Stumper

The Cheaper Seats

Andrew Romano — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:53:48 GMT

About the time John McCain was accepting the Republican presidential nomination last night, this photo came across the wires:

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

In case you haven't fully familiarized yourself with the glamor shot in the upper left-hand corner of this page, that's yours truly in the front row of the Xcel Energy Center's media workspace, second from the left. I'm flanked (from left to right) by my NEWSWEEK colleagues Adam Kushner, Holly Bailey and Carl Sullivan. We had the best press seats in the house.

Speaking of the media and seating, I just boarded the 9:18 Northwest flight from Minneapolis to New York-LaGuardia and, lo and behold, spotted Anderson Cooper and Diane Sawyer sitting in the same row up in first class. Stumper, on the hand, has been relegated to seat 25B. Second row from the back of the aircraft. Middle seat.

One must know one's place.

I'll be in transit for much of the rest of the day--and probably sleeping for the rest. Expect lighter-than-usual posting as a result.

Thanks so much for reading,
Andrew

Convention Choreography

Andrew Romano — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:35:31 GMT

For those of you wondering how much of what happens at these conventions is scripted, here's your answer: all of it.

She hugs them. They start to walk off.

Spotted on the teleprompter last night as Cindy McCain arrived on stage with her sons and daughters to introduce the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

For the record, "give somewhat tedious speech" never appeared on the screen. I guess the RNC allows its speakers to improvise that part.

The Filter: September 5, 2008

Andrew Romano — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:51:26 GMT

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

THE PARTY IN POWER, RUNNING AS IF IT WEREN'T
(Peter Baker, New York Times)
The nominee’s friend described him as a “restless reformer who will clean up Washington.” His defeated rival described him going to the capital to “drain that swamp.” His running mate described their mission as “change, the goal we share.” And that was at the incumbent party’s convention. After watching two political conclaves the last two weeks, it would be easy to be confused about which was really the gathering of the opposition. As Senator John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president, he and his supporters sounded the call of insurgents seeking to topple the establishment, even though their party heads the establishment. This was, of course, part Mr. McCain’s nature and part political calculation. It was also part history. For the first time since 1952, the party holding the White House has nominated someone other than the sitting president or vice president, someone without a vested interest in running on continuity, and at a moment when the party finds it difficult to defend its record from the last eight years.

GALVANIZED PARTIES HEAD TO HOMESTRETCH
(Dan Balz, Washington Post)
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will begin the final 60 days of their general-election campaign with a political climate still more favorable for Democrats but with Republicans newly united and confident that they can compete for the undecided voters who still harbor doubts about both presidential nominees. Once the air clears from an unusually compressed two weeks of politics that saw the selection of two vice presidential candidates and back-to-back national conventions, advisers to McCain and Obama foresee the same competitive race, but with some of the battle lines redrawn. Obama's challenge will be to deflect Republican attacks, repeated frequently this week, that he lacks the experience and accomplishments needed to step into the presidency. McCain's challenges include parrying Democratic assertions that, on the big issues of the Iraq war and the economy, his administration would continue the policies of President Bush. But he also hopes to convince voters that he more than Obama would bring real change and bipartisan governance to Washington.

MCCAIN, OBAMA VIE FOR 'REFORMIST' MANTLE
(Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post)
"Reform" became the watchword of the Republican National Convention, the noun, verb and adjective that McCain and his surrogates have tried to attach to the candidate, his running mate and his policy proposals. In the speeches that preceded McCain's last night, the words reform or reformer came up no less than 11 times. But what it means is unclear. It does not appear to have much to do with campaign finance reform, immigration reform, reforming the selection and confirmation of judges -- all issues that McCain had something to do with and have helped define his career in the Senate. They have gone largely unmentioned in St. Paul, Minn., where many of the delegates fought him on each of those efforts. In McCain's attempt to fire up the Republican base without losing his "maverick" image, calls for reform have come to mean a pledge to "change" Washington -- with little explanation of what that change would be or how that change would take effect.

CHARACTER VS. ISSUES
(John Dickerson, Slate)
Now that the conventions are over, the presidential race will become a crude, basic battle of issues vs. character. There was nothing adventuresome in McCain's proposals, which are standard GOP fare. (The main thrust was that whatever McCain's views, he'll do the right thing, whatever the right thing may be.) Obama's strategy, meanwhile, was best framed last week by Bill Clinton, who said that on the two signature issues of this campaign—the economy and foreign policy—McCain's positions are indistinguishable from those of the deeply unpopular president. The coming battle will range over the question of change that has been at the center of this campaign since both party primaries: Which candidate can improve the atmosphere in Washington and reshape the institutions of government that people distrust so deeply? McCain has the harder task. He's a 26-year veteran of the capital, and he's tied to the unpopular administration. (If you haven't seen the picture of the two men hugging, someone from the Obama campaign will be happy to hand-deliver one to your house. If you're not home, they'll wait.)

HOW PALIN CHANGED THE RACE
(John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, Politico)
It is hard to overstate how underwhelmed most Republicans are by McCain and the current cast of GOP leaders. This was especially true of social conservatives, many of them religious evangelicals, who are most thrilled by Palin. Now that Palin has cleared the bar — truth be told, a fairly modest one — of delivering an effective speech, McCain has much more flexibility to follow his own instincts. He can play up reformist rhetoric and play down socially conservative ideology — the exact combination that in 2004 had some liberal commentators hoping McCain would abandon the GOP and go on the Democratic ticket. Before Wednesday night, McCain was in big trouble when it comes to mobilizing conservative faithful. Now, Palin can help the party organize and turn out the same base of Christian evangelicals, Second Amendment supporters and abortion-rights opponents that proved instrumental to the back-to-back George W. Bush victories. Before Wednesday night, McCain had little room for error with the right. They measured every word and made him pay for straying too far on the issues they care most about. Now, McCain can stretch and twist like a yoga instructor.

