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Underdog McCain Scores With Underrated Palin
"I went to bed smiling and a woman put [the smile] there," a Republican mother of three told me this morning.
An Asian-American Democratic woman, who is going back to school for nursing, and has twin first graders says, "Ooh, I really really like Sarah. Her speech rocked."
A self-described Liberal Democrat, a blue collar working mother in her thirties, asked her thoughts on Gov. Palin before the speech: "I dont know enough about her."
A female Democrat in her sixties, after the speech: "I don't like her. She seems phony. She's acting. I don't trust her."
Those who are calling Governor Palin McCain's Hail Mary pass are making the same mistake they made in calling McCain road kill a year ago. Palin pointed that out in her speech last night. McCain is not only being helped by Charlie Black and Karl Rove on strategy, but he is also a strategist of the rarest kind himself. When the chips are down, he is the most motivated to survive.
Think about August, 2007. Here was my analysis for a Boston Globe Op-Ed then, called by many a reach:
"What McCain has in common this year with Gore and Kerry is that the press anointed all three as front-runners before the campaign began. The expectations for such "early favorites" are often based on polls taken so early that only the candidates with existing name recognition place well.
These expectations are also impossible to meet. As obscure candidates become known and gain a little ground in the polls, it suddenly looks as though the front-runner is in free fall. The money race is then affected by the press coverage and poll numbers, which make it harder for the "early favorites" to raise funds... In recent months, though, news accounts have emphasized (McCain's) sagging poll numbers and lackluster fund-raising. But the political dynamics in New Hampshire look much less dire. The top-tier Republican candidates all supported the war in Iraq and still do. If Republican voters don't find a significant policy difference between them, only one candidate stands out. McCain is a veteran."
So back to McCain and Palin. Does it really make sense that the man who understands how to campaign like an underdog didn't see a kindred spirit in Palin? Does it really make sense that having a daughter who is almost 18 and pregnant would be any more a disqualifier in the GOP than Cheney's gay daughter was for him?
"She was good... very sarcastic, I thought. But no, she's still a pro-life gun toting, oil-drilling Conservative. Hair up or hair down, it won't change my vote," says a stay-at-home mother of three.
Kind of makes you wonder if Governor Palin is Lois Lane. Last night the hair went down but the glasses stayed on. Maybe after her convention speech bump, which I expect will compete handily with Obama's, the campaign will drop the other shoe and take the glasses off.
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I am seeing nothing all day but reporters talking ABOUT Palin's hair and eyeglasses but nothing
about talking TO HER.
I am wondering if CNN ABC MSNBC are involved like a few other reporters were involved in TAKING MONEY TO PROMOTE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
ARE REPORTERS IN THE SO CALLED LIB MEDIA CARRYING WATER FOR PALIN BECAUSE THEY
HAVE BEEN PAID TO DO SO!!!!!
This is bothering me and I have to mention it. I heard a reporter Sat afternoon.
reporting from Alaska. He was on CNN just before replay of Larry King if I am not mistaken.
THERE WAS A BREAK IN THE SOUND WITH JUST A VIEW OF AN AIRPORT I THINK AND THE VOICE SAID:
"I AM ABOUT TO RECEIVE 50,000" i DIDNT HEAR WHAT 50,000 HE WAS ABOUT TO RECEIVE DOLLARS OR WHATEVER.
THIS IS BIZARRE. I AM SURE OTHERS HEARD IT. I am beginning to worry about the credibility of the
media again We know what happened with GW. We know that people like ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS?
THE BLACK RADIO REPORTER TOOK 250,000 DOLLARS TO ADVOCATE THE MEDICARE AND
SOCIAL SECURITY RIP OFFS.
We have to watch them and make them accountable.
Reading Anne Kilkenny's critical essay will give the reader a different perspective on Sarah Palin. On August 31, 2008, Anne Kilkenny wrote a frank letter to answer friends' questions about Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. The letter, from the viewpoint of a Wasilla native, quickly garnered the attention of media outlets all over the world. The Anchorage Daily News has made the essay/e-mail available to their readers. One can read it at:
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/130537
Remember that McCain is a soldier, and a soldier never stop being a soldier, he was trained to survive and to win, not to be conquered. 5 years alive in prison camps prove he is a survivor. He is willing to give his life for this country, I think he has USA best interest at heart. He made a smart VP choice, someone who will complement him in leading this country through the times of a decaying world.
How can someone be both a frontrunner and an underdog? Underachiever is more like it.
i was surprised that i reached the end of this opinion piece and didn't see the line "good heavens governor palin, you're beautiful!"
