Sarah Palin Reads the GOP Playbook - She's The Pit Bull With Aplomb

This year the GOP rolled out its new product in early September, and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was just what conventioneers needed to enliven their otherwise lackluster nominating convention in Minnesota. Maybe it's the case that "A star is born," as at least one pundit declared hopefully Wednesday night, but it seems more to this writer that a role player stepped onto the court.

The official life story being circulated about the McCain campaign's VP pick says she played high school basketball and helped her team win state. (A coincidence, that echo of a cherished movie plot line?) At that time in her life, the point guard was applauded not as the team's star or as their most gifted player (she was neither), but for her toughness. She contributed. She was a role player.

The same can be said today in the political arena. As the GOP's vice presidential nominee, her role is to campaign with vigor and generate excitement. The campaign needs her youth and more right-wing credentials. She also can fill the "just folks" gap that John and Cindy McCain cannot. And she will play the traditional VP role of attack dog, or as we should probably say now, "pit bull." These roles are indeed important.

As for the speech Palin gave Wednesday night, it was crafted by the same old guys like Matthew Scully who have been scripting talks for the GOP for years. The tone and cadences were no different than what we heard at the 2004 "flip-flop" convention that slung insults at candidate John Kerry. And that cheap shot denigrating Obama for writing books? Sure sounds like peevish speechwriters' envy. (Fact check from someone who has read those two books: Only one Obama book was a memoir. The other is a campaign tome.)

Sarah Palin surely delivered the cynical, mocking lines with aplomb. The convention faithful laughed and booed and rose to their feet on cue and came away feeling good.

Palin seemed cool, comfortable, and confident in the role of wise ass. However, she might want to lose the closed-lip smirk she sported while waiting out laugh-line pauses. It resembles George Bush's too much. Enough said about performance.

The content of the speech was relatively thin and relatively unimportant. It started off with the narrative of Palin as the small town girl who can throw a punch. It is an appealing story.

Only time will tell if that folksy tale will overpower the competing narrative in which the Palin family makes an unfortunate foray onto the Jerry Springer set and family secrets spill out after each commercial break. Pundits and operatives will fight the story-line battle along those lines, but the real Sarah Palin story will require more time to recognize. Most American voters aren't likely to know much about this candidate's character before November 4.

For now, we just have the Palin acceptance speech, drafted by "the permanent political establishment" (a characterization that I borrow from the speechwriters themselves). It relied heavily on straw men that were subsequently knocked down, and on "us vs. them" rhetorical tactics. Instead of addressing head-on the imbalance between America's energy needs and energy assets, for instance, there was the ridiculous assertion that "Our opponent is against producing it [energy]."

The speech paused on only the one policy issue at length, since energy is the biggest and safest issue that Alaskan politicians can be counted on to have had some personal experience with.

Unfortunately, Palin proclaimed that "... the fact that drilling ... won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all!" Such a remark encourages Americans to divide rather than unite around energy policy.

Palin also asserted without substantiation:

"Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas. And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: We've got lots of both."

She offered no data; she acknowledged no need for environmental caution. In fact, through the entire speech she avoided mention of either "global warming" or "the environment." The Palin energy position is to divide and plunder. Just do something, and perhaps clean up later. Not unlike the Bush/Cheney foreign policy.

Issues weren't the point of this speech, of course. This was about introducing Sarah Palin on the national stage.

What Sarah Palin said and how she said it were classic GOP politics. Idealism was put down; Obama's theme of "Change" was rebranded as Republican; and the base was given a dose of "Hope" all their own.

None of that changes the fact that Sarah Palin's personal views and political acts fall far outside the mainstream ranges. She's an extremist on reproductive rights and on energy policy. She has governed locally like a free-wheeling bull in a china shop, not even tempered by party due to the Alaska GOP's scandal-weakened state. As mayor, she even pressured her town librarian for book bans. (The librarian resigned.) Sarah Palin's idea of "choice" seems to be an old-time shotgun wedding for her oldest daughter and baby-sitting duties for all her girls. And the VP pick is already very publicly pressuring John McCain to approve drilling in the protected and pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If any doubt among women voters still existed last night, Sarah Palin showed us she is more Phyllis Schlafly or Ann Coulter than Hillary Clinton. Her language ("this gal"?), policy positions, and affiliations all confirm that unconditionally.

John McCain appeared at the end of the evening to say euphorically to his GOP crowd:

"Don'tcha think we made the right choice ...?"

McCain used that pronoun "we" advisedly. By all reports, this VP pick was made at the eleventh hour, after McCain's personal choice proved unacceptable to some others in the metaphorical GOP room. The GOP went with this "gal" and a "just folks" narrative.

For a laugh, their lighthearted candidate repeated her favorite joke comparing hockey moms and pit bulls. It's a variation on an old, sexist line among conservatives about putting lipstick on a pig. The pig's still ugly.

"You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick. (Laughter, cheers, applause.)"

But hasn't the GOP just applied some fresh lipstick?

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