The warm-up acts

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 9:30 PM - 0 Comments

“I believe that electing John McCain and Sarah Palin will spark a return to God’s Word and a spiritual revival that will bring our nation together. God bless you, and God bless America!” — Joe Gibbs, Hall of Fame American football coach and NASCAR Championship team owner.

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The Palin speech

By John Parisella - Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 3:02 PM - 24 Comments

Yesterday, Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin delivered what has been called by most of the political observers a “home run, out of the park” speech. She was forceful, articulate and she delivered a well structured speech. It had a family touch, it said the right things about the nominee and she was able to brand herself in a way that corresponds with the new positioning of the McCain campaign. The McCain-Palin ticket is now the maverick, outside Washington, and reform alternative to the Obama-Biden campaign of change. To be fair, Palin energized the room and surpassed expectations.

In recent days, there has been much controversy about her selection and much of it has been directed to the vetting process and the judgment of John McCain. Prior to asking her to join the ticket, there was only one meeting of record between the two and we are finding out in a piecemeal fashion more and more about who she is and what she stands for. As a result, there has been speculation among bloggers and some pundits that her choice would be short-lived. Some compared her to Thomas Eagleton in 1972 when he had to leave the McGovern ticket shortly after his nomination. Or, some claimed she was the reincarnation of Dan Quayle, untested and unprepared. Yesterday’s speech was successful but it is still just a speech.

We now find out that much of the speech was authored by speech writers associated with George W. Bush. Continue…

Megapundit: Will Stéphane Dion defile the odds?

By selley - Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 1:26 PM - 6 Comments

Must-reads: Lawrence Martin on the Canadian election; Rosie DiManno and Margaret Wente on Sarah Palin; Christie Blatchford on getting our act together in Afghanistan.

Main Street Canadians like the status quo
How Stéphane Dion can become Prime Minister, and the 10,000 reasons he probably won’t.

We know what Jack Layton, Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe are going to do on the campaign trail, an unusually energetic Lawrence Martin opines in The Globe and Mail. The election’s result is all up to the unknown quantity: Dion. If he “appreciably exceeds his remarkably low expectations,” taking “dead aim at the Harper government” on Afghanistan, fiscal management and the environment, then he might just “eke out a two-seat minority.” But “if, as most expect, he trips over his own tongue and toes, it will be John Turner revisited.” The smart money’s on Harper, of course, but Dion has proven himself again and again as a “defiler of the odds”—that’s either a typo or a brilliant turn of phrase, we’d say, or possibly even both. And Martin says it’s tough to put anything past the man who “came out of a lunar module to win the Liberal leadership race.”

Dion certainly seemed to be taking dead aim at Harper in Winnipeg yesterday, Don Martin argues in the Calgary Herald, when he described the Prime Minister as a “secretive, manipulative, untrustworthy, intolerant, job-killing, climate-change-denying, all-round evil-doer.” All this would have gone down a little smoother if Dion hadn’t also announced alterations to his Green Shift, Martin adds, and if there weren’t “literally dozens of ridings … still without a candidate to carry the Liberal flag, including some that are potentially winnable.” But Dion, for one, appears ready to rumble, and Martin predicts we’ll soon be hearing lots of effective but “utterly preposterous” lines like, “Stephen Harper wants to give George W. Bush a third term in Ottawa.” Oh, goodie.

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The best natural speechmaker since Reagan

By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 11:33 PM - 80 Comments

It was that good. No, she’s not qualified, and the substance was thin, but my God — that was perhaps the greatest bit of political theatre I have ever witnessed. Her critics in the media and in the opposition may regret having piled on quite so enthusiastically, and with so little heed for who they hurt — or angered. Watching the tumultuous, ecstatic reaction in the hall, I was reminded of the famous words of the Admiral Yamamoto after Pearl Harbour: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

Sarah Palin walked out onto that stage under more scrutiny, with less preparation, and with more at stake, than any candidate in living memory. You’d never know it.

UPDATE: How’s it playing? Of course it’s boffo with the Republican right. But with moderates and independents? Over at the New Republic, not normally known as a cheerleader for the GOP, the consensus is it was a remarkably effective speech, even “alarmingly” so:

Several moderate-Democrat friends of mine have been emailing — few if any would ever vote for McCain– but all agree that Palin was very strong. The more liberal among them are a little panicked. 

