Sarah Palin Saves Her Political Future
Going into the Vice Presidential debate I worried about Gov. Sarah Palin. Since Sen. John McCain announced her as his running mate and her amazing acceptance speech I got caught up in her magical launch upon the American scene. Since then Palin has had shaky and poor interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric.
I care more about Palin as the future standard bearer for conservatives than I do for the McCain campaign. She connects with the grassroots better than any politician I’ve seen in my life. (Too young to appreciate Reagan as President.) I worried Palin allowed herself to be sheltered by a campaign too fearful of her making mistakes. A lousy debate performance would have burned into the public’s mind the notion of Palin as a joke. Palin would have been vaguely remembered as that governor who looked like Tina Fey.
Palin’s political future remains intact. She held her own against a highly-experienced, well-versed, and occasionally wrong Sen. Joe Biden. Palin didn’t look like a fool and didn’t make McCain look like the same for choosing her. On points Biden won. The guy rattled off facts left and right like he’s been a Senator for 30+ years. If you choose a winner based on expectations Palin won by being plain spoken and different from anyone in Washington. Her best attribute is how normal she appears.
Biden won when it came to knowing a lot about a lot of stuff. Yet Palin connected to the audience better. And she even dished it out a little. There were times when Sen. Biden smiled at Palin telling himself, “She got me. She’s good.” The woman has skills. Not shocking since she was elected as governor of Alaska.
I can’t see Palin as President yet, but I could see a time when she could be. It doesn’t matter if McCain loses in November Palin has the chance of leading the Republican Party and the conservative movement in 2012 if she wants to. Not bad for being on a national ticket for only five weeks.
Other reaction:
- Patrick Ruffini declared: “Sarah is back”
- Peggy Noonan: “She Killed. She was the star.”
- Andy McCarthy sees Palin as the baseball rookie with loads of potential.
- Frank Luntz’s focus group loved Palin.
- Plenty on Twitter hate Palin.
- Even a prominent Palin hater had to say nice things.
- Fox News fact-checked both Biden and Palin.
She held her own, missed opportunities to respond more strongly, hit some out of the park.
What I was most pleased with is that we finally got to see some of that pitbull. She bared her teeth a little and we got to hear some of _her_ and not some script (though each certainly had scripts to read from, and did so).
As far as winning, in politics facts are pretzel dough, twisted to fit one’s policy initiatives and ideology. And as such, anyone (outside of insiders) who listened/watched that ‘debate’ simply cannot know if any fact given by either was a straight shot. They can BELIEVE but they cannot know….. until all the post-debate analysis comes out.
And even then: be aware of the slant.
If there must be a winner, then let it be the peeps who get to hear the contenders for the most part unscripted.
A quick observation:
After crooning all night “change this”, “change that”, “change everything”, Biden then said, “I’ve been in the Senate for thirty years and anyone who knows me knows I’m not gonna change.”
oh, baby. He walked the bases loaded and, on this one, Palin went down looking.