PALIN'S PROBLEM
(Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post)
Obama was sagging because of missteps that reflected the fundamental weakness of his candidacy. Which suggested McCain's strategy: Make this a referendum on Obama, surely the least experienced, least qualified, least prepared presidential nominee in living memory. Palin fatally undermines this entire line of attack. This is through no fault of her own. It is simply a function of her rookie status. The vice president's only constitutional duty of any significance is to become president at a moment's notice. Palin is not ready. Nor is Obama. But with Palin, the case against Obama evaporates. So why did McCain do it? He figured it's a Democratic year. The Republican brand is deeply tarnished. The opposition is running on "change" in a change election. So McCain gambled that he could steal the change issue for himself -- a crazy brave, characteristically reckless, inconceivably difficult maneuver -- by picking an authentically independent, tough-minded reformer. With Palin, he doubles down on change. The problem is the inherent oddity of the incumbent party running on change.

OBAMA'S PALIN STRATEGY: SIT AND WAIT
(Ben Smith and Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico)
As Sarah Palin transforms herself from obscure Alaska governor to the Republican Party's newest rising star and most effective attack dog, Barack Obama's campaign will largely sit back, watch her rise and hope she falls. The Obama campaign has no silver bullet to use against Palin. Instead, Obama has decided to largely avoid directly engaging her and will instead keep his focus largely on John McCain and on linking the Republican ticket to President George W. Bush. The Obama campaign will leave Palin to navigate the same cycle of celebrity that Obama has weathered, and the same peril that her nascent image will be defined by questions and contradictions from her Alaska past.

OBAMA CAMP TURNS TO CLINTON TO COUNTER PALIN
(Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times)
Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said Thursday. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign event in Florida, her first for Mr. Obama since the Democratic convention, will serve as a counterpoint to the searing attacks and fresh burst of energy that Ms. Palin injected into the race with her convention speech on Wednesday, Obama aides said. With the McCain-Palin team courting undecided female voters, including some who backed Mrs. Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Obama aides said they were counting on not only Mrs. Clinton but also Democratic female governors to rebut Ms. Palin — and, by extension, Mr. McCain. Those governors include Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

POST-PALIN DEPRESSION
(Christopher Beam, Slate)
The tepid reaction to McCain (save the dutiful screaming at the end) may have had a lot to do enthusiasm for Palin. Republicans are now going through post-Palin depression. Her speech on Wednesday combined clever attacks on Obama with warm-and-fuzzy biography and the sort of red-meat conservative rallying cries that convention-goers devour. Granted, expectations were low. But she exceeded them with such style and confidence that it made McCain look stiff by comparison. It’s no coincidence that two of McCain’s biggest applause lines were his mentions of Palin. Of course, novelty and news value play a part, too. McCain’s surprise pick delighted conservatives otherwise ticked off by McCain’s unorthodoxy on immigration and campaign finance. Others glommed onto her family story... And she injected the ticket with much-needed energy, plus a dose of sympathy. No doubt McCain’s camp is breathing a sigh of relief at Palin’s popularity. While concerns about her maverick credentials remain, few still describe her as a “gamble” anymore. What no one anticipated is that she might overshadow McCain himself.

EXPERTS HELPING PALIN BRUSH UP ON FOREIGN POLICY
(Michael Abramowitz and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post)
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is among several national security experts helping brief Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on foreign policy issues as she prepares to hit the campaign trail while cramming for a debate with her Democratic opponent, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), in less than a month, according to officials from Sen. John McCain's campaign... Campaign officials and McCain foreign policy advisers called Palin a quick study who has sound judgment that will serve her in good stead on national security issues. But privately, some in the GOP foreign policy establishment voiced concern that McCain has turned to a relative neophyte on national security matters at a time when the United States is facing challenges ranging from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the nuclear activities of Iran and North Korea.

McCain Reclaims His Stage

Andrew Romano — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:27:20 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn.--My insta-reaction to John McCain's acceptance speech here in St. Paul tonight: it did what it had to do--nothing more, nothing less. McCain told his tale of tragedy, sacrifice and triumph as a Vietnam POW in humble, human tones that will appeal to those who haven't yet heard it (not everyone is a political junkie, believe it or not). He tied the oft-repeated theme of the convention--"Putting Country First"--to both his biography (the past) and his hopes for the future ("I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you."). He shifted--with a little help from Sarah Palin--from a message of readiness to a message of reform, outlining a handful of relevant policy proposals (school choice, energy independence) while reaching out to Americans who "have been left behind in the changing economy." He barely mentioned Republicans; he didn't mention George W. Bush. And he drew a several broad-stroke contrasts with opponent Barack Obama--without sounding strident.

There were marks that McCain missed. The speech lacked an overarching message--"country first" is a rather spacious umbrella--and tended to lapse at times into laundry list territory. Some of McCain's attacks on Obama were misleading, and tomorrow's inevitable fact-checking will cloud his message. Moreover, I agree with NEWSWEEK contributor and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson that "the policy in the speech was rather typical for a Republican." By not doing "a lot of outreach to moderates and independents on issues that they care about"--and instead "talk[ing] about issues like drilling and school choice which was really speaking to the converted"--I think McCain may have "missed [an] opportunity" to distance himself philosophically from the Bush era. Finally, the senator's studious tone--a "more in sorrow than in anger" lilt that was meant, I'm assuming, to cover for McCain's typical teleprompter-induced tension--seemed to dampen his delivery and sap much of the urgency from Mark Salter's otherwise graceful prose.

That said, I suspect McCain's speech will play more positively with the public than with the press (which has heard a lot of this stuff before). The reason? Only about 35 million of the 180 million people expected to vote on Nov. 4 actually watched tonight's broadcast. The rest of America will see a clip tomorrow on the morning news, or read a quote in their local newspaper, or click on an excerpt on YouTube or hear about it from a friend. And the part that will persist is the peroration--the section at the end. Agree with his policies or not, McCain undoubtedly concluded the convention on a high note, as the crowd's cheering nearly overwhelmed the final movement:

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our armed forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself. I’m going to fight for my cause every day as your president... Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight for what’s right for our country. Fight for the ideals and character of a free people. Fight for our children’s future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all. Stand up to defend our country from its enemies. Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

McCain's remarks may read as melodramatic on the page, but by replacing the small-minded mockery of Palin's speech with an open-hearted, affirmative call to service, the nominee probably reminded many viewers why they liked him in the first place. It was a welcome departure at a convention that seemed more concerned with defending McCain's veep and ridiculing his rival than making a convincing, coherent case for his own candidacy. In the end, America wants optimism--not sarcasm--in the Oval Office. Tonight, McCain reminded us that he can deliver a little uplift.