More from the centre-left TPM Cafe:

… if you didn’t sense last night how deeply Sarah Palin channeled some of the country’s deepest, most powerful currents of pent-up indignation and yearning, you don’t sense the trouble we Democrats are in. 

Rhetorically, she was the anti-Obama. She was stirring precisely because she was so artless, matter-of fact, and “American” — with no cadences or grand, historic resonances, but with plenty of mother wit and shrewdness. Credit her as much as the speechwriters.

The two currents she tapped — the ones that roared up from so deep in the crowd that you could feel them riding on love more than hate — weren’t the ones unleashed by her or Rudy Giuliani’s disparagements of Obama.

They were riptides of deeply wounded pride and groping loyalty, a yearning for vindication of something that is not to be disparaged at all.

The first such riptide was unleashed by Palin’s and Giuliani’s accounts of John McCain’s career-threatening commitment, a year ago, when his campaign was hopeless, to an American military victory in Iraq, Right or wrong — and I think it was wrong — it was a commitment grounded in an uncommon courage that will be dismissed as stupidity only by smart-asses who really want to lose this election.

The second current was tapped by Palin’s own grounded, calm confidence that “ordinary people’s” common sense – her kind, and a lot of other people’s – is what it takes to pull this country through its converging crises.

Hockey Mom delivers

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 11:18 PM - 20 Comments

She was combative and she was funny — sometimes snarky — and the crowd here clung to every single word. I can’t help but think she’s a plus on the ticket. And I can’t get over how much she looks like Tina Fey.

“I love those hockey Moms. You know, they say, the difference between a hockey Mom and a pitbull?… Lipstick!”

Update: full text of her speech here.

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Giuliani rips Obama and has a cackling good time of it

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 10:28 PM - 11 Comments

Giuliani can’t stop chuckling and cackling. He is obviously having a blast laying into Obama. Interestingly, the Secret Service is jamming wireless signals while he speaks. They did this for Bill Clinton in Denver too.

**

On Obama:
“He worked as a community organizer…” chuckles… “Wha??…” Chuckles again…
(Chants of “ZERO!”)

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Mike Huckabee: the media is tacky

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 9:30 PM - 2 Comments

Mike Huckabee, the quirky guitar-playing belly-shrinking former governor of Arkansas, who also ran for president.

“I’d like to thank the elite media for something quite frankly I didn’t believe could be done — that is unifying the Republican Party and all of America” behind McCain’s pick of Palin.

“The reporting of the past few days has proven tackier than a costume change at a Madonna concert.”

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Romney: get rid of "Liberal Washington"

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 9:17 PM - 4 Comments

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and former presidential candidate, starts out attacking the Washington Post and the New York Times, then he goes on a tear against “Liberal Washington.”

“Is government spending – excluding inflation – liberal or conservative if it doubles since 1980? — It’s liberal! We need change all right – change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big government liberals and elect John McCain!

I guess he read my cover story from a while back.

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“And I have one more recommendation for energy conservation — let’s keep Al Gore’s private jet on the ground!”

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“Did you hear any Democrats talk last week about the threat from radical, violent Jihad? Republicans believe that there is good and evil in the world. Ronald Reagan called-out the Evil Empire. George Bush labeled the terror-sponsor states the Axis of Evil. And at Saddleback, after Barak Obama dodged and ducked every direct question, John McCain hit the nail on the head: radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it!”

(Loud chants of USA!! USA!!)

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“President McCain and Vice President Palin will keep America as it has always been — the hope of the Earth!”

"Drill Baby, Drill!.."

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 9:06 PM - 0 Comments

“..And drill now!”

– Michael Steele, chairman of GOPAC. He even got the crowd chanting it.

“Do you want to put your country first?” YES! “Then let’s win the war on terrorism!”

Now that that’s settled…

Updated: GOP analysts: "It's over."

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 7:22 PM - 3 Comments

Mike Murphy is a Republican political consultant. Peggy Noonan is a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. They don’t share the enthusiasm for the Sarah Palin pick. A live mike picked up the details of a conversation they thought was private.

