Hi Mac,
Don’t sweat it. What you are seeing is a campaign message. The media is picking up these snippets of her speeches. What you are describing is actually good because it means she is not doing the typical “different city, different message.” I have been to a number of political rallies for Bush. He didn’t say anything new, except for the jabs at the opponents most recent comments or policy changes.
So no problem here. The media is picking up on this trying to push idea that she has nothing else. What matters in the end is that these people have guiding principles. Palin has them.
Tricky area. Steve Forbes manages to get type-casted because all he could talk about with any gusto was the flat tax. Sarah does need to be a bit careful about it.
But heck, give her a break, she’s had barely a week and she’s kicking butt (and Obama helping...now defending terrorists again).
It’s mainly a problem if the media broadcast large sections of her speeches.
I also noticed that there was a word-for-word echo of the convention speech when she gave her speech in the hanger in Colorado. It went on for at least several minutes, word for word. I have a pretty good memory, and I’m pretty sure there were at least several minutes that were word-for-word the same.
It’s not a problem if you speak to different audiences in different places. But I was a bit surprised that they would echo such a substantial part of the convention speech when almost everybody in the country had watched it.
On the other hand, Willie Brown said he replayed the convention speech right after she gave it, because it was so good he needed to listen to it a second time. So, who knows? The audience didn’t seem to be deterred.
My guess is that until she and McCain split and she has a chance to take 1-2 days to regroup in Alaska, that she’ll mainly use this speech. They’re probably rewriting ones for her already, taking the best parts that crowds react to and adding some new things based on what happens during the rest of the silly season of news/gaffes/and real events.
You gotta remember, she’s just been out on the trail roughly 7 days... :)
If you’ve ever watched CSpan’s Road the White House, you’ll see the same repetition of canned lines. Its one of the things I remember about Buchanan’s insurgent campaign in 1992. But Pat would mix it up a bit, because he was a professional speech writer, a natural polemicist and had great comedic timing.
I’d like to see some new lines from Sarah.
Look—we’re political junkies so we know the stump speech.
But out in the real world, repetition is need to emphasize important points, especially with a hostile media that cannot be counted on reporting an event fairly.
The speech gets adjusted—like on Saturday in Albuquerque-this was the third time she was speaking in two days—Sarah adjusted the speech to nail Obama on earmarks, responding to his attack earlier that day.
Going from Alaska to the national and global spotlight, Sarah is doing extremely well—she is a natural, gifted speaker.
John and Sarah will be adjusting their speeches as issues come and go during the campaign.But their core issues will be repeated.
Now, stop worrying so much. ;)
Well, of course, when Ms. Pants Suits ran for Senate the first time “in the toughest news market in the world”, she said nthing and called it a “listening tour” and the so-called toughest, news market in the world just went down, a la Lewensky, and lapped it up. All pols have a stump speech - this ain’t Leno where you expect slightly new lines each night. Also, if you listen to the Muslim, you will get the same ums, ahs and hmmms.
By the way Obama has a very hard time doing this and that is why he uses teleprompters. But Palin seems like a natural at it.
I do want her to become a little more skilled on addressing complicated issues such as the F&F bailout/conservatorship.
This is something so novel that even professionals at big bond firms have had to pour over the details to understand the implications.
Sarah has to learn to not blurt something incorrect that is easily ridiculed.
She should have said something like “This has never happened before. We have to study the implications before giving our take on it”.
But I love Sarah and I’m sure she will do fine.
I'll let you in on a little secret you may not realize....when one party or person presents itself as smarter than the average voter or person they always loose...badly. People dont like being told they just don't understand or that they are stupid. The dims are toast and they are to conceited to realize it.
Advertising relies on repetition, McCain/Palin is a product.
As long as they have a few minutes dedicated to the area they’re in then the rest of the standard stump speech is just reinforcement.
Ronald Reagan repeated themes and phrases in his speeches. It is what his audience wanted to hear.
They are using 80% of her brain to prep for Gibson. Until she’s been everywhere one time, she need not change anything.
They all do it on the long campaign and there is no better example than B.Hussein.
There are two additional points I would add.
- Sarah is so new and fresh that the campaign figures, probably correctly, that the attendees want to hear her "hit number" in person...when rock stars go on tour they sing their hits...
- For the same reasons we and the media are watching more of her appearances...can you imagine if we had (been forced) to watch every speech B. Hussein made on the trail over the last 18 months?
There will be both fresh material and a little less media saturation over the next 2 months...I'm not worried.
Paranoid.
1. The Dems have been using one line of attack for 4 years now - attacking Bush.
2. More importantly, Obama’s entire campaign is premised on two words, hope and change.
3. No one even remembers or is talking about his speech (let alone Biden’s).
I was a bit disheartened and thought it could be a potential issue at first...
then today Hannity played a montage of hussien using the same exact lines at a dozen different campaign stops talking of “I don’t look like the other president’s on the one and five dollar bills”...and “oh- did I tell you he’s black?”...
I said- okay; no big deal....
You dont notice this from Obama because after editing out all the “uh’s” Cnn is left with silence.
Though Palin’s speech was huge and widely viewed, she should change it up a little. But the fact that we notice this, means she is getting good coverage.
Chill out. Watch some of Sarah's archive footage--her CSPAN interview, her 2006 Gubernatorial debate, her Bartiromo interview, etc. You will quickly see she is a very smart and resourceful debater, and throws off tough questions about abortion/rape/incest or stem cells, etc. with ease. She will win over Charlie Gibson with her charm and answer his questions with aplomb.