I joke constantly that doing the Northern Alliance Radio Network is the easiest talk radio gig in the world, because you rarely need to do any actual show prep.  John, Chad, Brian, Ed, King, Michael and I blog about the stuff all week; we’re completely, constantly immersed in our material. Prep is almost redundant.

Counterintuitively, last night was even more so.  Palin’s speech was a huge slab of red talkradio meat that could have sustained an hour or two without any notes.  McCain’s speech had its notes as well (later post).

And the guests?

We landed Hugh Hewitt and Duane Patterson – but that’s no challenge.  They’ll do any media they can get.  They’d appear on Pacifica, I think.

We followed them up with a couple of women – east-coast Democrats, actually – who’d gone to Denver in an RV to support Hillary.  They worked hard to get the roll-call vote, and were disappointed with the treatment they felt Mrs. Clinton received.  They loaded back up in the RV, and started driving home (Pennsylvania and Delaware) – and, listening to the radio, became ever more revolted by the treatment they heard their own side giving Sarah Palin.  They got to Terra Haute before they realized they needed to do something.  They put “Saint Paul” into their Garvin (they had no idea where the city was), swerved northwest, and drove all night to get to Saint Paul, on their mission – to convince fellow Hillary supporters to turn out for the Palin/McCain ticket.  That interview was a hoot; sort of like interviewing Edith Bunker and Linda Richman.  A hilarious couple of ladies, and great people to have on your side.

And then…Paul Shanklin and Michael Ramirez.  Simultaneously.  If you’ve been hiding under a rock; Shanklin is Rush Limbaugh’s parodymonger, writing spoof songs featuring dead-on impressions of political figures (usually Democrats) for the past umpteen years; Ramirez is a big cheese at Investors Business Daily, one of the best editorial cartoonists in the business, and a pretty funny guy himself. 

The Northern Alliance – at least, Volume II, Ed and I – don’t do a lot of interviews.  But over the years on the NARN, I’ve inteviewed quite a few people that I admire a lot, in many ways; a partial list (because over four and a half years, I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few) includes David Bellavia, Mitt Romney, Victor Davis Hansen, Christina Hoff-Summers, Norm Coleman, Michelle Malkin, Mona Charen, Steven Vincent, Mike Nelson (yes, that one, of Mystery Science Theater fame), John Lott…and on, and on.  Of course, Ramirez is a giant in the field, and Shanklin – well, I used to do parody songs myself, back when I was with Don Vogel.  And Shanklin is the best ever.  And interviewing people for whom you are an unabashed fanboy is an interesting exercise; trying to sound excited but not obsequious (or worse, like Chris Farley’s awestruck cable interviewer character) can be hard, at least for me.  I try to “humanize” them – often (I’m not making this up) by remembering that their underwear is just as likely to be riding up as mine is right now. 

That usually helps.

Anyway – interviewing Shanklin and Ramirez together was sort of like sharing a table with Robin Williams and Billy Crystal (and Ed, feel free to book both of them any ol’ time here).

And after all that, we had Mac’s speech.   More on that later.

Another interview with Hugh and Duane, and it was time to head out.  Here’s the point where I give the shout-out to the Patriot crew that actually did the work this past week, the setting up and tearing down and moving stuff; program director Nick Novak, producer Matt Reynolds, promotions director Kate Fisher, majordomo Jay “Long Suffering” Larson, and Salem Radio’s extraordinary robogeek engineer Anthony Ochoa.  Since I hadn’t the faintest idea how to tear the gear down (and Ochoa would have dissected and killed me in that order if I’d tried), I retired to the “Captain’s Quarters”, a media/delegate reception area in the basement of the Wilkins Arena, with an open bar, swedish meatballs and jalapeno poppers.  It was packed with people – media, delegates, staffers, everyone.  I mixed it up for a bit – but after the week I’d had, I was too tired to socialize all that much. 

It was, truly, an action-packed evening.

Kevin and I had no idea which way the crowd was going to turn; all I knew was I didn’t want to get cut off from the Excel and have to dash halfway around the metro to get on the air at 8PM.

The crowd turned right onto the frontage road, as Kevin and I raced up to John Ireland Boulevard.  We moved across the bridge as the protest turned left, led by a group of about 20 bike cops and a dozen or so mounted officers.