Josh Marshall has the footage and the transcript here.

Update: Peggy Noonan explains herself.

Tonight's line-up

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 7:14 PM - 0 Comments

Headliners: Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani and of course, Sarah Palin.

Times are CT.

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What Sarah Palin will say tonight: excerpts & zingers from her speech

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 7:09 PM - 22 Comments

Take that Obama: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

From the inbox:
Excerpts: Remarks by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

Video: Why they love Sarah Palin

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 6:39 PM - 3 Comments

Say what you want about the Alaska governor, but Republicans here at the convention love her. I think I’ve had variations of the conversation below with every delegate I’ve chatted with here — complete with references to the enthusiastic voice-mails and emails from back home. The enthusiasm for the McCain ticket has palpably increased among the party activists since she was named.

Also, a lot of people I’ve run into here either grew up in large families or have large families of their own, and they just don’t see why her having 5 young kids is an issue. This delegate from Nevada told me off camera that his mother had 7 kids and a career as a medical doctor.

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Video: A protest for every taste

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 5:55 PM - 2 Comments

Outside the Excel Center there is a big gathering of Ron Paul supporters and 9/11 “Truthers” chanting “9/11 was an Inside Job!” A little while ago they were joined by the anti-war Code Pink people who can be heard in this video singing what at first sounds like “God Bless America,” but if you listen closely, is actually “God Help America.” The din in the background is MSNBC broadcasting from an outdoor stage. A few people brought big banners warning people they are going to HELL. I was not entirely sure who they are aimed at: Republicans? Democrats? the nice people of Minnesota? Then I came upon a spirited argument over Obama’s “gay lovers”. And everywhere, everywhere, I go in St. Paul, those darn Peanuts characters keep stalking me.

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Megapundit: Governor, you're no Dan Quayle

By selley - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 2:28 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Dan Gardner and John Ibbitson on Sarah Palin; Don Martin on the election trail.

When’s the next bus back to Juneau?
The pundits continue to make moosemeat… sorry, mincemeat, of the would-be vice-president.

“Presidents who can find places on maps are a mixed blessing,” George Jonas writes in the National Post, and presumably vice-presidents too—i.e., because they might accidentally invade the place in question. And all this talk of lack of inexperience on Barack Obama’s and Sarah Palin’s part betrays a woefully naïve understanding of how politics works, Jonas argues. “Dental hygienists need experience. Presidents and tycoons learn on the job. … What you want to be is a quick study.”

Palin “wasn’t picked for her foreign-policy resumé, she was chosen for her narrative, for her story,” L. Ian MacDonald writes in the Montreal Gazette: beauty queen “marries high-school sweetheart, has five kids,” the last with Down’s syndrome, thus buttressing her pro-life credentials; becomes mayor of small town, then “takes down the sitting governor from her own party in a primary, and sweeps the state in a general election,” shortly thereafter cancelling “bridge to nowhere” that John McCain “often cites as the worst example of political pork in Washington” (an oversimplified chapter but a compelling one, MacDonald says). We’re pretty sure everybody already knew this.

Also from the Department of the Painfully Obvious, The Globe and Mail‘s Jeffrey Simpson explains that McCain chose Palin to bulwark support among leery social conservatives and women, and that so far it’s been a more successful gambit among the former than the latter.

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Where Sarah was hiding

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 12:16 PM - 0 Comments

Talk about your faith-based politics. When Sarah Palin abruptly canceled her appearance at the pro-life/Christian Right event I was at yesterday (open press, $95 per ticket, planned for 2 months, she was the headliner), organizers said it was because she had to work on her big acceptance speech tonight. True to a point. But she found time for a (closed door) meeting with AIPAC, to talk about her mother’s trip to Israel, etc. Andrew Sullivan points out an irony. It appears Palin has her own Jeremiah Wright.

The McCains' adoption

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 8:52 PM - 0 Comments

Wes Gullett was just up to tell the story of how he and his wife, and the McCains adopted daughters from an orphanage in Bangladesh run by Mother Teresa:

“Cindy spends much of her time working in places most of us only see on the news. She works with the poor, bringing them food, medical care, and hope. …. On one of these trips she found two girls in desperate need.