She fired up the base which was already on board. So net gain?......... none. Preaching to a ever shrinking republican core which is getting smaller and more cult like with each passing day. Not a recipe for victory.
So let me get this straight? The convention is full of people who still love Bush and Cheney. McCain...not so much. He's got to reach out to moderates, democrats and independents because there are simply not enough card carrying republicans to get him elected.
So, he's going to stand up there tonight and distance himself from the very leaders his audience still holds in their highest regards? And this is going to go over well with them? I think not.
He has an impossible tightrope to walk. Yes, the base likes Palin but her 'dysfunctional ready made for reality tv family' and multiple Alaska scandals make her a Brittini like distraction in the campaign.
Palin. Not a game changes. Obama still wins.
If the Dem's don't attack P.alin (They currently ARE) Then i'd say they were in trouble. Ultimately it comes down to this: O.bama vs. Mc.Cain and P.alin vs B.iden.
The debates will decide who runs this country for the next four years.
No one can pull defeat from the jaws of victory like the Dumbocrats. BWAHAAAHAA
Don't get me wrong I have no dog in this fight, I'm a Libertarian, you all suck Demoncrats, RePUBicans.
I hope you both fight each other until I'm the only one standing. America deserves better than both of you suck-a$$ losers.
Frankly, I think we saw the beginnings of a new Presidential Administration last night.
And no, I wasn't watching Obama.
This is not good...but I've been scoffed at for that opinion for days. I suspected McCain hit a homerun back on Friday. Just hide and watch, everybody.
No shes not lois lane she was a reporter and dug for the facts . What Palin did was more like lex luthor she lied. By the way clark wore the glasses . Were not afraid your also forgetting 2006 Rove didnt help them than did he ?
I still believe her speech was a rhetorical master stroke, whether she wrote it or not. She certainly appealed to the rightist base and also the small towners in the center, craving change but fearing it. She said nasty things about those who dislike her, which may tempt them into an intermporate reply. She played the no-nonsense mom with the cranky patriarch, designed to comfort those frightened by her enemies everywhere rhetoric. She is attractive and delivers a speech well, and although Obama's rhetorical strengths are superior, his rhetorical task is greater. She needs only to proffer preconceptions and myths; he needs always to finesse them.
www.phillipbannowsky.com
EGG? Kicked ass how? By offering no solutions to our problems and spewing out attacks to the Dems? WOW! She and McCain are totally going to turn this country around by doing exactly what Bush did the last 8 years to destroy it!
As a woman, I don't know how anyone could vote for Palin as VP "as a woman". She is a woman who's policies hate women! Pro-Life even in cases of rape & incest? Cutting funds for a halfway home for teenage women with babies? Sounds like she is a woman who hate women! Pro Choice isn't Pro Abortion, its valuing a woman's right to CHOOSE what she wants done to her body, ESPECIALLY when she didn't have the choice when she was raped!
I am a woman, and I am OFFENDED any woman would want to take away the right to what I do to my body! Sounds like the biggest sexist is the woman herself, not those who criticize her.
Yeah...Democrats are in trouble. They hold far larger leads at this time in major swing states than they ever did in 2004. McCain didnt win his party's nomination because he was a "fighter', he won because he was the least unfavorable of all your party's choices.
The conservatives didnt want McCain, they wanted Huckabee or Thompson, the business repos didnt want McCain, they wanted Romney and the moderates didnt want McCain, they wanted Ridge or 911 Rudy!
So in closing, your party picked the least viable candidate that actually represents but is also the most despised by the christionist wing of your party. Unfortunately neither the VP or POS candidate appeal to the mushy middle where we know all elections are won.
After 3 nights of bashing, not one word on the economy or any issuses that deal with the working man. Anti-abortion, anti-immigration and anti-gay is a very hard platform to convince America that you know how to govern.
You may know how to repress, lie, cheat and steal but even that isnt going well for you.
... this issue reflects such a shallow approach to an election- completely in line with the corporate media's approach- to think the injection of a brassy, inexpereinced women with an albeit atypical, interesting personal history is an election-turning issue borders on ridiculous... the ( then) appealing edwards didnt help kerry, kemp didnt help dole, ferraro didnt help mondale....the pistol -packin' mother of track and trig wont help mcbush if the voters vote about issues and the naitons wayward agenda..but with essayists like this writing pablum, it may just continue to be the vapid "people magazine" election the republicans want and need to have a chance of winning...
Yesterday, Sarah Palin unveiled the naked truth about women in politics, about herself in particular. She read the speech, word for word, that was written by Repubican men.
I think that was God's plan: Sending Eve Plain to be by the side of Adam McCain.
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Posted September 4, 2008 | 11:22 AM (EST)