Palin reveals bright future in Vice Presidential debate

Written by Viguerie on Fri Oct 03 12:50:40 -0400 2008

By Jeffrey A. Rendall

Many conservatives will always remember September 3, 2008 as the day when Sarah Palin introduced herself to the country with her stirring speech at the Republican National Convention – and it’s true, Palin’s fans will look back with fondness to the night when she popularized ‘lipstick’ and  ‘pit bulls’ and ‘hockey moms’ in the same riddle.

But it’s also arguable that October 2, 2008 will be even more significant in the annals of Palin’s conservative movement history, the night when she cemented her place in the political future by sharing the stage with Democratic Senator Joe Biden for the lone vice presidential debate (which took place at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri) of the season and holding her own.

It’s safe to say that nearly everyone was waiting to see how she’d handle the moment when confronted with the need to discuss issues that she wasn’t very familiar with just a few months before – to look like she knew what she was talking about, and maintain her composure while doing it.
‘Presidential’ is a word we’re hearing a lot lately – as if being able to rattle off the names of obscure foreign leaders or every aspect of John McCain’s regulatory history makes one ‘presidential.’

It would be a tall order for anyone who grew up in a town of 10,000 to be so ‘worldly’ – or even for someone from a city of 10 million.  And all in all, Palin did it.

You can breathe now.  I’ve been holding my breath for several weeks, and it feels darn good to have some fresh oxygen in my lungs.  Palin didn’t screw up the presidential race – and now only John McCain can save his campaign.  Palin didn’t ‘beat’ Joe Biden in this debate as much as she established herself as someone to reckon with – a politician with passion, humor, a fairly solid command of the facts and a form of ‘gravitas’ that this country has never seen before.

Palin is tough – and still looks feminine.  She takes on the men without the need to act like one.  She’s as credible as Hillary Clinton yet she’s still someone you’d want to take on a date – how’s that for a model female politician.

The debate format was fairly standard and structured – five minute segments offering each candidate a chance to speak and rebut.  The ‘moderator,’ Gwen Ifill, was not a factor in the forum despite her obvious conflict of interest in favor of the Obama/Biden side.  Ifill almost seemed like she went out of her way to appear impartial – to the point where you barely noticed her presence.

Or maybe it was because you couldn’t take your attention off the ‘action’ on the stage.  Senator Joe Biden’s been a creature of Washington for 35 years (he was elected to the Senate at age 29), and was anxious to inform the viewing audience that he knows every nuance of every detail in legislation that he’s ever come across, as well as having traveled extensively on taxpayer funded fact-finding missions as part of his ‘duty’ as a Senator.

Biden said he was Israel’s ‘best friend in the Senate,’ and he’s visited refugee camps in Africa.  He said he knows all about Iran’s governmental system, and if pressed, he could probably tell you the demographic breakdown of the nation of Djibouti on the east coast of Africa (that last one I made up, but you get the point).

The question is – does Barack Obama know all that stuff too?
 
Palin spells ‘R-E-L-I-E-F’

I think the first reaction to Palin’s showing from conservatives, Republicans and the McCain folks is complete and utter RELIEF.  Palin wasn’t perfect, but ‘good enough’ to appear credible and sufficiently folksy to regain a lot of the good will that’s been lost in the past few weeks with a series of awkward national media appearances.

For those of us who know anything about Sarah Palin, we figured that she’d come across well in the debate – but she exceeded expectations.

Palin did seem very nervous in the beginning, much more ‘stiff’ than typical for her.  She eased up about halfway through the debate when she started having ‘fun,’ and even got windy-old Joe Biden to smile on numerous occasions.

For his part, Biden stuck to his script amazingly well, tying McCain to George W. Bush from the opening bell until the final ‘thank yous.’
Biden’s incessant attacks on McCain became less effective as the debate progressed, however, because they started to blend together into a hodgepodge of politician-speak.  

Biden’s least effective ‘rant’ in the debate came when he said ‘John McCain is not a maverick.’  Well, if McCain isn’t an ideological conservative and isn’t adopted by the liberals, then how do you explain where he stands?  Biden’s own personal history of praising McCain on numerous occasions detracts from his claims to ‘know’ that McCain isn’t a maverick.

Palin scored points when she turned the tables on Obama’s campaign with their ‘percentage’ statistics.  Obama spouts at every campaign stop that McCain votes with George W. Bush 90% of the time – but Palin pointed out that Obama votes with his party leadership 96% of the time.
Her folksy style is so disarming that you can’t help but like her.  Her ‘vision’ isn’t quite like that of Ronald Reagan, yet there’s an inherent quality about her that most of us can relate to.  When Palin tells of sitting around the kitchen table talking with husband Todd about health insurance, you get the idea that she’s actually done it.

Palin’s life is crystal clear and vivid as a Norman Rockwell painting.  Obama’s life is so blurry it could only be captured by a Baroque-style impressionist – but with far less color.  

Can you really imagine Barack Obama sitting with Michelle at their oversized kitchen table, sipping instant coffee, eating frozen waffles and wondering where their next dollar is going to come from?

I’ll never understand the polls that show people believe Obama ‘understands my problems’ better than other candidates.  The clear difference:  Obama’s ‘studied’ it – Palin ‘lived’ it.

Far removed from the kitchen table -- when Biden talks about ‘Barack Obama’s vision’ for America, you can’t help but picture some stuffed-shirt Harvard professors sitting around a polished hardwood table in a room with oak panels and the smell of cigar smoke contemplating how they can aid the plight of the ‘little man.’