One had a severe cleft palate, another had severe malnutrition:

“Cindy McCain decided to bring them home, give them hope, and save their lives.”

“…Cindy had just flown half way around the world with an infant on each arm. She had brought home our infant daughter. To us she looked like an angel. I remember John’s face when he first met his daughter Bridget. He was not the tough war hero… he was full of emotion and love…”

“I know they will always answer the call of those in need because they have done so time and time again throughout their lives.”

“Cindy McCain saved those babies 17 years ago, and those girls have grown up to be beautiful young women.” (He hugs his daughter, Nikki, who has been standing next to him.)

Updated: Blogging from the stands

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 8:40 PM - 0 Comments

When I arrived they were playing a country song with the lyrics: “I pledge allegiance to this flag, and if that bothers you, well that’s too bad.”

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Obama campaign pre-responds to Bush speech

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 7:26 PM - 0 Comments

From the inbox:

“The man we need is John McCain.”

- President George W. Bush in remarks prepared for delivery to the Republican Convention this evening

“Tonight, George Bush enthusiastically passed the torch to the man who’s earned it by voting with him 90% of the time, and who will continue this President’s legacy for the next four years – his disastrous economic policies, his foreign policy that hasn’t made us safer, and his misguided war in Iraq that’s costing us $10 billion a month.  The man George Bush needs may be John McCain, but the change America needs is Barack Obama,” said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

What Fred Thompson will say tonight

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 7:24 PM - 0 Comments

Excerpts landed in my inbox:
Excerpts: Remarks by Former Senator Fred Thompson
Former Senator Focuses on Themes of “Country First” and “Service”
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Updated: Republican National Coalition for Life Cocktail Buffet Reception

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 6:00 PM - 0 Comments

The opening remarks were interrupted by a protester who somehow made it onto the stage in this hotel ballroom shouting: “Choose Life, Stop War!” The audience eventually drowned her out by singing “God Bless America.”

(Sorry — the light here is not good for picture taking.)

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McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin was supposed to speak here but organizers say she pulled out last night because she had to prepare her acceptance speech. Instead, they had conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. She begins by attacking the “entrenched elites” of the media — meaning the reporters in the back of the room.

She is making blistering attack on the media and the New York Times in particular for running three articles on their front page on Sarah Palin’s family. I am paraphrasing here, since a connectivity glitch ate my earlier verbatim transcription, but she is saying that the media would not be questioning whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be president if she were not pro-life

If she were pro-choice, they would all be saying, “Oooh, what a great pick. McCain is being a maverick….”

“They don’t like the fact that Sarah Palin exists. This is not a debate that is being had around the edges here. This cuts to the very core of what we are here for

“We will continue to see vicious, horrible attacks against Sarah Palin … yet I am confident that the same elites that said Reagan was a doddering old fool… are going to find that someone from small town America knows more in this finger than they know in their whole lives!”

The audience loves it. One guy has a homemade “Vote Sarah!” sign taped to the back of his suit jacket.

(Sorry, no photo of Ingraham.)

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One speaker: “Down Syndrome babies are the joy of humanity.
We are made in the image and likeness of the holy god and Sarah Palin knows that.”

“If you work for Sarah Palin and John McCain – it’s not just Republicans you are electing, you are working for the cause…”
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A big sign about the stage has a big heart covered with stars and stripes and says: “The LIFE of the party.”

Conservative, but not dry.

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Gary Bauer, the social conservative activist who once ran for president himself: “The last 36 hours, I believe the American media has hit a new low in tabloid journalism. They have taken a 17-year-old girl and trying to use the crisis pregnancy she finds herself in as a battering ram, a club to damage her mother, her family, and Senator McCain. It’s tabloid journalism, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
“In the last couple of days, governor Palin’s family have taught the people of America more about what t means to be a faith-based family than anything the politicians could do in Washington, DC.”

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Anti-feminist: Phyllis Schlafly: “The platform adopted by the Republican convention yesterday is the most pro-life platform in history.
It recognizes that the unborn child has an individual fundamental right to life…”

She also took a dig at Hillary Clinton, so much for trying to woo those Clinton voters.

