Palin Speech (Updated)

Pretty much what I expected. It's clear that the GOP wants to fight this election on its turf, which is personality/character, tribal identity, and cultural values.  But this time around I don't think it's enough.  I agree with Josh Marshall:

take this as a sign that the McCain campaign has abandoned an effort to compete for swing voters and go back to the base energizing strategy that worked for President Bush in 2004. The numbers make that look like a tough proposition. But I think a few months from now, everyone will agree this was a mistake.

Biden will have his hands full in the debate. As a personality, she's far more appealing (IMO) than Hillary, regardless of her stand on women's issues. She's got Annie Oakley spunk and this was her moment--she did as well as she could with it--but is she going to win enough undecideds to get to 270?  She'll get the usual suspects, but I am still optimistic that a majority of Americans are onto this cynical b.s.  2008 is not 2004--even Peggy Noonan is not buying this smelly package. And Obama is not Kerry--I'm optimistic that the Obama campaign will be savvy enough to finesse GOP strategy and tactics.  And there's still all the stuff most people don't know about her yet from her time as mayor and governor.  There could be some real time bombs ticking that will keep her on her heels and diminish her ability to do her barracuda thing.

The GOP understands in a way that the Dems don't that facts don't matter. So much of the speech content, of course, was nonsense. The characterization of Obama's tax policy. This idea that the Republicans and McCain are the party of reform?!  That the party will march into Washington to take on the special interests?  But facts don't matter, so what' the pointless to try to make an issue of it.  

***

UPDATE: And how can anybody defend the kind of nonsense coming from Romney an Giulaian last night?  From Romney's speech:  "We need change all right -- change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington."  Even he can't possibly believe this kind of classic GOP up-is-downism.  It's just one example of just-say-anything demagoguery that calculates there are enough people who don't live in reality but in a fantasy that is realityish. It knows that there are relatively few negative consequences for throwing this kind of nonsense out there.  

Do Democrats do it too?  Not with such over-the-top, big-lie, breathtaking boldness.

Is it condescending to say call people deluded who buy into this?  Or is it just the plain truth? Does anybody believe you can have a sane dialogue with people who live in this kind of fantasy world?  I know people who are deluded don't like to be told they are.  Neither do drunks like to be told they have a problem.  Doesn't mean they don't have a problem. An intervention is called for here.

Comments

[Valerius]

"As a personality, she's far more appealing (IMO) than Hillary, regardless of her stand on women's issues."

I agree with that. Also, I think she's far more interesting than Obama. She's just as good of a speaker as he is, and her speech at the convention will probably make more of an impact (in terms of media 'buzz') than Obama's speech at his convention. Her and Rudy's attacks on Obama as a community organizer (which was the longest job position he held during his life) were politically brilliant. Rudy was vicious good yesterday.

[Jack Whelan]

Valerius--

Who are you going to vote for? Just curiious.

[Valerius]

I will probably vote for Obama. However, I still realize that politics is to a certain extent a kind of game. I enjoy watching the partisan shoving and realize that the Republicans have been more successful at winning elections (and much more importantly, enacting their policies) because they shove much harder. This year, it seems like they're going to do the same thing. I would only hope that the Democrats man up and push back. The only one who did it, at least at the big Democratic showcase, was Obama. The rest of the speeches there were, more or less, vacuous attempts at 'post-partisanship.' The very essence of politics is partisanship. FDR didn't work in a 'bi-partisan' manner when crafting the New Deal but instead relied on a distinct governing philosophy and implemented a successful political strategy that made Republicans either irrelevant or submit out of shear unpopularity.

[Jack Whelan]

I think you're right about the Democrats, but what disappointed me about the June-August Obama was that he didn't show the nimbleness in parrying the attacks from McCain that he showed in dealing with Clinton. I think he can fight and he will fight. His speech last Thursday was just the opening salvo.

I agree with your assessment of post-partisan politics if it means a kind of split-the-difference, neither-here-nor there approach to getting business nobody really, really cares about done. (looking busy is all most of these people care about.)

But what interests me about Obama is the possibility--and it is only a possibility, but at least with him there is a possibility--that he can redefine what the center means, and that such a center would catalyze a working alliance between the saner factions that are operating within our politics. It's what I was trying to get at in my post about Whigs. There's a way of fighting hard for sane centrist (universal healthcare is a centrist issue) policies without being a partisan extremist. Or a better way to say it is that Obama's p[ost-partisanship is really a fighting partisanship to define a sane center.

I think that the conventional wisdom about partisanship is that it's an extreme, rigid left fighting an extreme rigid right--Jacobins vs. Fascist, to use my terminology. But most people are neither--they are drawn to the extremes because that's where the energy is.

My hope is that Obama can energize what I think of as the Whig or sane center--one that is principled, forward looking, pragmatic, and tough enough to fight the entrenched interests that will do everything in their power to resist him.

[Matt Zemek]

Jack,

The intervention you speak of will not receive media coverage, or will be twisted out of line.