They strolled out onto the bridge…

…and then things changed.  The bike and horse cops formed a line.  A squad of motorcycle cops raced down from the Cathedral to join them.  They pulled out their Hats ‘n Bats and stopped the march in the middle of the bridge over I94.

Kevin and I stayed as close to the action as we could – but after a few minutes, a couple of Bureau of Criminal Apprehension cops in military battledress pointed us back to the north approach.   We grabbed some space on the fence overlooking the bridge, and waited.

A few moments later, I heard a footsteps.  I turned – and saw over 100 cops in riot gear moving down from the History Center, donning gas masks and moving to the front rank.  It almost looked like a medieval battlefield shaping up; several ranks of infantry with sticks and armor, backed up by the cavalry…

…with artillery – half a dozen cops with 37mm tear gas grenade launchers moved up behind the whole lot.

And we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And wondered where they were going.

Until I saw more riot cops at the north end of the bridge. They had the entire march bottled up on the John Ireland bridge; no  way to go to the east or west (they were 20 feet above the freeway), or forward or back.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Someone quipped “I think they’re trying to bore them to death”.  The cop I was talking with didn’t disagree.

Eventually, after over an hour of standing around on the bridge, it appeared they were starting to disperse to the north.

Nothing happened, but it was fascinating to watch it happen.

I hiked down Kellogg to the Xcel, walking through a checkpoint and past a long row of National Guard to get to Five Corners and the X.

I didn’t get much chance to blog my activities at and around the RNC yesterday – so I’m going to try to catch up now.

Around 2:15, my boss called us all into a meeting to tell us the City had told the company to send all employees home at 3PM, anticipating trouble with the 4PM “anti-war” rally.

“Score“, I thought, despairing that I’d ever  get to cover a genuine protest at this convention.

I headed out on the street, and called Marty Owings, host of Radio Free Nation over on Blog Talk Radio and started chasing leads.

And chasing.

And chasing.

We started by running to Harriet Island – where Colleen Rowley’s party had pretty well broken up.

So it was down to Mears Park, where the anarkids had massed on a couple of previous nights.  Zilch.

I figured we should just hang around the entrance on 6th and Market, which had seen so much of the action earlier in the week.

As we were crossing Wabasha, we saw a couple of “street medics” – anarkids with red crosses taped on their clothes, carrying Holly Hobby Junior First Aid kits – walking toward the Capitol, chattering on their walkie-talkies.

“Score“, again.  We followed them to the Capitol, where the 4PM “Anti-War” rally, the one we talked about in July, was about to get underway. A terrible rap/jazz band was trying to channel Rage Against The Machine, playing to a crowd that was (someone call Molly Priesmeyer) about 99.5% white.  No, I’m not kidding; I counted.  I saw exactly two Afro-Americans in the crowd, and two more later.

The “band” was trying to whip the crowd into a frenzy with their tributes to (I’m not making this up) Hugo Chavez and Eugene Debs.

There was no need to caricature them.  And given the amount of pot smoke I smelled, I don’t think there was much chance of “Frenzy”, at least not yet.

I moved up on the hill next to the stage, and watched the crowd – and the little knots of cops massing down on Ireland and Cedar.

Suddenly – around 4;30 – a group of a dozen Saint Paul bike cops rolled up the Mall through the middle of the crowd.  Thirty yards from the stage, they veered stage-right into the crowd, and apparently grabbed a couple of protesters (sources say they’d been followed after committing some act of vandalism or criminality downtown).  The entire crowd – probably 4-500 at this point – raced over around the dozen cops, who formed a circle around their quarry.

I turned around; two groups of riot cops (20-30 each) poured out of the capitol in full gear, and raced down the steps, pushing a path through the crowd and formed another circle around the bike cops.  Off to stage left, a group of mounted cops charged across the grounds, leading another group of riot cops on foot.  They formed a double cordon around the bike cops – one facing in, the other facing out, and escorted them over toward John Ireland, where a couple of Saint Paul black and whites came to take the suspects away.

I went down on the capitol grounds as the crowd went back to “enjoying” the shrill, hectoring speeches.  The cops disenagaged with a lot of synchronize shouting and banging of gear, in an almost-tribal display of macho that, I won’t lie, made me proud to be an American.  They pulled back to the top of the capitols steps, behind the stage.

