Now, Sarah Palin is being taken seriously. Virtually unknown before last week, the Alaska governor’s searing speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night energized the audience and quieted many doubters.
Reviews ranged from shrill to super, from catty to courageous. But one thing is apparent: Palin is ready to go, and makes John McCain’s candidacy much more interesting.
We still question her experience, and whether she’s ready to be president of the United States, but let there be no doubt whether she can fill the traditional role of a VP candidate on the campaign trail.
She stirred the partisan crowd at the Xcel Center with her hard-hitting, 30-minute speech, which did what it was supposed to: attack the top of the other party’s ticket, exalt McCain and introduce herself to voters, most of whom didn’t know she even existed last week.
The oration was peppered with shots at Obama.
“Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. 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.”
Zing.
Before law school, Obama worked as a community organizer — a job most Americans knew little about before this race — on Chicago’s South Side.
Palin also presented her family, some of whom have been under a media spotlight this week. She nobly focused on her special-needs 4-month-old son — “a perfectly beautiful baby boy” — as well as her eldest child, who leaves for Iraq next week as an Army infantryman.
As for McCain, she was sufficiently boosterish, evoking his Vietnam War record (now becoming a tired but necessary mantra of the campaign) and commenting on his (and her) energy policy and on the power of the veto.
Though ragged around the edges in places, Palin’s speech was targeted at Middle America. As Palin, with her own small-town ties, put it, “(These people) are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America — who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.”
Say what you will about Palin — nasty pit bull or GOP savior — her speech Wednesday, and her official nomination Thursday as the Republican vice presidential candidate, was truly historic. Only once before (Geraldine Ferraro in 1984) has a major political party nominated a woman to serve as vice president.
Alaska may have been Seward’s Folly in 1867 when the United States bought the territory from Russia, but in 2008, Sarah Palin so far is proving herself to be no fool.
