"Hurricane Sarah" Whips Up Mixed Reactions At GOP Convention
ST. PAUL -- The hurricane has been downgraded -- and I'm not talking about Gustav but the Republicans' love affair with Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, their party's presumptive vice presidential nominee. Unalloyed elation didn't last the holiday weekend. Friday in Dayton and Sunday in Minneapolis, Republicans were telling me, again and again, that Palin had lifted their spirits and hopes both for November and for the future. But the story today that Palin's seventeen year-old daughter is pregnant and soon to marry is a harbinger of storms on the horizon. Likely this revelation isn't the last about a Palin. However much people may sympathize with the Palin family here, and many do, voters tend to feel they have enough problems of their own without adding those of a potential vice president to the mix. Sarah Palin may turn out to be too tempest-tossed.
The Governor of Alaska continues to be the talk of the town. Sunday evening at the Minneapolis Convention Center before the opening night delegate party, a small band marched through the doors chanting and waving flags. "Oh my God," gasped the volunteer with whom I'd been talking. "Protesters!" "No, no," I assured her, "they're not saying 'Fire It Up!' but 'Gear It Up.'" This was the Alaska delegation, surprised and pleased to be the center of sudden attention, graciously willing to speak with each of the reporters who thronged them. Dave Donley, a sixteen-year veteran of the Alaska legislature and now retired, talked approvingly about Palin's toughness. His wife Jamie, even though she had been pregnant at the time, had volunteered early for Sarah Palin in her race for the governorship. "We call her Sarah," Rex Dennis (his two first names) said. "Everybody does. Politics -- it's personal in our state. There's only 650,000 of us. We got the land -- Alaska is one-fifth the size of the United States -- but not the population. Plus she's been more accessible than past governors. She's held these governor's picnics in small towns; she's mingled. She's cut up the watermelon."
Delegate Rex talked about the unusual foreign policy experience of an Alaskan governor. "Alaska has trade relationships with four or five countries. Anchorage International is the second largest cargo airport in the world, because we're only seven air hours from anywhere." Both Rex and Jennifer, also a delegate, told the anecdotes, already iconic, about Palin's refusing the gubernatorial cook and the personal airplane. "She shows what you can learn in small-town America," Jennifer said. "And more importantly she's revitalized the Republican Party."
Monday, while the convention delegates engaged in necessary party business and launched the Hurricane Gustav Relief Effort (and surely it was a relief that President Bush and Vice President Cheney now had a good reason to absent themselves from St. Paul), the media was left to contemplation of larger policy issues and of itself. During the day conversations and panel discussions circled McCain's Choice. At the Politico/Yahoo!/Pioneer Press Convention Conversations breakfast, Tucker Carlson, asked about Sarah Palin, gushed, "I am blinded by love. I love women who hunt and fish." Any woman, Tucker said, "holding a thirty-pound salmon, I love you!" Peggy Noonan confessed she'd been curious about Americans' responses to Palin. "I do think the choice of Sarah Palin was a real Hail Mary pass. Hail Mary passes -- they usually don't work. But when you see one that does work, it's a thing of beauty and a joy forever."
Sarah Palin even came up in Monday's highbrow "Conversations about Politics and Policy" at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. In a panel discussion on climate change and energy security, former New York Governor George Pataki called Governor Palin "an energy expert," as part of his observation that leadership on climate change begins at the state level. Moderating the discussion "Conservatism Today," E.J. Dionne asked his panelists to say something about McCain's choice of Palin. David Frumm of the American Enterprise Institute said that his emails had been running ninety-eight to two, for and against, and that such a choice as Palin, with its de-emphasis on the issue of national security, would have been unthinkable in 2004. "There is something about this choice that is profoundly emotional," Frumm added. Ross Douthat of The Atlantic reminded everybody that he'd touted a McCain-Palin ticket months ago. "As a pro-life conservative myself, I'm intensely interested how this will play out," Douthat said. "You're [Palin] living the pro-life message but profoundly alienating a lot of people." On the other hand, "she's lived a lot of the challenges people struggle with." Vin Weber of the National Endowment for Democracy ventured that "so far she's helpful." Seeking perhaps to bolster this lukewarm endorsement, he added, "I was impressed with how my two teenage daughters reacted to her [Palin] in Dayton." (Clearly, Weber had not been keeping up with the press alerts on his Blackberry.)