I met Kevin Ecker and Leo Pusateri, about the time word came to us that their permit to use the capitol grounds was going to expire at 5PM.

As a loudspeaker truck went onto the capitol grounds to inform the crowd, the whole mass started moving south toward Constitution Avenue with almost terrifying (at the moment) speed.

That is the one word that describes Senator John McCain’s speech last night. Also, warm, humble and endearing.

My friends, I’ve been an imperfect servant of my country for many years, but I’ve been her servant first, last and always. And I’ve never — (cheers, applause) — I’ve never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I didn’t thank God for the privilege. (Cheers, applause.)

…and after we’ve won, we’re going to reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again and get this country back on the road to prosperity and peace.

Despite a few gaffes and interruptions from protestors, it was, as it needed to be, his best ever.

By no means is John McCain a legendary orator but that made it real.

The McCain introductory video chronicled the generations of service the McCain family has given to America and featured the Senator’s 96-year old mother “a navy family is wonderful.” It served to illustrate the campaign’s “Country First” mantra while at the same time possibly standing in contrast to Obama’s lack of family history and murky genealogy.

Instead of bowing to critics and leaving out his well-worn tale of his time in the Hanoy Hilton, he delved deeper and the story was renewed, serving to fortify the case for his character and to also underpin “Country First.”

No one would have begrudged McCain taking more than a few shots at Obama and Biden, he took a couple, by name; but mostly McCain cleared a path to the highground, congratulating Obama and emphasizing what they shared in common.

And finally, a word to Senator Obama and his supporters. We’ll go at it — we’ll go at it over the next two months. You know that’s the nature of this business, and there are big differences between us. But you have my respect and my admiration. Despite our differences — (applause) — much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans, and that’s an association that means more to me than any other.

We’re dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed by our creator with inalienable rights. No country — no country ever had a greater cause than that. And I wouldn’t be an American worthy of the name if I didn’t honor Senator Obama and his supporters for their achievement.

Instead of — (chants of “Zero! Zero!”) — instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn’t think of them first, let’s use the best ideas from both sides. Instead of fighting over who gets the credit, let’s try sharing it. This amazing country — (cheers, applause) — this amazing country can do anything we put our minds to. I’ll ask Democrats and independents to serve with me, and my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. We’re — (cheers, applause) — we’re going to finally starting get — getting things done for the people who are counting on us, and I won’t care who gets the credit.

It was a brilliant move; and clearly sincere.

When he did go into after Obama, it was rarely by name, and it was brief.

I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. (Boos.)

I will open — I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. (Boos.)

I will cut government spending. He will increase it. (Boos.)

My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them. (Boos.)

Now, my opponent promises to bring back old jobs by wishing away the global economy. We’re going to help workers who’ve lost a job that won’t come back find a new one that won’t go away.

Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucrats. I want schools to answer to parents and students.

If there truly was an indictment, it was delivered to both parties equally, to all of Washington; it was a complicit admission of guilt and failure. It was another brilliant move, emphasizing McCain’s reform manifesto and his reputation as an outspoken “maverick”.

You well know I’ve been called a maverick, someone who — (cheers, applause) — someone who marches to the beat of his own drum.

Sometimes it’s meant as a compliment and sometimes it’s not. (Laughter.) What it really means is I understand who I work for. I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you. Thank you.

I’ve fought corruption, and it didn’t matter if the culprits were Democrats or Republicans. They violated their public trust and they had to be held accountable. (Applause.) I’ve fought big spenders — I’ve fought the big spenders in both parties who waste your money on things you neither need nor want. And the first big-spending, pork- barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. I will make them famous and you will know their names. (Cheers, applause.) You will know their names.

We need to change the way government does almost everything, from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children. All these functions of government were designed before the rise of the global economy, the information technology revolution and the end of the Cold War. We have to catch up to history, and we have to change the way we do business in Washington.

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. (Applause.) We lost — we lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger.

We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust when we valued our power over our principles.

He failed to mention George Bush by name; honored “The President” for leading our nation through the dark times of 9/11 and in more than a symbolic gesture, his speech ran from the Bush administration, putting as much distance there as possible.

I’m grateful to the president of the United States for leading us in these dark days following the worst attack on American history — (extended cheers and applause) — the worst attack on American soil in our history and keeping us safe from another tack — attack that many — many thought was inevitable;

His case for national security hung on his experience and his family history.