Thank you for your compassion, Barack, but most of us ‘little men’ would just as soon go it alone.

Sarah Palin is the anti-intellectual.  It’s not that she isn’t smart – this debate more than anything demonstrated that she has a grasp of the issues.  She’s the type of person who appears to have honed her views by being around people like John McCain, rather than consulting the high-minded scholars who make their money by burying themselves in parchment scrolls and hobnobbing only with pointy-headed data crunchers.

Palin’s spent more time with grizzly bears than the intelligentsia, and she’s clearly better off for it.

Palin is ‘real’ to the hilt.  She’s the kind of person that you’d feel comfortable inviting over for burgers and hot dogs.  If Barack Obama were to show up, you’d better have a side of Arugula and be ready to share the nutrition statistics – and if he didn’t like what you were serving, he’d call up the FDA on his speed-dial and report you to the federal food police.

Populism on both sides

Both candidates made no attempt to conceal a populist streak.  When asked who was to blame for the sub-prime lending crisis, Palin immediately echoed John McCain in blaming the predatory lenders and the ‘greedy’ on Wall Street.

Here’s where I think the McCain campaign has missed a golden opportunity to take control of the dominant issue in the presidential race.  Instead of properly placing the blame on the relaxing of lending standards as pushed by the Clinton Administration in the 90’s (and continued through the corruption of Fannie and Freddie, primarily from Democrats) – the McCain ticket continues to push a form of economic populism that they can’t hope to wrest from the Democrats.

Obama and Biden are simply more credible in claiming they’ll go after business interests – because as Big Government socialists, they can’t wait to start drawing up more restrictions to place on the free market.

As part of his campaign, Palin has to recite the McCain position on the subject, but if this is what she truly believes, that’s problematic for conservatives.

Why doesn’t McCain (as suggested by Newt Gingrich and many others) come right out and support the market-oriented alternative ‘bailout’ plan as pushed by the House GOP conservatives?

It boggles the mind – with public opinion running so heavily against any kind of bailout, it simply does not make sense to stick to this ‘greed on Wall Street’ position on the financial crisis.

Did greed on Wall Street force people to buy homes they couldn’t afford – or was it because some federal bureaucrat strong-armed the banking industry to loosen lending standards?

Did greed on Wall Street lead to a bailout of the auto industry too?

Drill Baby Drill

As would be expected, Sarah Palin hit hard on the energy issue – not only because of her extensive experience with it as Governor of Alaska, but also because it resonates with the American public.

Energy is clearly the issue that Palin feels the most comfortable chatting about, and speaks passionately about it.  Palin took several side-trips into discussing energy when asked about different subjects – which was a bit annoying that she didn’t directly address the questions, but it was also understandable that this is where she wanted to make her pitch.

Palin was effective in making the case for exploiting America’s resources, but neither she nor John McCain seems to hit on the point that developing more energy actually makes smart financial sense – not only will it help consumers at the gas station, it’ll pour several hundred billion dollars a year into the public treasury.

No one believes that Congress needs any more money to spend, but when we’re running such huge budget deficits -- that’s money that needs to stay here at home.

Taxes, taxes, taxes

In addition to energy, Palin kept coming back to the tax issue – claiming that Barack Obama either voted to raise (or not oppose) taxes 94 times while in the Senate, and that his proposed tax increases would hurt small businesses much more than Obama represents.

Biden defended Obama’s tax record, and again claimed that Obama would cut taxes for 95% of the tax- paying public.

Biden didn’t call paying taxes ‘patriotic’ this time, but he said it’s a fundamental issue of ‘fairness’ for the wealthy to get an increase.  The Democrats’ tortured logic is never more evident than when talking about confiscatory redistribution schemes (sometimes known as taxes).  If they’re professing to increase rates on the people who already carry most of the burden and ‘cut’ rates for those who don’t pay any taxes at all, how is that ‘fair?’

It’s evident that Palin advocates lower taxes and smaller government – but both she and John McCain need to be more effective in exposing the fallacy of the liberals.

Emotion, too

The emotional highlight of the debate came towards the end when Palin mentioned third graders back home in Alaska, who will ‘get extra credit for watching this debate.’  Why is that effective?  Because you KNOW she’s actually talking about real kids – it’s not phony.

Biden displayed some of the pompous windbag tendencies that he’s known for, but seemed for the most part to keep it under wraps.  He even cracked up a bit when he talked about how he knows what it’s like to raise kids in challenging circumstances.

Wrapping up

Sarah Palin’s strong showing in the vice presidential debate won’t swing the race all the way back to John McCain – but she did provide an ‘opening’ for McCain to adopt some strong conservative positions in order to at least get people to take a second look at his candidacy.

McCain’s inability to advance a coherent pro-freedom message in the past two weeks has hurt him dearly, and there’s some question whether he can still find a way to get his ‘mojo’ back.

Conservatives have often wished that the Republican ticket was reversed, with Palin as the top draw and McCain supporting.  Palin came across as young and somewhat inexperienced in this debate – not necessarily negative traits, but there’s also a sense of gladness that she’s still got some time to refine herself.  Palin could step in to the presidency if necessary, but one thing is undeniable – Palin has an unbelievably bright future in the Republican Party.

One can only imagine how well she’ll do in future debates when she’s not so ‘new,’ and will be free to speak of her vision alone for the country that she loves.

Let’s only hope that the future will start sooner than 2012.