All these Monday panelists tempered enthusiasm with grave reservations about Palin. Even the smitten Tucker Carlson called McCain reckless and said that "this whole thing could blow up." David Frumm said first thing, "I've been very worried by the Sarah Palin choice. . . . I really hope McCain has done his homework on this election -- but I suspect he didn't." Frumm's fellow panelist Mickey Edwards, currently at Princeton and the Aspen Institute, suggested that McCain's own polling is showing that the race is not nearly as even as the national polls indicate and that therefore he knew he had to take a gamble.
Very much in form, Peggy Noonan in the morning pivoted gracefully from quoting Keats to flicking the knife. The Democrats need to be thinking, she said, "We gotta kill her -- and we gotta kill her quick." But Monday didn't play out Noonan-style. If anything, Barack Obama came to the defense of Sarah Palin and her daughter by reminding everybody that he was born to a teenage mother. The glory of Denver, however long ago the Democratic Convention now seems, is telling. In contrast with the high excitement in the unfolding of the Democratic pageant, the announcement of the pregnancy of the unmarried seventeen year-old daughter of the Republican vice presidential candidate is a convention downer. St. Paul this far is not what anybody expected, and so Election 2008 continues to surprise.
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Trade policy is not Foreign policy
talking fish sales is not talking Nukes!
Thanks McCain. This is a gift to Obama/Biden 08. Actually, George Bush lowered the standards for republicans, so these people are prepared to support anybody and to force them on the rest of us.
So true, If "Cute" is what our government is about, Sarah wins the beauty contest. Our country is so much more than this.
Funniest blog headline of the primary season was "Glass ceiling survives Hurricane Hillary." Will it survive Sarah?
Just heard the best line of the evening on MSNBC:
Andrea Mitchell: Do you feel Sarah Palin is qualified to be commander-in-chief if g-d forbid, something should happen to John McCain?
Joe Lieberman: Well…you know…let’s assume the best (chuckles uncomfortably). John’s in great shape, he’s gonna be the president and let’s assume that nothing bad will happen…why should we? But if it does…yes, she’ll be ready.
I heard that MSNBC is reporting that Bristol, the daugheter, did not know that her mother received the VP nod. She and the rest ot the kids were put on the plane and told they were going on a trip to celebrate a family event. It looks like Palin tricked Bristol into participating in the announcement "dog and pony show/" Poor Girl.
Yeah. The kids are off limits -- except in Palin orchestrated GOP photo-ops.
Frankly, if her short-tenure in politics has been so "radical" and "reforming" as she claims, then her record as mayor and governor deserves close scrutiny, before we hand her the keys to the White House.
Her slogan in Alaska has been "Open, honest and transparent." So why is Palin refusing press interviews and hiding now? And why did she recently hire lawyers to stonewall the investigation into her firing of an Alaskan commissioner, after repeatedly saying she would cooperate and had 'nothing to hide?'
Is she really a honest reformer who will "shake up" Washington, or just another pork-barrel politician with a record of "shaking down" Washington?
Is she using her career to advance change or "change" to advance her career?
In her speech, she blantantly pandered to Americans with disabled children, making sure her young son was prominently displayed for the camera. But does her public record support her pledge? Has she ever been a champion for disabled Americans?
The real sexist double standard would be allowing her to billittle and attack her opponents' backgrounds and positions ruthlessly while not allowing her to be held accountable to the same level of scrutiny.
I think that Peggy Noonan was hoping that the Democrats would try to kill her and kill her quick. Otherwise, this is just the gift that keeps on giving. The next phase: Troopergate.
Obama was right to distance himself from this. Had he not, the red meat would have been flying.
Smart move.
Ya know, I sit here at my desk, doing executive things and such, whilst watching the GOP convocation, er, I mean convention. MY BIG QUESTION? why is everyone in the no completely filled venue, SO OLD?
Your BIG QUESTION is why everyone is so old? I think that sounds a lot about you. Enough said.