I know how the military works, what it can do, what it can do better, and what it shouldn’t do. I know how the world works. I know the good and evil in it. I know how to work with leaders who share our dreams of a freer, safer and more prosperous world, and how to stand up to those who don’t. I know how to secure the peace.

My friends, when I was 5 years old, a car pulled up in front of our house. A Navy officer rolled down the window and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I rarely saw my father again for four years.

In the end, he unified all that watched in a JFK-like call to action.

My friends, I’ve been an imperfect servant of my country for many years, but I’ve been her servant first, last and always. And I’ve never — (cheers, applause) — I’ve never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I didn’t thank God for the privilege.

I’m going to fight for my cause every day as your president. I’m going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God as I thank him: that I’m an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on Earth, and with hard work — with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach.

Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight for what’s right for our country. Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.

Fight for our children’s future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all.

Stand up to defend our country from its enemies. Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here

We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Okay, so maybe not in your neighborhood. 

The Republicans were having some fun last night at the expense of Obama and all other “Community Organizers” across the land who are running for national office with such a prestigious entry on their resumes. 

Sarah Palin was especially animated given the Obama campaign’s insistence of focusing on the VP candidates tenure as Mayor of a small town while conspicuously omitting the same as Governor of a State with hundreds of employees and a 6 billion dollar budget. 

In response, Obama’s peeps felt the need to clarify just what a community organizer is. 

The ‘Community Organizer’s’ New Clothes

But the mystery of the “community organizer’s” job description was solved this morning, when an Obama campaign email, signed by the delightfully named David Plouffe, popped into our inbox. 

I wasn’t planning on sending you something tonight. But if you saw what I saw from the Republican convention, you know it demands a response.

I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians. They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign. 

But worst of all–and this deserves to be noted–they insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process. 

You know that despite what John McCain and his attack squad say, everyday people have the power to build something extraordinary when we come together. Make a donation of $5 or more right now to remind them. 

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed. 

Let’s clarify something for them right now. 

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies. 

And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.  

That’s right–community organizing consists of helping elect Barack Obama president! This fits right in with Obama’s claim, noted here yesterday, that he is more qualified to be president than Palin is to be vice president because, whereas she has run a mere town, he has run a campaign for himself. 

I personally am not so impressed with experience as I am accomplishment. I am surrounded by people that have much experience in their given occupation but little accomplishment. 

Palin’s speech included a joke that was not part of the prepared text: “You know what they say about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”

Perhaps someone can recast this as an Obama joke. Here’s our attempt: 

What’s the difference between a “community organizer” and a Chihuahua? A Chihuahua has a real job. 

Sarah Palin has relatively little executive experience, although certainly more than the other three candidates. What she does have, is a series of significant accomplishments that belie her young political career. She has leveraged that experience to serve someone other than herself.

As far as I can tell, Obama has leveraged his position to serve no one but himself.

If you were to extrapolate Palin’s and Obama’s career, ostensibly multiplying each candidate’s accomplishments pro forma, you would in Obama’s case, confirm the theorem that zero times zero is zero. 

Are we supposed to cast our eyes on the slums of Chicago, behold how well organized they are, and exclaim in wonder, “Wow, Barack Obama did that!”?

So maybe zero times zero is negative five? 

From the Governor’s speech last night:  

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.  

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

It’s a good line, but it still doesn’t explain what a “community organizer” does. Take away the “actual responsibilities” of a small-town mayor, and you have . . . nothing. Oh wait, that’s her point, isn’t it?  

The community Barack Obama has organized is, in Plouffe’s own telling, the community of those who admire Barack Obama. He is mayor of Obamaville and aspires to be president of Barackistan. 

It is a sad state of affairs that national politics have become so polarized that a politician with no experience, a history of unsavory associations and no accomplishments to speak of can acquire so much political capital, despite the free flow of information in our connected world. Maybe Obama should have selected Al Gore as an encore VP.

He, like Obama, has done so much with so little.  

The City of Saint Paul has asked downtown businesses to send workers home in advance of the 4PM protest march.

This is the protest dealt with in the meeting I personally covered about six weeks ago:

“We worked very hard to make the Day 1 march on the Xcel something that you can bring your family to and you can all come out for the war. And we believe Day 4 is for the truly committed and for the people who really want to see change and expect that to be a little harder to come to than just showing up with the kids and the balloons.”

