Did anyone watch Palin's speech? I could only stomach ten minutes or so.
Agree or disagree with her "positions" - the whole point to these things is to sway the undecided voters - in campaign speak the "persuadables." Her speech, with the sarcasm and personal attacks, is great for revving up the base. If it were a closed event of Republicans echoing their own views, it would have been fine - red meat for the all-too-literal "true believers". The problem is that it wasn't an in house pep rally - it was their big prime time push, and it was pretty harsh. (Again - they may be operating from a "nothing to loose" mind-set.)
They are trying to convince the undecided middle that Obama is a self-promoting, America hater. That's a tough thing to do, and I don't think that "nasty" was the way to do it. On Iraq, the majority of Americans want out sooner rather than later. There's some solid psychological research behind the Republican's constant use of the word "victory" as an opinion manipulation tool, but it's an uphill fight.
I do give the speech writer a little credit - on taxes, he merely had Palin misrepresent reality. We all know that nothing would have stopped them from just making shit up and lying. (She read "Obama wants to raise income taxes..." off the teleprompter. Technically true, but I don't know any of the less than 1% of the US population who would see anything but an income tax break under Obama's plan. It was a bullshit misrepresentation, but at least not a full-tilt lie. Congratulations Republicans!) Ah, but there were some "oldies but goodies" - my favorite of that section was the old play to confused people that "the Death Tax" would somehow prevent parents from passing "family farms" down to their children. Sigh ... good times! (in 2009, the first $3.5mil is exempt from the estate tax, no mater how badly the estate was planned. So, no, normal family farms are not at risk.)
As an aside - watching Palin's speech, I realized something about the McCain campaign position in our ongoing involvement in Iraq. Obama's position is to get out of Iraq as soon as it can be done responsibly. The position the McCain campaign is taking is that "America must achieve Victory in Iraq!" At the same time, they accuse Obama of putting political success ahead of national interest. But ask yourself - what, exactly, is the national interest in mandatory "Victory!!!" ? As long as Iraq is reasonably stable and on the path to rebuilding, we've done our job there in a sense. All this talk about "Victory!!!" sounds like a football game. You play games like football for the sake of winning, but not much else. So who, exactly, is putting political gamesmanship ahead of national interest? Rah Rah! Go Team!
One of the "good" reasons for picking Palin was to neutralize her counterpart, Biden. If she had played it a bit softer, then there would have been serious limits on how tough Biden could be with her. (Look at that mean politician man beating up on the nice mother of a retarded baby! How shocking!) Instead, she took the gloves off (well, OK, the Republican speech writers took the gloves off.)
Maybe they will be able to put the brakes back on this. Right now the right-wing media is spreading the message "The MSM is criticizing Palin saying that because she has children, she shouldn't try to take on such a big, important job! All the talking heads and media folks are saying that!" Of course, it's difficult to find that actual criticism in reality, but it's a very effective way to scare "the MSM" into softening their critiques.
The problem is that the real Sarah Palin called bullshit on that whining during her run for governor - she said: when you get criticism as a woman - don't whine, work harder and prove you're up to the task. That's one thing I'll agree with her on.
I haven't seen too much detail yet, but I heard that Campbell Brown and CNN are Persona non Grata at the McCain campaign for asking real questions. A McCain campaign flack was touting Palin's experience "as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard and all the decisions she's made." So Campbell asks him to lay out some examples of her actual decisions. The flack throws back that she's "belittling" Palin's command experience. Cambell asks again, basically "what experience, what commands, exactly?" Ah - here's some info:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/0 ... and-chief/
McCain canceled on Larry King to "take revenge" on CNN. But isn't that cutting off his nose to spite his face? Isn't Larry King CNN's highest rated segment and a good demographic for McCain? Plus, Larry throws nothing but softballs. McCain does this all the time to reporters, but this is taking it to a new level of vindictive stupidity - especially as Obama goes on O'Reilly's All Spin Factor, or whatever the "loofah lover" calls his show.