Over the past days, I have grown impressed with Senator Palin’s experiences and in the way that she lives out her principles. But I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little nervous last night when she took the stage in St. Paul. While my fears were lessened by her first appearance with Senator McCain in Ohio and when I witnessed her delivery in person outside of St. Louis, it wasn’t until last night that I realized what an inspired gamble McCain made and how important it was for McCain to choose someone with whom many Americans could so well relate. Most career women who have families can relate to her struggles as a working mother, and so can their spouses.
Palin scored a hat trick with her speech — it was brilliantly delivered, full of humor, and attacked Obama’s lack of credentials head on while clearly elevating John McCain above the rookie senator from Illinois. Of course we knew it would play well to the crowd in St. Paul, but every indication is that it played well in middle America.
And their was carnage in the person of Joe Biden out of omission. Palin saw no need to compare herself to the 36-year Washington insider dismissing him by shear omission. And as of late, the great Obama has been placed in the seriously dangerous place as having to defend himself against the number 2 position on the opposition ticket. And by many accounts he’s not fairing well.
We can take a look at the latest Rasmussen poll that was taken primarily before Palin’s speech and find that not that many more independents believe that Obama is more qualified to be president than Palin. That’s before her amazing speech:
Perhaps most stunning is that, among unaffiliated voters, just 42% believe Obama has better experience than Palin to be President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) say Palin has the edge on experience. Again, most of the interviews for this survey were completed before Palin’s well-received speech last night.
There are many parts of her speech and appearance that I loved. The loving way in which she introduced her family served as an excellent way to introduce the Governor to the public viewing the speech at home. But I loved the way she delivered some of the best lines.
Governor Palin managed to work in Obama’s bitter Amnerican’s comment seamlessly into the delivery of her speech:
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
Regarding the pomp of Obama’s open air acceptance speech, Palin brilliantly delivered the following:
This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word “victory” except when he’s talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger … take more of your money … give you more orders from Washington … and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy … our opponent is against producing it.
And in a subtle way that speaks volumes she delivered the following line that compares the two candidates at the top of the ticket:
In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those who use their careers to promote change
Well done Governor Palin!
