Yolanda,
I have one piece of advice. Do not underestimate Sarah Palin. She is about to give John McCain the White House.
Within 24 hours of Palin being named by McCain as the VP candidate I joined a Facebook group called "Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton." It is a group of women offended by the idea that Palin's candidacy could be used as a cynical identity politics ploy to get HRC voters. But tonight I realized something much scarier: Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton, she is much worse.
Palin is more ruthless, more eloquent, more audaciously dishonest, more single mindedly ambitious, more likeable, and eminently more electable than Hillary Clinton has ever dreamed of being. I am scared. America is loving this woman. I predict a 5 point jump in the polls after her speech tonight.
The most important statistic two months before an election is not the number who like or dislike a candidate; it is the number of people who do not yet have an opinion. We call this the "potential for learning." A savvy campaigner knows that if many people still haven't formed an opinion then you have plenty of room to teach the public about yourself on your own terms. This was the problem with HRC and part of why I claimed she was unelectable. Everyone had an opinion about Hillary: good or bad, there was no learning potential, people had their minds made up. With Sarah the game is different. No one had any opinion, how could they? Now the GOP has two months to tell us anything they want about her and we have little choice but to listen. Tonight's speech was round 1 and Palin delivered a knock-out.
Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton. Hillary put her own dreams on hold for decades to stand by her man and pursue the dreams of her husband. Then she watched as he squandered much of her potential political capital this season. Palin has allowed nothing to stand in the way of her meteoric political rise: not a pregnant, unmarried teen daughter; not a son leaving for war; not a special needs infant still in arms. Sarah Palin is a frightening and potent political mix. Her uterus is just part of the terrain of her politics. Her children are evidence of her pro-life agenda and small town values. She shameless stands next to her pregnant teen daughter and the baby-daddy while proclaiming herself the future guardian of our children. No thanks Sarah, I would rather not have you making policy for my daughter.
Sarah is no member of the sisterhood of traveling, sweet-potato inspired, pantsuits. She is a pencil skirt wearing tough girl who makes jokes about being a pit bull in lipstick. She boldly asserts that her record as the mayor of a tiny town is relevant experience for the US presidency. She correctly pronounces Iran, which is something our current president cannot do. She laughs at the national media and lets them know she is not interested in cuddling up with them. hell no, Sarah can field dress a moose, she will not need to have Chris Matthews' approval. She makes fun of Barack Obama with an audaciousness and ugliness that Hillary tried to summon, but never quite managed to pull off with as much charm and self-deprecation as Sarah did tonight. Trust that Sarah Palin is not going to cry about the mean things the pundits say about her.
And I have to say it Yolanda, Sarah speaks with a kind of fiery self-assurance that is very familiar to me. It is the hard, bright blindness of righteousness that I so often see in evangelical Christian political leaders. There is something remarkable and frightening about truly believing that you are marked by God to do what you want to do. It makes you impervious to criticism and unlikely to experience self-doubt.
This woman will not stumble. If she has an ounce of breath in her body she is going to try and drag that old man across the finish line.
Melissa
Posts
