Regarding the Palin nomination, Peggy Noonan, and the premature pontifications here and here: I guess the flip response could be “you wish.” Check out how the three post convention polls are tracking according to realclearpolitics.
John Belushi channels his reaction from the great beyond:
I guess two can succeed at the let’s nominate a “charismatic politician with a thin resume” game. It will be exciting (to say the least!) to see how the cerebral one with coastal appeal fares against the one that middle America can relate to.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Steve Roth // Sep 8, 2008 at 8:06 am
>how the cerebral one with coastal appeal fares
>against the one that middle America can relate to
“Relate to”? Isn’t that touchy-feely liberal talk? Is Davis right that “the issues don’t matter?” Is “he/she’s like me” America’s defining and dominant criterion? (As for me, I’d like to have a beer with me, but I sure don’t want me to be president.)
Could be. But…
“The G.O.P is absent an agenda that relates to average Americans.”
–Don Sipple, former Bush adviser
“I don’t see how he can win if he doesn’t talk about the number-one issue in every poll and say something besides generic Republican dogma.”
–Jan van Lohuizen, Bush pollster in 2004
“McCain may have more to worry about on the tax front than any Republican presidential candidate in a generation.”
–Major Garrett, Fox reporter
2 Steve Broback // Sep 8, 2008 at 10:19 am
Sorry, shall I use “resonate” instead?
Populism is a powerful force, and there are two major strains. The populism that emphasizes redistribution and social justice (Edwards — soaking the fat cats) and the one that emphasizes freedom from gov’t interference (Reagan — get the government “off our backs.”) Obama seems to lean on the former, and Palin who forcefully stresses the latter.
You don’t need to convince me that Bush and the (former) Republican congress had deviated seriously from what most conservatives are looking for fiscally. Regarding Palin, she talks the Reagan line well, but would she and her running mate really deliver? The party might implode if it’s another bait and switch situation…
3 Teresa Valdez Klein // Sep 8, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Steve, it would be all well and good for Palin if she were consistent about getting the government off our backs. But she just plain isn’t. Look at the gross fiscal incompetence that characterized her run as mayor of Wasilla.
Keeping the government off our backs with low taxes is great, but only if you can actually reduce spending by being prudent with the budget. Palin hasn’t shown she’s capable of that.
As Krauthammer wrote Friday, Palin is going to have to deliver “unteleprompted, extemporaneous magic” from now until election day for her brand of populism to work out.
Still, nobody ever went broke underestimating the American people. I wait with bated breath.
4 Steve Broback // Sep 9, 2008 at 9:54 am
Krauthammer is largely right, although I doubt perfection is required for Palin to remain a powerful force. You’re nitpicking on the hockey arena. Both Obama and Palin are embraced largely because of philosophy and charisma at this point, not records.
Coastal intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals who embrace an elevated, collective spirit get all tingly over Obama while middle America individualists soil themselves over someone who appears to be channeling Reagan.
Regarding hockey arenas, DUIs, teenage pregnancies, false book ban stories etc. I’m finding the frantic attempts to propagate something (anything!) that sticks to the wall amusing. I’m sure she has her equivalent of Rev Wright somewhere. The left should wait until it truly appears — all this crying wolf every ten minutes will hurt Obama’s chances more than help him.
I’ve heard the underestimating line before. The “smart” people like this one. It featured prominently when we elected a former “B” movie star to be president. Perceived condescension is one of the reasons Obama is in decline, if you want to help him win, I’d minimize this kind of rhetoric. Regarding “smart” people, I align with Buckley and what he had to say about the Harvard faculty vs the Boston phone book.
5 Teresa Valdez Klein // Sep 9, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Steve, there are lots of different kinds of smart people. Everyone who ever meets you knows that you have more grey matter than most Harvard professors, but you’re not some effete liberal.
Would you rather have a smart person or an ideologically driven crazy person — or someone who will cave to their demands running our country? That’s what leads me to support Obama, not his soaring rhetoric about elevated collective spirit.
And for the record, I look at that rhetoric and see more echoes of Reagan than Palin will ever evoke. So, apparently, does the late president’s wife.
6 Steve Broback // Sep 9, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Great points here! Nicely done. Let me ruminate and read a bit and I’ll respond…
7 Tara Dunion // Sep 12, 2008 at 7:01 am
Steve: what part of firing the local librarian for no cause after she won’t ban books is “false book ban” that you reference above. http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/515512.html.
8 Steve Broback // Sep 29, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I guess I’d say “correlation is not causation…” I’m going with factcheck.org on this: “As we’ve noted, Palin did not attempt to ban any library books. We don’t know if Emmons’ resistance to Palin’s questions about possible censorship had anything to do with Emmons’ firing. And we have no idea if the protests had any impact on Palin at all. There simply isn’t any evidence that we can find either way. “
Leave a Comment