John McCain, it turns out, is a genius.
His pick of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running-mate completely upstaged Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. As of Friday morning the putative brilliance of the speech was the only thing the press and the chattering class could talk about. If McCain had not announced his running mate when he did, they would still be talking about The Speech well into the Monday news cycle.
Instead, the topic is Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. The press is asking, “ Who is she? Is she qualified? What does she do for the ticket?”
Obama’s speech? Yesterday’s news. Oprah may have cried her false eyelashes off in vain.
Palin’s style, her accent, her politics and her values are all straight from the heartland –or as the coastal liberal elites call it, “Flyover Country.” With knee-jerk speed, the Obamists took a dismissive tone with Palin that the supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton will recognize at once.
The very first release from the Obama camp pooh-poohed Palin as the mayor of a small town. That she was, but as mayor she did things that Barack Obama has not yet done…such as manage a budget and a payroll and administer something larger than a charitable fund. As Governor of Alaska she has governed the largest state, in area, in the Union. She has mastered the complex issues of energy and the environment. She has managed a state budget in the billions of dollars.
Well, she’s only done that for two years, scoff the Obamists. But it’s two years more experience as a government executive than Barack Obama can boast of.
Obama has been hailed as a “post-partisan” politician, but it is Sarah Palin who is the genuine article. You’ve got to like the fact that her worst enemies in the state are Republican pols –the arrogantly self-described “Corrupt Bastards Club”-- whose bribe-taking from big oil and ethical lapses she fearlessly exposed and held to up to public scrutiny. How those Alaska Republicans despise her!
The Obamists are trying every talking point they can think of to gain traction against Palin: Does the selection of Palin indicate McCain’s judgment is too poor for the presidency? (On the contrary, it was a bold stroke of genius –see above.) McCain, it is complained. has “rolled the dice” on an ex-beauty queen (second place in the Miss Alaska pageant for which, I imagine, she got $10 and passed “Go.”).
The critics claim Palin’s pro-life views are too extreme (because she believed her unborn Down syndrome baby was a human being and because she brought him into the world —and a loving family— instead of aborting him?). Having complained about Palin’s pro-life views s the Obamists cynically ask if is appropriate for her to accept the Vice Presidency while raising an infant? (Are we saying a woman’s place is in the home??)
She has no foreign policy experience, the liberals cry …Except that she visited Alaskan National Guard troops in Kuwait and was able to visit wounded soldiers in Germany –a feat Obama failed to accomplish. In fact, she has the rare skill of being able to run for president and visit Germany without demanding to make a speech at the Brandenburg Gate.
There is very little mention of how she has lived the kind of typical American life Obama talks so much about but has no experience with personally. Her dad was an elementary schoolteacher and her mom was the school secretary. As point guard of her high school basketball team she helped lead the team to a state championship –while courageously playing through pain thanks to a stress fracture in her leg. She married her high school sweetheart and is still with him 20 years later as a mom of five. She and her husband both earned their livings doing hard physical work. She believes in the Second Amendment: Palin enjoys moose meat stew –especially if she shot the moose herself and most of all if she has spent the day snowmachineing.
She has moral courage that complements her physical stamina. She stands up to big oil and protects the interests of her state’s citizens in the development of Alaskan resources. She insists on clean and ethical government. She won the governorship without the help of the corrupt Republican state establishment, Palin is beholding only to the people, who have given her approval ratings of 80 percent and better.
It was very instructive to watch the Sunday morning news shows. The tone of condescension was overwhelming. Reporters and columnists said that she had appeal –not to college-educated voters, of course, but to blue-collar types who live between the coasts.
New York Times columnist David Brooks told Bob Schieffer that, yes, Palin stood up to big oil; she is a reformer; she took on the Corrupt Bastards Club and beat them…but she hasn’t really done anything! Rudy Giuliani, on “Face the Nation,” corrected Bob Schieffer’s dismissive characterization of her stint as a small town mayor. Palin, Giuliani said, has had to use all the skills of an executive in managing payrolls, making budgets and setting policy. What, he asked, has Obama run? All he has done is make speeches, Giuliani said, answering his own question.
I liked Jesse Jackson’s answer some months ago better. All Obama has run, said Jackson, “is his mouth.”
With Sarah Palin, McCain is attacking Barack Obama on the latter’s home territory by demonstrating he is willing to take bold action to bring change to government. Comparing Obama’s vice presidential pick of Washington insider (and serial plagiarist) Joe Biden to McCain’s choice of a little-known woman with solid reformist credentials argues credibly that McCain is the genuine agent of change…the real maverick.
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