken are necessarily true. Frankly, I am voting for the less charismatic speaker, in this instance our example, Carter. Sarah Palin is just a lot of fluff. She's charismatic alright. Dangerous, oh yeah ! She should be capable of writing her own material. Certainly Carter and Obama can.

[kobrock1]

This story sounds eerily familiar. I've been told that Palin opened the speech with the line; "why am I the first Kinnok in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?"

I've spoken to several representatives of dictionary publishers and they all report that they are now feverishly working to develop a term to describe, "delivering one's own speech, without attribution, some week to ten days after the time at which said speech was to have been originally delivered. They all report that they have no reservations about the necessity of such a term, even though it will fit only in the narrowest of circumstances.

[plantluver]

what's a kinnok? a thousand generations is quite the brag, lol. I haven't heard she said this, do you have a link?

[floridafun]

i wanna see her during her book tour, get my word salad fix. i see no schedule, as everything else sarah the appearance locations and times are vague and firmly protected from her public ;-)

[dmyron]

Whats a girl to do?An attractive prom dress and nowhere to wear it.What do we expect when we are dealing with a person whose spiritual advisor hunts witches and whispers in her ear that this is her destiny...­.....befor­e checking her credentials.

[Matt7]

. . . And we should care about this because of what, now?

[ProChoiceGrandma]

Mr. Dunn, is there ANY possibility to speed up the release of your new book "The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power"? Spring 2010 seems soooo far away. Palin’s cult followers continue to spout their venom with increasingly clear threats of violence against President Obama, incited by her Facebook rants. She needs to be exposed for the fraud that she is, sooner rather than later!
See screen shots of these threats here, especially the last screen shot of Stephen Hei’s remark:
http://breepalin.blogspot.com/2009/11/sarah-palins-fb-fans-are-flummoxed.html#comments

and here:

http://palingates.blogspot.com/2009/11/health-care-sarah-palins-bots-are.html

[goodtomeetyou]

She also plagiarized Newt Gingrich last June. She's shifty.

[Lee323]

"Usurping" is what Palin does best.

Good word usage, Geoffrey.

[LMPE]

At least her favored candidate in NY-23 lost.

[MathIsTruth]

Which, by the way, provided one additional and unexpected vote for health care reform last night!

Thank you Sarah!!

[Greg Petty]

Palin the gift that keeps on giving, priceless