I love when people use curt and purportedly tough-sounding phrases like "Enough said," trying to sound all intellectually superior, right on the heels of glaring grammatical errors like "soulds a lot about you."
Yes, well, I think that "sounds" a lot about you too.
:)
not to mention WHITE .................
This week, I heard Tucker Carlson as part of a panel on C-Span. He said that he is a part of the MSNBC team.
I feel sorry for him then. MSNBC is losing ratings, because it is not that credible anymore. Their objective journalism is hard to rate now, it is practically non-existent, but I would rate them well below the Enquirer.
They have deliberately creatd a liberal counterpoint to Fox.
Someone had to.... before the nation's heads exploded.
Palin is no threat to the democrats.
Yes she is, that is why the Obama democrats are so viciously attacking her now. They are scared. I do make a point to distinquish between Obama democrats and Hillary democrats now, because I if I lumped you altogether, it would not be fair to the Hillary democrats.
Dear Up (Wit being an incorrect appellation): No one needs to viciously attack Palin; she has put herself on the block with a very checquered past which would not have passed muster with better Repub vetting. The only scary thing about Palin is that there are folks in trailer parks everywhere who love her and can't tell who she really is. A mom of 5 with an infant who hops a plane at a moment's notice on a bid for personal fame. Fred Thompson thinks she's great 'cuz she can strip and clean a moose which she just killed. Feel safer now? 'Nuf said.
No not scared!
We are just disgusted!
VP? futrure president? Qualified at a moment's notice?
--Di I dare say NO!!!
Obama has not attacked her. Not once. Neither has his campaign. And neither has any major Dem.
The "fact" that they have done so is a talking point of the McC-Palin ticket.
The facts are that the media have rightfully done the vetting the McC camp didn't think they needed to. And the blogosphere has gone on the attack.
Last I checked, even if a blogger or a pundit attacks a candidate, that doesn't automatically translate as an attack from "the other side." At least not in the minds of thinking people.... Republican minds, I can't speak for them.
lol. Who has attacked her? People are asking very legitimate questions about who she is, what she believes, why, and what she has done. Calling BS when it is laid out in front of you and called a chicken dinner is *not* an attack.
Govenor Palin said the main difference between a "Soccer Mom" and a "Pit Bull" is lipstick!
Watch out OBAMA...
And they accuse the phantom agents of their criticism of sexist language. Right.
And just what does that mean anyway? If you can drive an SUV load of kids, three dozen sandwiches, and a few thousand dollars worth of equipment around icy roads on a cold Sunday morning, you are a tough beeatch trained by maulers tear the ears off of any opponent rather than fight fair?
Oh, right. Maybe it was a good analogy for a Republican then.
hopefully Hanna and Ike will keep the nation focused on the region the republicans forgot.... the gulf coast.
Hi Mayhill,
Pundits speak as if Sarah Palin was chosen solely by a maverick, reform-minded McCain. This can't be entirely true. Who was involved in the vetting process and what can you tell us about it?
The high-risk Palin choice gives the impression that the GOP is populated by politicians who to a man and woman are either compromised, inept or unelectable.
First there are the Governor's visible shortcomings, which as you say are now mounting within the GOP establishment. Then there's the fact that the GOP had to go all the way to a state of minimal electoral importance to find a candidate - a dynamic individual with no political experience outside of state politics - who would add youthful luster to the aging McCain's image as an energetic reformer.
So it's fair to ask: is the GOP barrel really and truly that empty? Can anyone in St Paul name a stronger candidate, male or female? A fair question for the delegates and pundits, I think, even if some walk away from you the minute they hear it.
Enjoy your posts. They take us to the steak below the sizzle, where the meat we see must be chewed awful hard to be swallowed.
Steve from Berkeley days
im guessing that both attendance and ratings wont be anywhere close to the dem convention.
I hope Sen. Joe Lieberman will give a speach detailing exactly why Sarah Palin is a better choice for V.P. than he is. How has Sarah over powered Joe's grasp on nation events? How has Sarah left Joe in the dust? How has he been made a fool?
This VP pick shows McCain's lack of judgment. Palin has ZERO foreign policy experience. The American people need to think rationally about this election - Our country is in crisis and Palin would be A HEART BEAT away from the presidency!
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