Traditionally, in America, political candidates don't hide from the press. Yet, until last week, that's exactly what the Republican candidate for vice president had been doing. Unlike Joe Biden, who has met with the press more than 40 times since joining the Democratic ticket, Sarah Palin had never held a press conference or sat down for a one-on-one interview. She has now emerged from the political cone-of-silence that the lobbyists who run the McCain campaign placed her in. Not surprisingly, her conversations with Charlie Gibson, Sean Hannity and Katie Couric have generated enormous interest and comment.
Some on the right, however, wish she had been kept under wraps. Conservative columnists and pundits are competing to see who can say the pithiest disparaging thing about the fast-fading star from Alaska. They have been stunned not only by what she's said in the interviews, but also by the overarching sense that she is not a deep thinker on issues of policy, she lacks curiosity and she turns each question she can't answer into an opportunity to portray herself as a victim of East Coast elitists who reject the candidacy of someone who represents "Joe Six-pack."
At the same time, the brilliant writer/actress/comedian Tina Fey has dominated the cable news programs and entertainment television programs with her masterful impersonation of Palin, most recently satirizing the candidate's nearly incoherent interview with Katie Couric. What makes the Tina Fey skits so funny -- beside the wonderful contribution made by her fellow Saturday Night Live castmate Amy Poehler -- is that Fey nails her impersonation with a splendid but subtle comedic touch, and she salts her satire with verbatim Palin quotes.
Like many, I'm appalled that so much of what Palin says makes no sense. However, by focusing on the comedy, we may be missing a deeper truth about Palin. She is a remarkably successful politician, and she clearly knows how to communicate. She's a skilled and smart debater who's won every debate she's had to participate in, including successful televised debates with prior Alaska governors who she went on to defeat. When prepared, she is able to hone her language to take advantage of opportunities to define herself as a candidate who represents working people, who opposes the status quo.
This was on perfect display earlier this week when Palin spoke by phone with conservative talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt. When asked about working people struggling during hard times, Palin's response was as powerful as anything I've heard recently from any politician:
There's been a lot of times that Todd and I have had to figure out how we were going to pay for health insurance. We've gone through periods of our life here with paying out of pocket for health coverage until Todd and I both landed a couple of good union jobs. Early on in our marriage, we didn't have health insurance, and we had to either make the choice of paying out of pocket for catastrophic coverage or just crossing our fingers, hoping that nobody would get hurt, nobody would get sick. So I know what Americans are going through there.
She pulls a powerful emotional chord and aligns herself with the working families who are struggling today to deal with rising health care costs. She makes you think that she supports efforts to restrain those costs. She makes you think that she'll fight for you. She even makes you think that she's a supporter of unions.
But none of these things are true. If the policies promoted in the Republican Party platform are ever enacted into law, every couple will have to white knuckle their way through their early years with no health insurance and lots of tough choices. Plus there won't be many union jobs for them to land.
Palin's powerful presentation raises real questions: Does she know that John McCain's plan for health care is the opposite for health care for all? Does she support taxing employer-provided health benefits that come with millions of union jobs? Does she want to leave people to fend for themselves in a hostile, private health insurance market, purchasing health care for their families without the expertise and bargaining power that comes with employer-sponsored health care benefits?
Sarah Palin is plenty articulate when talking about the struggles she and her family have faced, and when she was talking to Hugh Hewitt she summed up perfectly the experience that so many young couples face with health care. I'd like to hear what she's going to DO about it: What exactly will Palin do to help families get the health insurance they need? What will she and John McCain do to help ensure that there are union jobs that provide the kind of health care security the Palins received when they "landed a couple of good union jobs"?
I have a questions for Obama anyhow. Why can't he produce a real birth certificate?
Please, America, don't fall for this! We need serious people with thoughts deeper than a puddle to lead us out of the mess that Bush and McCain have perpetrated upon us. Look past pretty Sarah and listen to what she actually says!
Additionally, she has a terribly bad habit of emphasizing the completely mundane and unaccenting the key points of her comments.
Whenever she is caught, her sentences have adjectives which overpower her nouns and her verbs.
There is a lot of apocalyptic speak - "As Putin rears his head" which is invaluable of hermetic prophets and soothsayers but incendiary in the hands of a world leader.
Her sentences are like a gust of wind which blow randomly all over the place. She probably could write an entire essay without punctuation.
There is no doubt that Biden is multidimensional by comparison. Based on the above, Joe should be a combination of his blue collar background and talk it brief terse sentences (when he sounds like Cheney) with his inimitable humorous flourishes
But as people have pointed out, she answers a question by not answering it. She is very versed at using her sexuality to attack or dodge.
Biden will win.....remember folks, he wanted to be President & he likely won a primary debate or two....he knows John McCain's record better than Sarah Palin will......she's gonna look foolish without Joe being nasty......
but again, I see that the McBush/Bush ticket is setting up Iffil for the fall if Pretty Palin does not pass tonight's freshman exam. Despicable folks, all.
Her aversion to tax's is understandable since Alaska does not have them and she does not understand the problem of raising revenue and at that they still had no problem feeding on federal pork.
Placing her in this position is unfair to her and the country and the blame for that lays squarely on the feet of Senator Mc Cain. So far she has shown herself to be inarticulate, a general lack of knowledge, and bluntly just not very bright. I am avoiding the subject of abortion because of the strong feelings on both sides of that issue and those feelings should be respected. HOWEVER the lack of compassion for rape victims and the gall of charing them for the use of a rape kit, when subjected to that disgusting crime shows a lack of compassion.
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I hope Senator Biden is reading it right now. And I hope both candidates are asked if they plan to tax the health care benefits that union workers presently get. The nerve of McCain reducing taxes on the wealthy even further and then making up for it by adding more taxes to working people.
Watch McBush and the GOP trash Gwen. Ilins if she does get any real answers out of Pretty Palin tonight. They;ve already been positioning this well respected journalist for the fall in case their bobblehead flunks tonight's test, too.
Gawd help our country.
A military veteran -- female -- who despises McCain for doing this to my precious country.
So far, she's been insistent on using her default mode of responding when she doesn't know the answer or want to give an answer: stall and vamp until she runs out of time. But she's not very good at that. I mean, she's good enough for Alaska, or proabably any other state-level race, but she's at a higher level now.
The people who already support her will continue to do so after the debate. But for the rest of us, I expect that she'll be impressive when she can use personal stories but specific solutions will be absent, and she'll stall and try to use up time for questions that she doesn't know the answer to at all. Or she'll just repeat the same talking points over and over. Just as she's done in interviews.
Sarah Palin may be a lot of things, but articulate is not one of them. Her discourse, even "when she talks about herself or a policy issue that she's decided to learn something about, like natural resources in Alaska." is flatulently verbose, the signature of a con man.
She can't dazzle with brilliance, so she baffles with bull__it.
Except for your glaringly WRONG use of the word "articulate", I agree completely with your post.