Overall? A good--but not great--performance. Still, there was only one thought on my mind as the balloons floated down from the rafters: "This one's gonna be close."

McCain's Presidential Moment

Andrew Romano — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:29:58 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Historians always say that presidents are defined not by the things they plan to do in office but how they react to the things they never planned for. Here at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, John McCain just had a bit of a presidential moment.

Shortly after McCain stepped on stage to deliver his much-anticipated acceptance speech--in fact, right as he was saying, "I accept the nomination"--a pair of antiwar protestors began shouting and waving banners from the balcony right above Section 113, where much of the national press corps is seated. "Tell John McCain we can't win an occupation!" they chanted. "Why did John McCain vote against our vets!" As their words echoed throughout the hall, the entire floor turned toward the troublemakers. McCain, for his part, kept on going--and so did they. When the conventioneers realized that the activists weren't going to stop out of politeness, they took action, overwhelming the catcalls with a confrontational chorus of "USA! USA!" This call-and-response showdown recurred three or four times, often interrupting McCain mid-sentence. Finally, when another group of protesters cried out from the opposite end of the arena and another call of "USA!" went up from the crowd, McCain flashed a tense grin and leaned into the microphone.

"Please don't be distracted by the static and the ground noise," he said, referring to the sort of sounds that interrupt a fighter pilot's radio contact. "Americans want us to stop the yelling."

It probably didn't come across on television. But here in the hall, McCain's response--perhaps the only unscripted moment of the night--went over well. The convention let out its loudest roar of the week--and the protesters were swiftly escorted out of the building.

Everybody Loves Palin!

Andrew Romano — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:37:16 GMT

Amount raised by the John McCain campaign in the two-and-a-half days after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined the ticket: $10 million.

Amount raised by the Barack Obama campaign in the 24 hours after Palin delivered her speech at the 2008 Republican Convention: $10 million.

Uniting both parties' bases in one fell swoop (or, er, woman): Priceless.

Although, it must be noted: Obama's post-Palin fundraising rate ($416,666 per hour) is more than twice as fast as McCain's ($166,666 per hour). Talk about reaching across the aisle.

When Will Palin Meet the Press?

Andrew Romano — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:23:54 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Over the next 60 days, I'm curious to see whether the McCain campaign will drastically restrict press access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin--and, if so, whether that will make any difference with voters.

I bring this up because Palin just took her first off-the-cuff question from a reporter since joining the Republican ticket last Friday. (She has spoken to People magazine about her family.) After McCain's running mate emerged from a private Republican Governors Association luncheon at a Minneapolis museum earlier this afternoon to deliver a short Obama-bashing statement, an Alaska television crew captured her attention for a brief, fleeting moment. "We feel like we're losing you a little bit," shouted the enterprising journalist. "No, I'm happy to be governor of Alaska," Palin responded. "Couldn't be more proud, of course, of my position as governor of Alaska."

That it's. One week. Millions of dollars. Fifteen thousand reporters. And "I'm happy to be the governor of Alaska" is all we have to show for it.

This isn't necessarily the norm. If I'm not mistaken, Joe Biden did a half-dozen or so interviews during his first week on the trail; a Google News search turns up several for the past few days alone. Then again, Joe Biden probably grants interviews to everyone he encounters.

I understand that Palin spent the week prepping for last night's speech and that she's now learning to recite McCain's policy papers in a Minneapolis hotel room with his top issue advisers. But the fact is, the woman will be busy from now until Election Day. As my NEWSWEEK colleague Jonathan Alter wrote yesterday, the fear for reporters is that to "get Palin through the next three weeks" Team McCain will "dodge press conferences in favor of interviews with people like Sean Hannity, Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres. Then, when the media complain that she is being kept away, the McCain campaign will cite the half dozen or so interviews she has granted as proof that the campaign press is just bellyaching"--and as a way to further stoke the anti-MSM flames they've been fanning all week. The early signs aren't good. Biden is doing "Meet the Press" this Sunday. McCain is doing "Face the Nation." Obama is doing ABC's "This Week." And Palin is doing ... something that doesn't involve journalists and live television cameras.

If Team McCain does shield Palin from the spotlight for the remainder of the month, voters could react one of three ways. If they 1) don't notice or 2) say "good for you, Barracuda"--a likely response, given the way most members of the human race feel about the MSM--McCain wins. It's all about message control and reducing the risk of gaffes. If, however, a critical mass of swing voters starts to suspect that Palin can't handle the heat, it could reinforce the idea that her selection was a cynical political ploy and undercut McCain's "straight talk" appeal.

Either way, it's worth noting that in times like these, the political press corps--as despised as it might be--is actually important. As I wrote earlier today, Palin's relatively skimpy C.V. means that the greatest test of her readiness for office--as it was for Obama--will be how well she performs in the presidential pressure-cooker. Obama himself said as much at a press avail today in York, Pa. "I think she has got a compelling story, but I assume that she wants to be treated the same way that guys want to be treated," he said. "I have been through this for 19 months. She has been through it, what, four days so far?" Like Alter, I believe that unless Palin is "forced to submit to real interviews with real questions"--just as Obama was--we won't have the foggiest idea whether "her real-life experience is any preparation for assuming high office."

So, yeah. Ellen is great. I dig the way she dances. But Ellen alone is not going to cut it.

Stumper TV: Kay Bailey Hutchinson is Relieved She Isn't the Veep Pick

Newsweek — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:42:29 GMT

Obamans on Palin: What, Us Worry?

Andrew Romano — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:29:13 GMT

Stumper reader T.O.--a smart Democrat who's worked in state and national politics--kicks in a compelling outline of the reasons why Obama supporters shouldn't be stressing over Sarah Barracuda, who appears to have the entire nation (or at least, the entire punditocracy) in deep swoon mode after her performance last night here in St. Paul. I think T.O.'s note is a pretty perceptive summary of what Dems are saying to reassure themselves right now--even if it's too early to tell if any of it is, you know, true. Here's his diagnosis:

(1) McCain is running for President, not Palin. After today, it's all McCain/Obama, all the time.

(2) McCain is going to die in office. Voting for Palin for VP is voting for her for President. Probably not too many independents, who are the people she needs to win over, are going to be ready to do this. Obviously, we don't argue this directly.