Other rumors are flying.

I’ll be on the air tonight from 8 til 10 on AM1280.

CNN interviewed lifelong conservative and Rock and Roll legend Pat Boone at the CNN Grill.

A couple highlights:

I thought because of the tremendous media adulation problem [over Sen. Barack Obama] and also because George Bush’s rating is low that it was like everybody seemed to think it was a slam dunk for the Democrats. And, amazingly, despite all of that adulation, hype and everything else, [Sen. John] McCain is sticking right in there with Obama, and he really hasn’t begun his campaign yet.

On Governor Palin

Here’s somebody in a party that is living its principles

Sen. Obama, I  think, showed his lack of judgment by not choosing the best-qualified woman that he could have chosen as his running mate, one who had already proven able to get 18 million votes. He passed, and he took Joe Biden, who has been in the Senate longer than McCain, which doesn’t bespeak change. Meanwhile, McCain chooses a highly qualified, attractive woman, and I think it just shows that the “Big O,” or, as I like to think, the “Big Zero,” has missed his golden chance. I think he will lose because of this.

CNN.com: Is there a Pat Boone classic you’d like to play for McCain?

Boone: I wrote and produced a music video which I’m offering to the campaign called “For My Country,” the ballad of the National Guard. It is supportive of the troops, supportive of the surge, supportive of McCain who is, whose slogan is “Country First.” And the National Guard and our military are winning the battle in Iraq, even though Obama says we did not support it, we’re winning.

It’s always fun, and unfortunately a novelty, to see an entertainer that is a conservative.

Mary Mitchell at the Chicago Sun-Times makes the by-now ever-more-obligatory nod to the power of Sarah Palin’s speech last night…

…but calls it “mean-spirited”.

“I love those hockey moms. You know what they say the difference is between a hockey mom and a pit bull — lipstick,” Palin said.

And then she showed us what she means:

“In small towns, we don’t heap praise on working people when they are listening and talk about how bitter they are and they cling to their religions and guns when those people aren’t listening,” she said.

“We prefer candidates who don’t talk to us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.”

Those are the kinds of jabs the Obama campaign will have a difficult time dealing with simply because Palin is a female, and the campaign will not want to appear to be sexist.

No, Mary Mitchell.  The Obama campaign will have a difficult time dealing with those jabs because they use Barack Obama’s own words against him. 

Which, I suspect, will soon be called “racist”.

Bruce Benidt from The Same Rowdy Crowd – one of the better (read:  more readable, less drearily awful) leftyblogs in town – seems to enjoy good oratory too:

Democrats have come up against a force here. It’s the same force — absent substance — that worked for George Bush. But Palin is ten times the speaker Bush was and is.

There is no comparing the two as speakers.  Bush is, at best, an adequate orator, with immense preparation and motivation.  He’s at his best one-on-one – not an inconsiderable talent with a job that involves so many personal meetings and so much mano-a-mano armtwisting  and cajoling.

But Palin stands out – especially given the absolutely awful state of political oratory in America today.  Indeed, this campaign is blessed with two excellent orators.  The difference, I think, is that Obama is a lot like an actor; he’s at his best with the big prepared speech.  Is Palin more like the stand-up comic, capable of rolling with the verbal punches?  She as a reputation of thinking on her feet; here’s hoping.

Personal opinion — she’s competely unqualified to be president should something happen to the aged McCain, and McCain’s choice of her is reckless and rash and would endanger the country he claims to put first. And some of what she said was just a lie — Obama will raise taxes on a steelworker, for example.

Tomayto, tomahto; if Obama taxes the company that sells the steelworker the gas to run his car, the steelworker pays for it. 

But I digress.  “Reckless choice” has become the Dem meme lately, begging the question “and so why is the even-less-experienced Obama any better?”

But, she did a very good job tonight, she jabbed at Obama with zest and a smile, and in a dull field of dreadful GOP speakers, she is not just a breath of fresh air but wind and rain and sunshine all at once.

Dull, dreadful speech is epidemic in American politics. Besides Palin, the list of good American political orators is painfully short.  Offhand, I can think of only a few; Tim Pawlenty, Rudy Giuliani…

…I’ll work on it.

