How Palin got her mojo back
9:29 AM Thu, Sep 04, 2008 | Permalink
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How she carried outside to the nation's prime-time television viewers may be another matter -- or at least the Obama-Biden campaign will hope so -- but inside a hockey palace in St. Paul last night, Sarah Palin built one of the most rhapsodic moments the GOP has enjoyed at these gatherings over the past three decades. That's back to and including the dawn of Reagan. And in theatrical terms, it was a building job for a small-state governor who has never faced an audience of this size or a political challenge of this consequence. The packed house did its part with a welcoming ovation that lasted minutes. But the hockey mom clad in Modified Librarian -- demure collar, rimless spectacles, throwback hair-do -- did not shine instantly. Her hand-waves were a little tentative and small for the setting. Her voice was on the thin side, and piping. Was it inexperience? Nerves? For sure, it was hard not to imagine the skit writers salivating back in New York at ``Saturday Night Live.'' She stepped on her first big laugh line -- a zinger explaining to Barack Obama's campaign: ``I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a `community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities.'' But gradually, Palin seemed to grow in her confidence and sense of timing, working into that rare state of flow between a natural performer and an audience that is falling for her, hard. ``She is really normal!,'' marvelled Rhode Islander Caswell Cooke Jr., a 34-year-old John McCain delegate in an open-necked shirt and sideburns. ``I've got to admit, I didn't know what to expect and I was completely uninspired until tonight,'' Cooke said, betraying a concern that has been palpable among younger delegates in St. Paul this week, despite the efforts of veteran party organizers to dismiss the distractions of a hurricane and an unknown vice presidential candidate's emerging family complications. ``But she is nailing it. She is blowing me away,'' said Cooke, who drove here from Westerly, where he runs a store and a restaurant and plays ``second-fiddle,'' in his words, as vice-chairman of the City Council. At this point in the interview, Cooke broke off as the Alaska governor jabbed: ``Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already.'' Cooke broke out laughing. ``But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all,'' Palin said to wild applause. Cooke arched his eyebrows in delight. ``That's a good one!'' he said. Palin's no-nonsense talk on energy and other lunch-bucket issues is going to play in the hinterlands, he said. ``This is where she can connect and the others -- Biden and Obama and really even McCain -- they can't because they're down there in the Senate,'' Cooke said. ``She's the only one that's got a connection to working people who are losing their jobs.'' Palin connected when she talked about driving herself to work, about getting rid of the previous governor's airplane. ``I put it on eBay,'' she said in a pitch-perfect Frances McDormand deadpan, to roars of laughter. ``See? She understands what it's like to drive the kids to school and run to work, you know?'' said Cooke. ``The others, they probably have somebody to do that.'' At about this point, Palin turned her rapier on the Democrat whom she called ``Harry Reid, the majority leader of the current do-nothing Senate'' and his feelings about the Republican presidential candidate. ``He said quote `I can't stand John McCain.''' said Palin. ``Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we've chosen the right man,'' she said, now pausing a beat to milk the crowd's appreciation, and then snapping the punchline into place: ``Clearly what the majority leader was driving at is that he can't stand up to John McCain.'' Here were a few of the young women in the Rhode Island seats, delegates for the Christian conservative candidate, Mike Huckabee: eyes popping at each other, mouths gaping as they laughed. Their expressions seemed to exclaim: Whoa. Did she just say that? ``That is only one more reason to take the maverick of the Senate and put him in the White House,'' Palin said. Then she teed up the junior senator from Illinois and swung: ``My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of `personal discovery.''' Pause to ride the wicked laughter. ``This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn't just need an organizer,'' Palin said. ``And though both Senator Obama and Senator Biden have been going on lately about how they are always, quote, `fighting for you,' let us face the matter squarely. ``There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you ... in places where winning means survival and defeat means death ... and that man is John McCain.'' Caswell Cooke shook his head and smiled. ``She has got her mojo back tonight.'' Read Palin's prepared remarks. 
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Finally, a national candidate to whom I can relate and who can relate to me. This woman is like a breath of fresh air compared to the fetid odor that comes out of Washington. Those mucky-mucks in DC have no idea what the average person goes through every day just trying to keep their head above water. All present incumbent politicians should be voted out so we can start to straighten out this country, state, and our cities.
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I think Palin actually did too good of a job! If McCain gets in and Palin holds her own as VP, then ladies and gentemen, I think we see our next and first female POTUS.
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The Palin speech was watched by 30 million people. I think she blew away any notion that she is not the right pick for VP. It appeared to me McCain may be able to ride her coattails right into the White House.
BTW - Froma Harrop and others who contine to make absurd personal attacks on Palin are looking more foolish every day. Fourtunately, the people cast the votes and not oped columnists.
Let's see what happens in the debates.
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Sarah Palin, book banner:
From the NYTimes Aug. 3rd, "Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.
Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.
The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article."
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Barak Obama, defender of infanticide
In 2000, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) was first introduced in Congress. This was a two-paragraph bill intended to clarify that any baby who is entirely expelled from his or her mother, and who shows any signs of life, is to be regarded as a legal "person" for all federal law purposes, whether or not the baby was born during an attempted abortion. (To view the original 2000 BAIPA, click here.)
In 2002, the bill was enacted, after a "neutrality clause" was added to explicitly state that the bill expressed no judgment, in either direction, about the legal status of a human prior to live birth. (The "neutrality" clause read, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being ‘born alive’ as defined in this section.”) The bill passed without a dissenting vote in either house of Congress. (To view the final federal BAIPA as enacted, click here. To view a chronology of events pertaining to the federal BAIPA, click here.)
Meanwhile, Barack Obama, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, actively opposed a state version of the BAIPA during three successive regular legislative sessions. His opposition to the state legislation continued into 2003 -- even after NARAL had withdrawn its initial opposition to the federal bill, and after the final federal bill had been enacted in August 2002.
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