(3) Loyalty oaths from Wasilla workers? Banned books in the library? Troopergate? Earmark queen? She's not a reformer. And none of this has anything to do with her wacky family, which will be off limits, but which, again, most independents still think is wacky.

(4) Independents don't like it when all you offer is attacks. Community organizing/community service is now laughable and/or objectionable? Tell that to a union worker, a woman or a black person.

(5) Back to (1). The first and last time this won't be McCain/Obama all the time before the election is Palin's debate with Biden. Here's a simple strategy for Biden: be cordial, complimentary and incredibly detailed and commanding in any policy--especially foreign policy--discussion. She'll sit there trying to remember her three bullet points on Georgia or health care reform, and the contrast will be self-evident.

What do you think? My hunch is that people don't really vote against VPs--even if the ticket-topper is unusually old. And for the record, I don't believe that many people are actively predicting McCain's imminent demise, let alone casting their ballots on that basis. Moreover, I think that the campaign will be actually be McCain-Palin vs. Obama-Obama from now until Election Day--if only because Palin's newness makes her news and the media will cover her like Paris Hilton. As the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wrote earlier today, "Every word she says will be subject to parsing and semiotic analysis. The late night comics will be ferocious... There will be front-page stories on her accent. She'll be the top story everywhere she travels; every new market she sets foot in will be hers to own for the day. She'll draw enormous crowds...much larger crowds that John McCain. The demand for new facts and information about her will be insatiable." I suspect that Marc is exactly right--and that this exactly what the McCain camp, which is desperate to rebrand itself as "reform," wants to happen.

Additions? Subtractions? Amendments? Corrections? Anyone? Bueller?

The comments are all yours.

Meadows: A Cynic's Take on the Palin Family Tableau

Andrew Romano — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:16:19 GMT

NEWSWEEK political ace (and personal Stumper favorite) Susannah Meadows takes a break from caring for her twin boys to deliver a heartfelt reaction to one of the most interesting aspects of Sarah Palin's much-discussed convention speech--the nod to her four-month-old son Trig, who was born with Down syndrome and present in the hall. Did you find the moment moving? Or calculated? The comments are open for business. Here's Susannah:

I'm not one to be moved by political speeches. Having covered John Kerry's campaign in 2004 for NEWSWEEK, and Hillary Clinton after that, cynicism is as close as I come to a belief system. My husband, an Obama supporter, won't talk to me about politics; he's been burned by too many references to "Hope Floats," the 1998 Sandra Bullock vehicle.

But I was drawn in by Sarah Palin's appearance at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night. Not because the woman knows how to give a speech--and she really, really knows how to give a speech. But that's just good theater; I found myself feeling emotional when she talked about children with special needs, and especially when the camera panned to her four-month-old Down syndrome baby sleeping in his daddy's arms. I realized I've been scanning the Palin coverage all along for mentions of her child. I've cared much more about how the baby's doing and how the family is dealing with that extraordinary challenge than the fact that her teen-age daughter got pregnant. When The New York Times ran a photo of the teen daughter holding Palin's four-month-old, I zoomed in on the little bean.

I've got my reasons. Ten months ago I gave birth, for the first time, to identical twin boys. A political reporter for NEWSWEEK, I'm now on a yearlong maternity leave. Every woman who's been pregnant has had to think about what she would do if she found out she was carrying a baby with Down syndrome. A lot of us agonize over whether to risk a miscarriage to find out with an amnio. When blood work showed that I had an elevated risk for having two children with Down syndrome (since identical twins have the same DNA, both babies would have the same condition), we went ahead with the genetic test. We put it off for weeks, second-guessing ourselves until the needle went in. The result showed that I was very lucky. I can't know for sure what I would have wanted to do had our fate been different. So I have great admiration for people like Sarah Palin.

As the camera focused on that little guy in the stands, I felt an unfamiliar stirring. Then the mom in me kicked in. What's a four-month-old, I wondered, doing out late at night in a hall filled with hoards of screamers? For all the sanctimonious applause for Palin's pledge to be an advocate for special needs-children, no one seemed bothered by the fact that the little guy was being used as a prop to motivate voters. (I hate listening to mothers judge other mothers. I'd rather just listen to my own scornful internal monologue.)

But regardless of how unpleasant the evening may have been for little Trig, his appearance was worth at least a few thousand votes in socially conservative southeastern Ohio. That's why he was there. Certainly, if McCain is elected, he will owe Palin's littlest a thank you. To think I'd gotten sucked in! Now that I'm back in my old killjoy skin, though, I find that I'm still applauding. The campaign's image-making Wednesday night took a certain political brilliance--the kind only a cynic can appreciate.

READ THE REST HERE.

(Getty Photo / Win McNamee)

Can Dems Deal with the 'Republican Obama'?

Andrew Romano — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:38:49 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn.--One of the most entertaining aspects of "Palinsanity"--the Republican Party's long-awaited response to Obamania--is how it's forcing both conservatives and liberals to contort themselves into pretzels of irrationality to justify their feelings about the newly-minted Republican vice presidential nominee. As someone who falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, I have to say: I'm enjoying all the hypocrisy.

Let's start with the right. Last night, Sarah Palin gave a speech. It consisted of words. It was short on specifics. And it got a lot of Republicans really, really excited. "She's our Obama," a delegate from Alaska told me a few hours after Palin left the stage. The problem is that the GOP has spent many months cautioning the country against talented, fresh-faced candidates unleashing lofty but less-than-substantive language to woo worshipful crowds. Just words, they've quipped. A vapid celebrity, they've added. Never mind! As Slate's John Dickerson puts it, "catapult[ing] Sarah Palin past her rocky rollout and into legitimacy in a single speech wrapped in thunderous applause" was precisely the point of Wednesday's festivities. And while Republicans used to claim that a relatively brief, relatively unconventional resume--like, say, one that includes stints as a community organizer, a law professor, a state senator and a U.S. senator--couldn't possibly prepare someone for the presidency, now they're not so sure. Community organizer? Pshaw. Get a load of our town councilwoman.