Palin stumbled when delivering a few sentences about foreign issues — the only time she was dull and clunky. When talking about family and state government and no new taxes and small town values, she was kickass.

I agree.  About 80% into the speech, she got into some wonky material about foreign policy, and a little energy drained out.  But she recovered and, obviously, finished big. 

She’s trouble for the Dems. A smart pick by McCain in terms of getting elected. A frightening choice for the country.

No more frightening – if experience is the arbiter – than the top of the other ticket is.

I was sitting two booths down from Hugh Hewitt last night, on Radio Row. At one point, I was in a clutch of guys – Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Duane Patterson, King Banaian, Ed Morrissey – that’d challenge anyone’s intellectual adequacy (unless you, like I, ignore the concept).

And you could tell they were elated at the Palin speech. We interviewed Duane and Hugh after the event – that’s a matter of record (and should be going up on Townhall soon). Dennis Prager had another story he shared with me that I’ll hold off on until after his show (since I’m assuming he’ll use it; it is that good).

Hewitt writing on Townhall this morning:

Until yesterday the collective MSM sneer was that Palin was “Hello Kitty,” reeling backwards under the pressure. Now she’s Gorgo, smashing up the MSM’s cars. The dismayed punditry is pondering the “meanness” of her attacks and her lack of details on health care refom. A complete triumph over the Beltway-Manhatan media elites, but they will of course regather in Mordor and try again next week.

That, again, was Duane’s salient point; her address was straight out of the Reagan playbook. It bypassed the media and went to her real audience, the American people.

Of course, nothing cheeses off Big Media like being bypassed.

The Obamains decying “mean-spritiedness” are diminishing Obama the former giant slayer turned victim. They think Sarah Palin, Rudy, Mitt and Huck are tough? Remember Obama is scheduling meetings with Ahmadinejad, Kim, and Chavez for ’09. Disarray is far too complimentary a word to use for the Obama campaign.

So here’s hoping Mac scores the kill tonight.

PACIFICA AIR TALENT:  “Like, what’s with Sarah Palin’s kids names?  Trig?  Track?  Piper?  Is she like from California?”

THE OTHER SEVEN PEOPLE GATHERED AROUND THE PACIFICA TABLE: “Like, totally haha”.

I’ve said it before – I’m an oratory geek.  It’s the family business; Dad was a speech teacher for most of four decades, and has actually had a longer radio career than me (he’s been doing weekly editorials at KDSU, a public station in Fargo, since the eighties).  And of course, I’ve noodled around the trade a bit.

I was watching Palin on the closed-circuit last night from Radio Row.  And for most of the speech, she was in control.  Unlike most political speakers – who are slaves to the teleprompter, and who are largely terrible in front of crowds – Palin radiated confidence and control.

She has some gestures when she speaks; a few times, when she wanted to throw in some subtext, she had a little wink she’d toss off.  A little gesture, but one that says “this is my house, and I’m just getting started”.  She radiates cool unflappability; I’m looking forward to all of that going up against the Joe Biden we’ve seen in all of those Senate hearings – the endlessly-yammering self-adulating blowhard Biden that’s made such a caricature of himself.

If the Sarah Palin we saw last night shows up against the Joe Biden we saw in the Alito and Edwards hearings, the Democrats are in huge trouble.
I really need to watch the whole thing again.

Joe Biden, taking a page from the onrushing success of the Kucinich campaign, promises show trials!

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Keep it up, Slow Joe.  There’s nothing people like more than endless pointillistic legal nattering.

Oh, yeah – and the McCain Campaign isn’t about the Bush Years anymore.  So any time you spend on this is completely wast…

…oooh.  Biden smacked us bad that time, didn’t he?  Hope he doesn’t keep this up!

Last weekend’s raids in Minneapolis drew a fair share of controversy; many commentators posited that, based on the list of materials captured in the raids, it appeared that Ramsey County sheriff Bob Fletcher overreached in carrying out the raids (although I personally will wait to hear more about the evidence against the various arrestees).

I suspect that the Ramco Sheriff and the other Law Enforcement agencies involved in the raids did a little quick calculating (Warning!  Pure Conjecture Follows!) and figured that weathering a few lawsuits from the ACLU’s legal jackals would be better than dealing with the kinds of violence and mayhem the subjects were planning.

I think it worked.