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My friend Eli Lake, a reporter for the New York Sun, showed up and had this observation about Schlafly and Palin:

“Sarah Palin is the culmination of Phyllis Schlafly’s life’s work. She is an independent woman who manages to piss of mainstream feminists and stands for the opposite of the Democratic agenda.”

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The tickets to this event were $95 and Palin was booked two months in advance. Apparently, Schlafly is not at all happy that the McCain campaign pulled her out late last night.

Tonight in St. Paul

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 12:12 PM - 0 Comments

Here is the updated plan that convention organizers announced a short time ago on a conference call with reporters: They have moved around the convention schedule to cram in some of the speeches that were scrapped last night on account of the hurricane.
Last night’s speech theme was supposed to be “service”. “Rather than talking about it, we actually did it,” said campaign manager Rick Davis. They raised millions of dollars for hurricane relief between the phone bank they set up at their hotel and the parties that were turned into fundraisers, as well as private giving by their donors.

So tonight will be all about John McCain’s life story and his military service – and more abut kids.
We will hear from a friend of McCain, Wes Gullet, telling the story about how the McCains and the Gullets each adopted a child from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh. It will be “a story of how two families got joy and love from effort of adoption.”

The godfather of one of McCain’s sons, Tommy Espinoza, will talk about “ intersection of God, country, and family.” A cell mate of McCain’s from Vietnam will talk about “valour under difficult circumstances.”

There will be a live feed of President Bush speaking from the White House.

Fred Thompson, one of McCain’s closest friends, his long-time seat-mate in the Senate, and one-time rival for the presidency will give a speech entitled, “The Courage and Service of John McCain.” He will talk about “what makes him tick why is he the maverick that he is.”

Then the Democrat turned Independent senator, Joe Lieberman, will give a speech entitled “The Original Maverick.” The campaign says he will talk about “American exceptionalism” and what it means to sacrifice to help others and “why that makes our country so much different than so many others.”

The campaign is negotiating with the networks to get more air time tonight since yesterday was so compressed.

Rick Davis said the campaign has raised $8 million over the Internet since announcing Sarah Palin as VP. He said they raised $50 million in August. (Note: he must have been approximating or the figure went up. Previously the campaign had said McCain raised $47 million in August.) (Obama raised $47 million in August.) (Obama raised $51 million in July; I haven’t seen August numbers yet.) Palin is “penciled in” to speak on Wednesday, he said.

A few bricks fly in St. Paul

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, September 1, 2008 at 5:22 PM - 0 Comments

I arrived in St. Paul this afternoon. The vibe here is quite a bit different from Denver which was a big rolicking political carnival. Here the energy is serious, even grim. The hurricane in the Gulf Coast has set a serious tone. Bush and Cheney’s speeches have been canceled along with the rest of the evening program. Parties are being turned into fundraisers. Cindy McCain and Laura Bush showed up at a breakfast for the Louisiana delegates and gave them moral support. A McCain campaign plane was sent to help evacuate the families of Gulf Coast delegates. All the boxed lunches that were prepared for delegates were apparently sent for disaster relief in the Gulf.

Then there are the protesters. The streets in Denver were dotted with cops. Here the cops crowd the streets in big rows, on horses or bikes, with piles of plastic cuffs and billy clubs dangling from their bulky padded body armour which gives them a look of Michelin Man meets Terminator. There are snipers on downtown rooftops. Of course, this is Minnesota and the cops, like everyone else, are super-nice. And if you’re not an anarchist breaking windows with bricks, they are friendly, smile at passers-by, and complain good-naturedly about their hot, uncomfortable suits.

The protesters are a motley group. The majority seem to be against the Iraq War, but I saw signs about everything from Ethiopia to Colombia to Palestine.

On the other side of the barricades and the x-ray machines and the bomb-sniffing dog, at the Excel Energy Center, I passed by Karl Rove and McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt striding purposefully surrounded by a gaggle of aides, perhaps on their way to a meeting to figure out how many houses babies McCain now has on the ticket.