As for liberals, they're not faring much better. After 18 months of saying that words can move the masses, they're suddenly reacting to Palin's big speech as if they were--gasp!--Republicans ripping into Obama. "Turn off the teleprompter and she'll be back to her Wasilla self," wrote commenter Jim over at the Politico, echoing the GOP's relentless "empty suit" line of attack. "With lipstick of course." And when it comes to experience--once dismissed as a narrow-minded Beltway concern; less important than intellect, biography and judgment--they're starting to sound suspiciously Republican as well. "Can you imagine this self-described hockey mom negotiating with Putin or Maliki?" wrote Stumper reader K.S. last week. "How does being a mayor of a town of 8,000 or so and then serving a two-year-stint as head of the country's smallest-populated state qualify her for these tasks?" Once upon a time, the Democrats were right about words (they matter) and experience (it isn't everything)--but now they seem to have ceded that ground to the GOP in a fit of post-Palin pique.

The problem is that both sides are viewing McCain's new running mate through the prism of their own cultural and political biases. Take the "words" argument. The reason Republicans say that Obama is "just words" is that they disagree with the words he's using. Because his positions and philosophy don't appeal to them personally, they uncharitably assume that his appeal is all about the pleasant way he's phrasing things and that his fans are being fooled. Same goes for Palin. Democrats disagree with her on tax cuts, drilling, abortion and abstinence education--so obviously she's some sort of brainless stooge who slides by on story and style and can't function without a teleprompter.

The experience debate, meanwhile, is no different. When it comes to the length and atypicality of their resumes, Palin and Obama are pretty similar: she served on the city council for four years, in the mayor's office for six and in the governor's mansion for two; he served as a community organizer for three, in the state senate for seven and in the U.S. Senate for two (before launching his full-time presidential bid). Where they differ is in what kind of experience they have--and how that experience resonates with the people already inclined to support them. Obama's resume--his years abroad, his Harvard Law Review presidency, his fluent memoirs, his Illinois legislative record--conforms to a liberal ideal of leadership: worldly, brainy, well-spoken, cooperative. Palin's resume, meanwhile--her working motherhood, her family foibles, her against-the-odds mayoralty and reform-minded governorship--conforms to a more conservative ideal: gritty, down-home, self-sufficient, executive. Obama deserves to lead because he's better than we could ever be, Democrats declaim. Palin deserves to lead because she's one of us, Republicans respond.

Each side dismisses the other's argument because it doesn't resonate with them--to Republicans, Obama is un-American, elitist, self-obsessed and politically spineless; to Democrats, Palin is undertraveled, undereducated and embarrassingly tabloid. But for either camp to claim that its candidate is the only one qualified for the White House--when neither of them crosses the traditional threshold of pre-presidential experience--is somewhat disingenuous. If an objective observer can quantify exactly why Palin's crusade against corruption in Alaska has done more or less than the sum total of Obama's legislative achievements to prepare her for the presidency, be my guest. But at the end of the day, I still suspect that experience is in the eye of the beholder.

Most Dems will undoubtedly disagree with me. For one thing, they'll say, Obama's 18 months of campaigning have proven that he's more qualified for the presidency than Palin--whatever one thinks of his C.V. "Obama won 18 million votes, faced countless tough interviews and emerged with a reputation for fluency in discussing affairs of state, whatever one thinks of his politics," writes Jonathan Alter, my colleague at NEWSWEEK. "Palin's vote totals for mayor were measured in the hundreds; she has served only 20 months as governor of a state half the size of Brooklyn, and knows nothing of national or international issues beyond energy." I completely concur. But while it's true that Obama has proven his managerial mettle in part by helming an incredibly successful campaign, Alter's analysis ignores one simple fact: Palin hasn't had the opportunity to campaign yet. Obama and Palin are running for two different offices. In a race for the presidency, you have to spend 16 months wooing voters and handling harsh questions from the press; in a race for the vice-presidency, you're plucked from relative obscurity 60 days before the election and plopped down in the middle of Ohio. When he launched his bid in January 2007, Obama was no more seasoned than Palin is now--so if his on-the-trail experience is allowed to count as a credential, Palin should at least be afforded the opportunity prove herself as well.

Sixty days, of course, isn't nearly enough time for Palin to catch up to Obama--but then again, she's not seeking the highest office in the land. So 60 days will have to suffice. Here's hoping that over the next two months America (and the media) can ditch the double standards about "words" and "experience" and start asking Palin tough questions about where she wants to take the nation. Question whether her reform resume is really what she says it is. Question her stance on abstinence education. Even question what Troopergate says about her character. In the end, Palin may sink. She may swim. But the important thing is making sure that on Nov. 4 we all have enough information to say for ourselves whether she's ready to roll.

It should be a wild ride.

McCarter: The GOP'S Natural

Andrew Romano — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:16:26 GMT

Here's NEWSWEEK cultural critic Jeremy McCarter on Sarah Palin's speech--and why she's the Republican Obama. As usual, I'm in total agreement...

Even after all the dazzling political theater of the last year or so, Palin's speech still had the power to astound—and mainly for reasons she intended. To say she is poised doesn't do her justice. Thrown onto the national stage with little time to prepare, she looked more at home up there than almost any of the elders who preceded her to a microphone, in either party's convention. And she's not keeping things safe and sedate. Like a certain obscure state senator four years ago, she has the knack that all really gifted performers have, of working the room on the fly, of drawing people to her.

Palin's speech was most potent when most personal. Lucky for her, a great deal of it was personal. She's pretty clearly running on biography. But with a family like hers, it's hard to imagine running on anything else. She is—again, like Obama—some peculiar mix of traditional American success story and envelope-busting freak show. At 44, she's running a state. But one of her children is—oh, let's skip the biography, you watched the speech too. How will the nation deal with somebody like this, a politician who addresses the multitudes while her six-year-old licks her palm to smooth the hair of the special-needs four-month-old right offstage? Just when you thought this election might start making sense, the country finds itself back in the uncharted part of the map, where the illustrations of dragons go...