The first day’s protests were a complete flop.  The anarkids’ planned mayhem was largely anticipated and controlled.  Traffic was never blocked. And outside of a few spasms of impotent violence, things pretty much just worked.

So the anarkids are back to going “They hit us first!”  They’ll be “unmasking” and “answering questions” at a presser at one of the raided houses later today.

Almost wish I could be there.

One of the things I loved about Lady Margaret Thatcher, former conservative Prime Minister of the UK, was her sheer gleeful unrepentance.  She – like her friend Ronald Reagan – had a vision and mission; they both took it to the people directly, bypassing the media and going straight for mainstreet in their respective nations, ignoring the slings and barbs of the nattering classes.

Thatcher needed few defenders, since she was always on the attack.

Kevin Ecker sees some of the same traits (writing at True North and Eckernet).  Defend Palin?

Me? I not gonna bother.

Why?? Because ultimately it only benefits Palin and she’s already proven that she’s more than capable of handling it. Part of me even wonders if she thrives off it.

Even if one looked only at her acceptance speech, it’s obvious this is no fragile flower of a woman. She has no problem being tough and aggressive. She can defend herself and honestly I think it puts her in her element. She’s earned the reputation of being a tough tenacious figher, and a spirit like that likes to be challenged. So let them challenge her. Let them underestimate her. Let them mock her. I think she’ll answer back much better than she takes.

I think it was last weekend that someone – I can’t remember who – invoked Thatcher in referring to Palin.

The coming weeks will tell, but I think she got off to a great start.

The lefty spin machine is trying to fire back at Palin.

One of Palin’s best lines last night – one of many, many great lines – was

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

I think Ed, King and I jumped up in our chairs and did the “we’re not worthy” at that one (to the Pacifica folks’ irritation; I think we disrupted their broadcast. Sorry, Pacs).

This was in my inbox this morning from the Obama email machine:

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

Well, no. It’s how groups get people organized for whatever purpose they want. It can be a noble calling; it can also be a means for chiding and harangueing people from above.  And they’re not accountable to voters – merely to whomever sets the agenda for the “organizing” that needs to be done.
“Community organizers” do it on behalf of one group or another. Others change the poliices of “out of touch politicians” by going to PTA, running for school board or mayor or whatever.

In Chicago, “community organizers” are agents of the status quo, the Chicago democrat machine.

Sarah Palin started out in politics to be, um, an “agent of change” – and she made real changes, in Wasilla, in Juneau and, last night I think, in the way Republicans look at this race.

So yes.  Yes we can.

…the impact of Palin’s speech to those sitting in the building to those who weren’t.

Electric. Powerful. Intense. Like you’re part of something big.

My first impression – she’s telling Middle America, the “bitter, gun-clinging Jesus freaks” to grab their pikes and pitchforks and get ready for a rumble. She did everything but yell “Git ‘er Dooooone”; having Gretchen “Redneck Woman” Wilson among the post-speech entertainers was an interesting touch; the whole speech said “yes, all you disaffected, distressed people in flyover land – you production workers in Michigan and Ohio, you middle-class professionals in Tulsa and Omaha – I’m talking to you”.

In as many words!:

I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

Not everyone gets it, of course. Pacifica Radio Network, the granola-chomping conspiracy-mongering San Francisco-based (if memory serves, and it might not) far-left network had about eight people in their extra-large booth (along with the biggest mound of electronics anywhere in the place); they were attempting sort of an MST3K-type commentary during the speech, tut-tutting about her outfit, her hair, baby Trig’s sleeping through most of it. “Like she’s running for student body president”, one of them chortled in that smug way all of them, from Garrison Keillor down through Mark Heaney, do when they think they’ve uncovered some fetid truth about “the enemy”.

But the best observation of the night belonged to Duane “The Generalissimo” Patterson, Hugh Hewitt’s producer, who talked with Ed, King and I after the show let out. He pointed out that it borrowed one of Reagan’s key stylistic elements; bypassing the media and the chattering classes and going straight to the American people. He’s right, of course
It was, all in all, an amazing night.

More in a bit.

Charisma.

Magnetism.

Youth.

Vigor.

Icon for Change.

Oratorical Skills.

Accomplishment.

…were all trumped last night. Every last one of them…only Sarah Palin actually possesses the last one.

