The Palin Rebound

NY Times ^ | David Brooks

[Chet 99]

There are some moments when members of a political movement come together as one, sharing the same thoughts, feeling the same emotions, breathing the same shallow breaths. One of those occasions occurred Thursday night when Republicans around the country crouched nervously behind their sofas, glimpsed out tentatively at their flat screens and gripped their beverages tightly as Sarah Palin walked onto the debate stage at Washington University in St. Louis.

There she was, resplendent in black, striding out like a power-walker, and greeting Joe Biden like an assertive salesman, first-naming him right off the bat.

Just as the midcentury psychologist Abraham Maslow predicted, Republicans watching the debate had a hierarchy of needs. First, they had a need for survival. Was this woman capable of completing an extemporaneous paragraph — a collection of sentences with subjects, verbs, objects and, if possible, an actual meaning?

[Billthedrill]

She ran not only against Washington, but the whole East Coast, just to be safe.

Getting a clue as to why she is despised by the broad majority of the media?

To many ears, her accent, her colloquialisms and her constant invocations of the accoutrements of everyday life will seem cloying. But in the casual parts of the country, I suspect, it went down fine. In any case, that’s who Palin is.

And there we are. Obama is "just like us" if one is an urban, Ivy-league elitist; Palin is "just like us" if one is one of the unwashed they view with such disdain. The class boundary being revealed here is not exactly the one the Democrats are betting on.

We shall see. This isn't the sort of a divide that is easily revealed in the polls, and is one reason that the Dems are consistently shocked on election day when the results don't line up with expectations. They'll call it racism this time around only because they don't understand it any better than they ever did.

[kaspergutman]

In her next interview, I think she’s going to be far more relaxed and " herself." I agree that she was overprepped when she faced Gibson and Couric.

Haven't seen tape of Palin's Alaska gubernatorial debates but apparently she displayed impressive policy wonkishness on local issues. She's undoubtedly less comfortable with national issues, resulting in the over prepping. Agree, too, that she's going to get more practiced as the campaign proceeds.

That said, Palin did seem to favor a lively, vividly verbal and slashing style of discourse ("white flag of surrender!") that seemed at times to knock Biden off his game.

[pgkdan]

Go sh*t in your hat. Who invited your stinking carcass to pollute FR?

[pgkdan]

Where was this woman during her interview with Katie Couric?

On the editing room floor?

[Ciexyz]

Splendid performance last nite.

[Senator Goldwater]

“She stepped over the line in claiming that Democrats sought to raise the “the white flag of surrender.”

---

No she didn’t, Brooksie.

Sarah may’ve won the election for the GOP ticket right there.

[Irish Eyes]

I got the feeling last night that Joe Biden genuinely admires and holds Sarah Palin in much higher regard than he does Obama. He won’t admit it, but I think I’m right on this.

I noticed and felt the same way last night, while watching the debate.

[Grampa Dave]

Fresh from the McCain people.

JOE BIDEN’S 14 LIES DURING THE DEBATE!

1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.

2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.

3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”

4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.

5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.

6. ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.

7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people's health insurance coverage -- they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false

8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska -- she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it's not a windfall profits tax.

9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.

10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation -- he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.

11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.

12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.

13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”

14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won't pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.

NOW, NOW, NOW...THERE GOES JOE BIDEN LYING AGAIN.

[Grampa Dave]

You need to schedule more appointments with your shrink and get some new Rxes for some really heavy duty meds.

Then, you and the other psycho impaired libs should negotiate for special rates in pysch units across America.

After we elect Sarah and she is sworn in, the Bush years will seem like heaven for you. You will be miserable 24/7/365 with both your PDS and BDS mental problems for at least 12 more years.

[LucyJo]

"...she stepped over the line in claiming that Democrats sought to raise the “the white flag of surrender.”

"Stepped over the line"??? What line, David?

Ethical line, good taste, you name it, what line could you be thinking about that hasn't been obliterated by the number of times it has been stomped over by the left in an attempt to undermine and destroy the McCain campaign and Sarah Palin in partiuclar?

[LucyJo]

BTTT

[bdeaner]

I got the feeling last night that Joe Biden genuinely admires and holds Sarah Palin in much higher regard than he does Obama. He won’t admit it, but I think I’m right on this.

I got the same feeling! Glad someone else validated it.

When Palin was speaking, he would look at her with this look in his eye, like "Damn, she's good." You could see it in his smile when she would throw him some zingers, like his statement about it being Patriotic to pay taxes, or his stated admiration for McCain and willingness to be his running mate. There was a part of him that was very endeared to her. Very interesting, I thought -- and I am very good at reading facial expressions (lots of training in it).

[bdeaner]

...she stepped over the line in claiming that Democrats sought to raise the “the white flag of surrender.”

WRONG. About time someone was willing to call a spade a spade and a cheese-eating surrender monkey a cheese-eating surrender monkey.

[AuntB]

” got the feeling last night that Joe Biden genuinely admires and holds Sarah Palin in much higher regard than he does Obama. He won’t admit it, but I think I’m right on this.

I got the same feeling! Glad someone else validated it.

When Palin was speaking, he would look at her with this look in his eye, like “Damn, she’s good.” You could see it in his smile when she would throw him some zingers”

________________

Absolutely. He was charmed by her from the start. Did you see him pawing her arm after the debate and grinning?

I liked this line:

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iGS931fNuJFZsryldzQ3HFCaCFYw

“Great day for Sarah Palin. She has been practicing for the big debate tomorrow night. Palin’s staff has tried to find a stand-in to pretend to be Joe Biden. But so far all they’ve come up with is a tree stump. Which actually sounds about right.”

-Craig Ferguson, CBS’ “Late Late Show.”

[bdeaner]

Great line. Actually, Letterman’s joke was pretty funny — about Palin preparing for the debate by shooting a donkey. Not bad, considering Letterman hasn’t been funny for at least 20 years. When is he going to retire?

[AuntB]

Also:

Dolly Parton: ‘I Can Relate to Sarah Palin’

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2008/10/dolly_parton_on_sarah_palin_we.php

There’s a video also.

In “Extra’s” exclusive interview with Dolly Parton today in Nashville, the country legend declared, “I can relate to Sarah Palin. I always say we’re very much alike. Both small town girls. Both Pentecostal, and we both carry an AK-47.”

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

You pinged the wrong guy on that. Not my post.

[MurryMom]

Your enthusiasm for the Baracuda is understandable. She has more testosterone than anybody else at the top of her party. McCain and his surrogates are forever blaming their travails on others, wailing about imaginary sexist and journalistic biases daily. McCain even canceled an interview with Larry King for heaven's sake, in a fit of pique at Campbell Brown, a CNN anchor.

We are not a nation of whiners, but the GOP is now the party of whiners. The rebranding became official when Republicans in the House moaned that a routine speech by Nancy Pelosi had turned their members against the Bush bailout bill. As the stock market fell more than 777 points, Barney Frank taunted his GOP peers with the pitch-perfect mockery: "Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country."

[dforest]

Who cares what you think? Dead head libs have been convinced a long time ago to fall for Marxists.

Therefore your memos and opinions are worthless.