Blowing the Opportunity

By BJ

I'm thinking this will be my last Palin post for a while. (I won't say last, because your god only knows what more may yet come out of the woodwork about her.) In the main, it is her speech last night that makes it far easier to ignore her. To be fair, some of the credit goes to Rudy Gulliani, who, as Elrod notes, loves his own voice so much that the GOP had to cancel the "soft-sell" biographical video and moved right into the, as Palin herself put it, pit bull with lipstick.

Mocking, sarcastic, and over-the-top, and it is the last that puts her off the table for now. As noted earlier, she didn't just fire up the GOP base, she fired up the Dems. Steve Benen put it this way:

Judging a speech like this, it's probably best to consider the goals and the audience. Going into the speech, I expected Palin to try to connect to a mainstream audience, demonstrating competence, credibility, and readiness. She already enjoys the support of the GOP base; Palin has to work on convincing everyone else.

And yet, she (or, more accurately, the McCain campaign aides who wrote her speech) went in a different direction, aiming to shore up the party's base even more. Instead of seriousness, Palin went for biting and sarcastic partisanship. Instead of presenting herself as a trustworthy leader, Palin proved herself an attack-dog ideologue. Instead of answering questions about readiness, she answered questions about who she hates and how much. Palin not only steered clear of the concerns of swing voters, she practically thumbed her nose at them.

What's more, Palin did this with a strikingly dishonest speech, filled with the kind of obvious and transparent falsehoods that even half-way knowledgeable observers can debunk off the top of their heads. Palin didn't just lie, she lied brazenly, as if to say, "I don't care."

And John Cole, as is often the case, points out why Palin's speech wasn't the home run the delirious GOP faithful are claiming it to be.

I suppose it will thrill the dead-enders in the blogosphere and shore up the base, but I simply can not see how it is going to play well to the independents and undecideds. America learned not one thing about Sarah Palin last night other than that she is a willing foot soldier for more of the same. There was no way forward. There was no sense of understanding of the challenges. There were no solutions. There was only divisiveness, nastiness, and sneering, which somehow is acceptable because it was delivered by someone in a dress (“See how tough she is!” they will all exclaim). Thank goodness the McCain campaign chose this path, because Palin could have been an effective weapon with the right message. Now, with their own words that they wrote for her, they have turned her into more of the same. While I am disgusted with them, I am also relieved that this is the path they have chosen. This will be rejected by the American public.

Again, I ask, this is the face of the GOP future? Thank goodness I got out when I did.

The Republicans took a fresh face with considerable potential and filled it with all the same old, tired attacks, blaming all of the ills of the last eight years they've been in charge on the people running to replace them.

Tonight, the same old, tired candidate they had before Hurricane Palin will take the stage and probably deliver a speech just as substance free as his VP pick's with even less charisma, and we can get back to pointing out that it is the guy at the top of the Republican ticket that doesn't have a clue.