If the theatricality of Palin's speech pointed the way toward the future—after watching her and Obama, you have to wonder: are Generation X's political leaders just going to be way better at this stuff than their predecessors? —there were also times when her novelty fused with the thuddingly, depressingly familiar. Because with all due respect to whatever kid roughed up the young Barry Obama in Indonesia many years ago, he might never have been on the receiving end of a beatdown like this one. Palin last night revealed herself to be a culture warrior of the old school—a school that, alas, doesn't seem to be closed after all. From mocking his community organizing job—really? Social work is fair game now? —to taunting him about the "Styrofoam Greek columns" of his convention stage, she kept finding new and more vicious ways to abuse, and not just Obama himself: Small town folks, she said, "are always proud of America" —a not-so-subtle dig at his wife.

Now, I'm all in favor of a good political bloodletting. For the half hour or so before Palin took the stage, Giuliani did what he always does: firing off insults, making wisecracks, shamelessly spraying Rudyness all over the place. No matter how repellent you find the man or his message, it's hard not to enjoy how grotesque and delicious a show he puts on. But with Palin there's an edge that sounds new. While Obama is crafting a post-boomer politics by using his literary gift, life story, and golden tongue to bring people together, Palin, on the evidence presented so far, moves beyond boomer categories with her own original story, her own preternatural poise, and a method of political attack that is far snarkier and more up-to-the-minute than any you expect to hear coming from the mouth of someone who might very soon be the most powerful person on the planet. "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?" she asked of Obama. (For what it's worth, this is the exact angle that snark god Jon Stewart and his correspondents have been taking while mocking him lately.)

It's hard to guess how Palin's attacks sound outside the Xcel Center, off in those fiercely contested Ohio suburbs: Are voters who aren't Republican true believers loving the vitriol, or does it begin to sound obnoxious? Will Obama get flustered now that he's no longer the hottest, youngest story in town? And how much deeper in the insult barrel will Palin reach? There was no mention, for instance, of Obama's snoring. But as long as the post-facto vetters don't turn up something especially juicy, she's got time. And so does he. And while you'd have to be crazy to predict how this nutty election will turn out, I wouldn't be surprised if we find ourselves watching these two going at it for a long, long while.

READ THE REST HERE.

The Filter: September 4, 2008

Andrew Romano — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:19:21 GMT

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories, coming to you live from the Holiday Inn in cloudy east St. Paul.

EASIEST TASK FOR PALIN MAY HAVE BEEN SPEECH
(Adam Nagourney, New York Times)
From here, Ms. Palin moves into a national campaign where she will have to appeal to audiences that are not necessarily primed to adore her. She will have to navigate far less controlled campaign settings that will test not only her political skills but also her knowledge of foreign and domestic policy. And she must convince the country she is prepared to be vice president at a time when the definition of that job has been elevated to the status of governing partner... The question is whether someone who is so little known and has what even Republicans describe as a scant résumé has the authority to make those attacks credible — unlike, say, her counterpart on the Democratic side, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a veteran of foreign and domestic policy who attacked Mr. McCain last week. It is also unclear if the sharp and often mocking tone of her attacks — combined with her general avoidance of such key issues as the economy — might turn off swing voters across the country.

MCCAIN ADDRESS TO BE WAKE-UP CALL FOR GOP
(Michael D. Shear and Robert Barnes, Washington Post)
When he steps to the lectern at the Xcel Energy Center on Thursday night to accept the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain will face an immediate comparison to an opponent known for his soaring rhetoric who delivered his own speech to a football stadium full of people and a television audience of 38 million. And that's the easy part. The more difficult challenge McCain has set for himself with his acceptance speech, according to friends and senior advisers, will be to recalibrate the central message of his campaign and the line of attack he plans to use against Sen. Barack Obama in the two months before Election Day. McCain will seek to recast the Republican Party's brand in his own maverick image, staking his claim to the presidency on a depiction of himself as a political renegade in an attempt to overcome what he will paint as his opponent's more ephemeral call for change. The self-portrayal is nothing new, as what animates McCain has never really been in question. But his campaign has veered repeatedly from its core message in the past 18 months as he battled fellow Republicans for the nomination and then turned his attention to Obama.

A PIT BULL IN LIPSTICK
(John Dickerson, Slate)
Palin's attacks are potentially dangerous because they are aimed at the crucial voting bloc of women and middle-class voters who can see their lives in her life. Obama talked about coming from a middle-class life. Palin still lives one. She could improvise a joke about being a hockey mom—what's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? Lipstick—because she is one. The secondary purpose of Palin's speech may be the most important in the long run. She wasn't just launching a new brand (her own). She was relaunching a whole new product: the McCain-Palin ticket. Experience is no longer the central argument. Reform is. McCain and Palin are presenting themselves as leaders who can deliver because they speak and act regardless of the political risk. "Here's how I look at the choice Americans face in this election," said Palin. "In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

MEDIA SWOON OVER PALIN'S FIERY SPEECH
(Michael Calderone, Politico)
NBC political director Chuck Todd, weighing in shortly after Sarah Palin’s fiery speech before the Republican faithful, declared: “Conservatives have found their Obama.” Right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham agreed, telling Fox’s Greta Van Susteren that it was the “night conservatives have been waiting for.” Ingraham continued with high praise: “It’s one of the best political speeches I have heard — ever!" Thematically, the three speeches leading up to Palin’s performance each took a page out of the McCain campaign playbook by attacking the media — a time-honored tradition on the right, and an aggressive strategy enacted over the previous 48 hours with strikes on leading newspapers and television networks, like The New York Times and CNN... So it wasn’t surprising that when Palin took the podium, she said she had a “little news flash for those reporters and commentators” — that she was not going to Washington to seek their opinion. Just then, an impromptu chant of “NBC! NBC!” broke out among the attendees, who likely prefer Bill O’Reilly to Keith Olbermann. But whether she wanted it or not, commentators had opinions.

WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT SARAH?
(Daniel Henniger, Wall Street Journal)
One can't subtract politics from a woman who is running for vice president, but Sarah Palin's manifest appeal at the moment is about something larger than retail politics. If it holds up, the Democrats have a problem. The Sarah Palin story doesn't fit the standard liberal model the past 30 years of what defines a high-achieving woman. The impulse in acceptable political society to condescend to lovely, ebullient Sarah is palpable. If the TV commentators tried to sound any smarter dismissing her qualifications, their big brains would burst. Who is she? I mean after all, prior to whatever passes for politics up there in Alaska, all she seems to have done was play sports, go to a no-name university and have lots of babies? She's a beauty queen! This isn't even close to your standard East Coast über-woman. Sarah didn't go to Harvard Law and clerk for some legendary judge; her first job was as an Alaskan sportscaster! A great roar has arisen this week from Manhattan (New York, not Kansas): "Look at her standing there with John McCain, thinking she's Little Miss Perfect. My God, she almost sounds like an Alaskan Valley Girl. This can't possibly work, can it??!!!" We'll find out.

