Pitbull with Lipstick

Round one goes to Governor Palin.

While not delivering a knock out, Governor Palin delivered some serious body blows and bloodied the nose of the Democratic presidential nominee. And the thing of it is, a significant portion of the damage was caused by serious mismanagement by the Obama campaign.

The days since the VP announcement have not been kind to the McCain/Palin ticket. The stance taken by the Democrats had taken was this; Sarah Palin is not a serious candidate. She is a cynical choice and does not have the chops to work at this level. She doesn’t know what she is doing, and she cannot and will not build in roads to women because she is prolife. This will ultimately backfire and she will wilt.

Now in the Dems defense, the bar was set almost absurdly low for Governor Palin going into the speech due to over enthusiasm by the Left. But that is their fault for over pursuing, not Governor Palin.

Objectively, Governor Palin gave a very good speech in terms of delivery and rhetoric. The content was neither surprising or off topic. Governor Palin showed she was a team player by not straying. She was Senator McCain’s running mate and stuck to his message and played the role of pitbull well.

And what a pitbull she was. Again, the tactics and arguments she provided were not new. But the delivery of and the genuine character of the candidate evident during the speech made those arguments land in such a way that Senator Clinton and Senator McCain could not match. She was funny and delivered the blows with a smile. She had memorable lines (mayor is community organizers with responsibilities, promising change to promote career vs. career to promote change, when Reid said he can’t stand McCain he meant can’t stand up to, etc.) She took it to Obama and reminded the audience of all the reasons that they were starting to fall out of love with Obama.

Governor Palin was not all about just ripping Senator Obama and the Democratic Party. She reestablished her roots, her connection with rural America, and interestingly, her commitment in pushing for a better world for special interest children. She began to flesh out as a candidate.

Also, I thought it was a nice tactic to link the media with the old boy network in Washington. I think she did that quite effectively. If effective, any further attacks by the media is seen as a ploy by the establishment who fears the maverick ticket of McCain/Palin. This is especially effective given that 49% of people believe that the media is actively trying to help Senator Obama win.

After the speech I turned on MSNBC, which is probably the closest thing we have to Pravda here in the United States. I watch MSNBC because it gives me a better read on what the Democrats are thinking than anything else. Also, that station was more likely to give serious criticism to Palin than anyone else. (The other stations I flipped through were pretty positive about the speech, although George S. on ABC said it could be considered shrill, but even that sounded half hearted).

The official response from the Obama/Biden ticket was announced, but it was pretty much the same old tired line of McCain=Bush, and not a whole lot about Governor Palin. It is still early, but it showed she didn’t make any immediate overwhelming gaffes that anyone could capitalize on.

Buchanan went over the top in the praise, but that is negligible because his role is to be the sole GOP cheerleader and so he has to be positive.

Matthews said the speech was very well done. Olbermann struggled and came up with three criticisms. 1) She announced when her son was deploying which might be against Army regs, but then said that the date she revealed was the deployment ceremony and not actual deployment, but it could be against the law, but he didn’t know. Well, ok, sure. But that sounds like a reach if she just announced when the ceremony was, which sounds like a public event. 2) The community organizer crack might offend some people. Probably will, but I hardly think its going to be that big of a ripple. 3) Was a comment that she was sarcastic and could be considered “elitist” as a result. Although how that works since she spent most of the time emphasizing her humble roots and accusing Obama of elitism is a tad difficult to follow.

I then watched some Larry King who had on all Democrats who pretty much said she was not explicit enough about her view of America, that she did not have a plan, and was just “fear mongering.”

But no one, no one, no one, questioned her ability any more. No one questioned her ability and referred to her as pandering. Sarah Palin stepped up and showed that she was for real at least tonight. While the arguments that she is not ready will persist for the rest of the campaign, those complaints have lost their luster and will fade to the background barring a major gaffe by her later on. In addition, she has put the heat back on Obama, dragging him back into the spot light to answer questions to which there are no easy answers (George S. line, not mine). For this and this alone, the first round goes to the Republican ticket.

Now, please note, this does not mean that I am predicting a Republican win. It is still early and there are a lot of things that can go wrong on either side. However I think it is a much closer race this morning than it was yesterday.

In conclusion, Governor Palin has set the table for Senator McCain. McCain has to answer and provide a concrete and clear vision of a McCain presidency. He must do several things tonight. First he must not fall into the trap of trying to match the drama that was Governor Palin’s speech last night, or trying to use the soaring rhetoric that is Senator Obama’s wheelhouse. Trying to be something you are not is not going to work. Governor Palin showed being genuine gets you much farther than thesaurus does.

Second, do not be baited into giving a dense, complicated, detail oriented speech. The debates are for details, the convention has to be about the candidate. Sell the vision, and give the broad strokes of the plan, but don’t bog down the speech with the details.

Finally, McCain just has to give a very good speech. McCain has to match Palin’s speech tonight, but he needs to scale back the commentary on Senator Obama and instead focus on his ideas.