Time for Palin to shine, or fail
Sarah Palin’s recent interview with Katie Couric (which was, by the way, hardly comforting) lowered many conservatives’ expectations for her performance in tonight’s debate and made them consider whether it could be positive for the GOP. At best she would get in, get out, and manage not to make an idiot of herself along the way.
But today, Sean Hannity (of all people) may have raised the Right’s hopes for Palin. She appeared on his radio show sounding surprisingly competent and self-assured. Could this be the Palin who shows up to the debate? Or will the Couric interview Palin shine through?
It’s unanimously agreed (at least on the Right) that something big is needed to change the direction of the race. Some have suggested going negative. Others have suggested that, with the bail-out through Congress and hopefully off everyone’s mind, McCain will be able to expand his economic argument into more general terms, where he seems more comfortable (and where Republican ideas tend to resonate better). But secretly, everyone is keeping their fingers crossed for the debate. A strong Palin performance would not only legitimize Palin as a VP candidate, but would also legitimize McCain’s judgment for having chosen her.
If Palin can stick to cogent argument rather than losing the audience in gibberish and platitudes — and if she can manage to control the tenor of the debate instead of letting Biden push her around — she may have a chance. Will it be enough to change the course of the race and help McCain close the polling gap? Pretty soon, I guess we’ll find out.
Read Jonathan’s previous post | Read his liberal counterpart.
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I was pretty surpised last night watching the veep debates. Palin did not make a complete fool of herself, and for that I commend her. She was actually pretty decent.
But Biden. Heh. If only he was a republican. If I had to choose between Obama and Biden for prez, it’d be Biden. Not only could Biden speak in specifics, but he actually had some passion for what he was talking about.
Unlike the complacent rock star Obama, who solicits naive screaming freakouts like the Beatles at Shea and speaks in platitudes and the most vanilla of generalities.
But the nail in the coffin, and why an Obama vote is extremely unwise, is his support of hugely destructive spending and tax plans. If Obama takes the presidency we’re going to see more and more corporations lifting their operations out of the country as a result of skyrocketing corporate taxes, then dropped in China and India. The extensive oil drilling plans that would create thousands of jobs and soon create a valuable export that will alleviate our trade and budget deficits will be largely neglected in favor of hugely inefficient ethanol technologies that will wreak even more havoc on world food (read: corn and soybean, 2 staple foods that hundreds of millions depend on for survival) prices.
As far as we can see Obama supports all teachers unions, who in turn support almost ironclad job security for teachers, regardless of their performance or actions. Why not weaken the unions and promote competitive salaries for teachers, thus boosting the quality of education? No, that’d ruffle too many feathers and people would forget that he’s about “change”, whatever that means.
And so on.
Conclusion: vote obama, get a blue collar job, and you’re okay except you have to compete with china and probably lose. and if your collar is white, you can expect an impossible job market and falling wages. all while your children are being taught by questionable teachers the difference btw a good touch and a bad touch.
Andy
October 3, 2008 at 9:32 am