PALIN'S BIG NIGHT
(David Corn, Mother Jones)
The 44-year-old Palin did not wipe out questions about her experience. She did not address allegations she had abused her office while serving as a small-town mayor and as a governor. She did not defend her more extreme social positions, such as her support for teaching creationism. But in politics, performance counts for much. And for a little-known politician who had been hunkered down for days, as negative stories and rumors flew about, she had a helluva opening night. Next, Palin will have to face the media--one of the targets of her speech--fielding presumably tough queries about her actions (and life) in Alaska and her foreign policy experience (or lack thereof). But for the night, she held her own--and showed that she has the potential to be a fierce and effective critic of the Obama-Biden ticket.

DRIVEN TO SERVE, AND TO SUCCEED
(Mark Leibovich and David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times)
As he accepts the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night in St. Paul, John Sidney McCain III, of Arizona, stands at the pinnacle of a career defined by a singular ambivalence about his own ambition, and success. Time and again, he lunges for the prize, then lashes himself for letting his pursuit get the better of him — for doing favors for his patron Charles H. Keating Jr., for stooping to ugly attacks on George W. Bush during the 2000 primary, for outbursts of temper at lawmakers who get in his way. It reflects what his brother, Joe McCain, calls a “public dialectic” between the senator’s drive to succeed and his desire to serve a higher cause. For decades his outward display of that inner conflict has proved advantageous, helping advance his career by forging his image as the un-politician, the candidate with an almost reckless disregard for his own fortunes.

SPEECHWRITER FOR MCCAIN HUNKERS DOWN
(Elizabeth Holmes, Wall Street Journal)
John McCain's acceptance speech Thursday is the pinnacle of a partnership between the candidate and his friend of nearly two decades, speechwriter Mark Salter... Among the obstacles Sen. McCain and Mr. Salter face are the inevitable comparisons with Barack Obama, widely considered one of the most gifted orators of recent political history, as well as the Republican candidate's awkward relationship with the teleprompter. The all-consuming pressure of the task has taken Mr. Salter, never without his aviator sunglasses and cigarettes, away from the campaign trail to the seclusion of a Maine cabin... The speech delves into some of Sen. McCain's heroics as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and episodes from his personal history, but it isn't completely a biographical address, Mr. Salter said. Mr. Salter said he read past convention speeches for "length and form" but not necessarily content. "It's not patterned on any other speech," he said. The speech is longer than typical addresses Sen. McCain gives, Mr. Salter said, but only by a little.

MCCAIN AND THE POLITICS OF MORTALITY
(Alexander Burns, Politico)
Since John McCain announced Friday that first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be his running mate, Democrats have been quick to point out that the 44-year-old governor could soon be just “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” The veiled reference to McCain’s advanced age is hard to miss. It’s a macabre point to raise on the night when Palin will speak to the convention here — but a look at the actuarial tables insurance companies use to evaluate customers shows that it’s not an irrelevant one. According to these statistics, there is a roughly 1 in 3 chance that a 72-year-old man will not reach the age of 80, which is how old McCain would be at the end of a second presidential term. And that doesn’t factor in individual medical history, such as McCain’s battles with potentially lethal skin cancer. “For a man, that’s above the expected lifetime at the present,” said Michael Powers, a professor of risk management and insurance at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

PALIN'S FAITH IS SEEN IN CHURCH UPBRINGING
(Suzanne Sataline, Wall Street Journal)
At the Pentecostal church where Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin worshipped for more than two decades, congregants speak in tongues and are part of a faith that believes humanity is in its "end times" -- the days preceding a world-ending cataclysm bringing Christian redemption and the second coming of Jesus. The Rev. Ed Kalnins, pastor of the Pentecostal church, Wasilla Assembly of God, says he has told church members that God put President George W. Bush in office and that America is locked in a "holy war" with terrorists.Mr. Kalnins's views and the teachings of his church provide a glimpse of the religious upbringing of Gov. Palin, 44 years old, whose Christian credentials and antiabortion views have been lauded by social conservatives. Gov. Palin hasn't discussed her personal and spiritual beliefs since she was named to Sen. John McCain's ticket on Friday, and the campaign hasn't been eager to discuss them.

THE UNUSUAL CHALLENGES PALIN FACED IN ALASKA
(Kirk Johnson, New York Times)
Sarah Palin’s experience as Alaska’s governor since taking office in late 2006 has been a keystone argument by Republicans that she is fit to serve as vice president. At the convention Wednesday in St. Paul, Ms. Palin and other speakers contended that her time as governor has given her more practical experience than Mr. Obama. Many Americans in other states, though, might not recognize the job she holds or the unusual challenges she has faced — from managing a $5 billion budget surplus in a time of economic distress elsewhere, to upending an entrenched political establishment within her own party that was literally around for the state’s founding. Alaska’s economic well-being — sustained, as most things are here, by oil and federal spending — has allowed Ms. Palin to avoid some of the tough budgetary choices vexing governors in dozens of other states. That in turn raises questions for some people about how much her experience is relevant to the rest of the nation and how much she can relate to the troubles of struggling blue-collar workers in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, worried about the winter gas bills and the mortgage.

CRITICIZING MCCAIN, OBAMA KEEPS FOCUS ON THE ECONOMY
(Shailagh Murray, Washington Post)
Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday dismissed the ongoing Republican National Convention as a substance-free spectacle hiding behind Sen. John McCain's biography and ignoring the economic insecurity that many Americans are facing every day as he continued a swing through working-class towns in the Midwest .Since Obama accepted the Democratic nomination last Thursday before a crowd of 84,000 in Denver, his schedule has featured more intimate events in high school football stadiums and minor league ballparks. The Kent State event drew about 200 mostly female voters, who grilled the candidate on issues such as pay inequity and health-care costs. At an invitation-only picnic on a family farm in Dillonvale, against a backdrop of sunflowers and hay bales, Obama unloaded on the GOP.

Assessing Palin's Big Speech

Andrew Romano — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:51:12 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Game on.

Alaska Governor and freshly-minted Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin just finished her much-anticipated acceptance speech at the Xcel Center here in St. Paul, and I can say with 100 percent certainty that the most powerful part, at least for the journalists in attendance, came about a quarter of the way in. "Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators," she said. "I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion--I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country." I say "powerful," but mostly I mean "terrifying." That's because immediately after Palin finished the line, a large group of enraged delegates turned from the floor to the press rafters and began chanting "NBC! NBC! NBC!" They were shaking their fists, but that was only because their torches and pitchforks were confiscated at the security checkpoint. Throughout the night, one gentleman in particular kept shooting me unsettling glances, as if to say, "I know where you blog."

This is American politics at its best: wild, woolly and just a little weird.

I imagine that if I'd had the courage to ask my malefactor to name his favorite part of Palin's speech, he would've said, "All of them"--as would any of his fellow conventioneers. In the hall, the response was rapturous. Written by former George W. Bush scribe Matthew Scully, Palin's address was perfectly calibrated to please tonight's conservative crowd--as well it should've been--and Palin herself was preternaturally poised, amazingly at ease and completely and utterly a natural. She delighted in bashing the media ("If you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone"). She reveled in the goodness of the small-town folks "who grow our food, run our factories and fight our wars." She heaped praise on John McCain's character and courage, some of it approaching poetry. "He's the kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns across this country, only he was among those who came home," Palin said, in one particularly well-phrased passage. "To the most powerful office on earth, he would bring the compassion that comes from having once been powerless... [and] the special confidence of those who have seen evil, and seen how evil is overcome."

And perhaps most memorably, she ripped into Barack Obama with reams and reams of ridicule. Following warm-up act Rudy Giuliani--who resembled in his delightfully relentless (and partially improvised) roasting of Obama nothing so much as a Republican Don Rickles--Palin pleasantly but methodically mocked every aspect of her rival's appeal, slicing into his experience and ego with a sharpened stiletto and a smile. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,'" she said, in one of the most popular lines of the night, "except that you have actual responsibilities." Zing. Thrown some red meat, the Republican Party ate it up. As political performances go--tone, tenor, timing and material--Palin was pitch-perfect.

That said, the GOP was ready to fall in love. The more interesting reactions will come from the press, and, by extension, the rest of America. I guarantee that the reviews will be positive, and rightfully so. For much of the week, the media has obsessed over Palin's complicated (and largely irrelevant) personal life, from her DUI husband to her pregnant teenage daughter. In the absence of any additional appearances--she's spent the five days since joining the ticket ensconced in a Minneapolis hotel room--the pundits and prognosticators simply had nothing else to talk about.

Now they can obsess over her performance. Fixated on process, they'll marvel at how smoothly she plays the attack dog, allowing McCain--in whose mouth the same lines would sound cantankerous and cranky--to float above the fray. They'll note that Palin's smiling attacks are particularly dangerous to Dems because they're aimed at women and middle-class voters who see themselves in her. They'll analyze the sexual subtext of the new McCain-Palin ticket, claiming that middle-American men will be drawn to an attractive "gal" (Palin) who "stands up for her man" (McCain). They'll explain the lack of "policy details" in Palin's speech by saying that her focus on biography and character is the best way for the GOP to appeal to independents--a group that votes for people first and issues second (and would recoil from her hard-right record). And they'll celebrate how, as a woman and a "reformer," she helps McCain compete with Obama for the mantle of "change." Of course, none of this stuff--all of which I've distilled from real conversations with reporters here in the hall--would've surprised anyone remotely familiar with Palin's spunky charisma. But before tonight, most MSMers weren't. As a result, the chatterati set the bar very low--and they'll give Palin a lot of credit for clearing it (which she did with room to spare).

Ultimately, however, I suspect that the shelf life of tonight's speech will be brief. It was short on specifics ~~substance-free~~. It was largely negative--and while sarcasm works in the moment, it tends to curdle as time goes by. And many of its assaults on Obama's record were misleading. That said, none of these complaints will affect the all-important narrative. Before tonight, Sarah Palin was a cipher to most Americans--more a collage of talking points, headlines, biographical details, rumors, speculation and opposition research than a real person. But now voters know something about her, firsthand: that she confronted her opponents head-on--even if the opposition was in part a "sexist" press corps that exists only in the fevered minds of McCain's strategists--and triumphed, as it were, over adversity. For them, clearing that bar is a credential of its own.

Tomorrow, the Palin storyline will shift from "Who is this person?" to "Wow, she was pretty good"--and after a week under siege, that should come as a relief to McCain and Co. Still, it's now up to Palin to prove that she can handle the crucial questions--on inexperience, on Troopergate, on whether her reform record is really what she says it is. And she'll have to do it without a teleprompter.

How's Palin Playing in Alaska? Well, Funny You Should Ask ...

Karen Breslau — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:40:05 GMT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska--Here at the Peanut Farm restaurant in Anchorage they are eating up Sarah Palin's words with more gusto than the huge steaks they sling.

When they cut away to a shot of little Piper, Palin's 6-year-old, stroking the head of her napping baby brother Trig, people here laughed so hard, the guy at the bar next to me wheezed in his burrito and started crying. That's when Palin was talking about the political power of PTA presidents.

The crowd here at the bar, including her sister Heather, who is in the custody of a CNN crew, are riveted. When she makes a crack about the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom being lipstick (same joke she told me a year ago) some women at the bar nodded in agreement. "It's the truth!" another howled.

Having spent much time covering Palin over the past year, she seemed like the longest of long shots. Tonight, though, she's all pitch-perfect timing and delivery. A populist star is born.

UPDATE, 11:13 p.m.: The Peanut Farm has erupted with shouts of "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!!!" as Palin raises her arms in triumph and her family fills the stage. They're gonna be talking about this one for a long time here. The rapture over Palin, with McCain standing awkwardly by, reminds me of the first time Prince Charles took Lady Di for a walkabout.

UPDATE, 11:16 p.m.: Here at the Peanut Farm my fellow diners are putting their hands over their hearts and singing along with the National Anthem.