Sarah Palin dashed the hopes of Obamanistas by standing in front of thousands as millions watched, and nailed it – never sounding artificial and never not being herself. She confidently delivered a masterful speech with a dash of Alaskan twang,  then pulled out the whoopin’ stick and gave Obammy a lickin’ only she could deliver.

…and he was stinging already as Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani had already softened him up for her.

And to the media…

“Here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.”

Despite her disdain for them, they gushed for her.

Media swoons over Palin’s fiery speech

Fired-up Palin rocks arena, rips her foes

Palin Assails Critics and Electrifies Party

Afterwards, John McCain ambled onstage in a surprise early appearance, and wisely had little to add. Essentially saying “See?”

Obama’s camp responded with already well-worn talking points; a veritable knife in a gunfight.

“The speech that Gov. Palin gave []well delivered, but it was written by George Bush’s speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we’ve heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Gov. Palin and John McCain want to define ‘change’ as voting with George Bush 90 percent of the time, that’s their choice, but we don’t think the American people are ready to take a 10 percent chance on change,” said Bill Burton, Obama campaign spokesman.

And now they must scramble to adjust…again.

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…is getting much more than he bargained for tonight.

Sarah Palin is on tonight. She is as comfortable in front of this crowd as she is at her son’s hockey game.

This bodes well so far.

…and now she’s going after Obama and Biden! Un bee leeeev a bull! She aint wastin’ no time!

So much for the motherly image!

I can guarantee you that Obama’s handlers are peeing their pants at this very moment. Sarah Palin is stealing this race before the paint dries on the yard signs.

She does look like Tina Fey.

…and she is abolutely crusifying Obama.

Other highlights:

I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education better.

When I ran for city council, I didn’t need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too.

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.

And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

 

Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America’s energy problems – as if we all didn’t know that already.

But the fact that drilling won’t solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.

 

And there is much to like and admire about our opponent.

But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform – not even in the state senate.

 

But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot – what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger … take more of your money … give you more orders from Washington … and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy … our opponent is against producing it.

Victory in Iraq is finally in sight … he wants to forfeit.

Terrorist states are seeking new-clear weapons without delay … he wants to meet them without preconditions.

Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights? Government is too big … he wants to grow it.

Congress spends too much … he promises more.

Taxes are too high … he wants to raise them.

 

In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers.

And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.

They’re the ones whose names appear on laws and landmark reforms, not just on buttons and banners, or on self-designed presidential seals.

 

A leader who’s not looking for a fight, but is not afraid of one either. Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the current do-nothing Senate, not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee.

He said, quote, “I can’t stand John McCain.” Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we’ve chosen the right man. Clearly what the Majority Leader was driving at is that he can’t stand up to John McCain.

 

My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of “personal discovery.” This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn’t just need an organizer.

 

To the most powerful office on earth, (Senator McCain) would bring the compassion that comes from having once been powerless … the wisdom that comes even to the captives, by the grace of God … the special confidence of those who have seen evil, and seen how evil is overcome.

She pulled it off. The crowd is absolutely electrified.

Blitzer on CNN: She hit it out of the Park! Clearly a star has been born in the United States.

Anderson Cooper: if anyone is wondering why she is such a popular governor, they know now

Campbell: John McCain got his attack dog!

CNN: The most macho speech of the night was given by a woman

John McCain’s choice is so very justified…and he just walked onto stage…surprise!

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…is giving the speech of his lifetime.

If you believe in Voodoo, Barack’s backside is quite sore by now from the application of Rudy’s foot.

Cindy McCain is cradling Sarah Palin’s baby boy as Rudy speaks.

Highlights:

A few years later, he ran for the U.S. Senate. He won and has spent most of his time as a “celebrity senator.” No leadership or major legislation to speak of. His rise is remarkable in its own right – it’s the kind of thing that could happen only in America. But he’s never run a city, never run a state, never run a business.

He’s never had to lead people in crisis.

This is not a personal attack….it’s a statement of fact – Barack Obama has never led anything.

Nothing. Nada.

 

Look at just one example in a lifetime of principled stands — John McCain’s support for the troop surge in Iraq. The Democratic Party had given up on Iraq. And I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that when they gave up on Iraq they were giving up on America. The Democratic leader in the Senate said so: “America has lost.”

Well, if America lost, who won? Al Qaida? Bin Laden? In the single biggest policy decision of this election, John McCain got it right and Barack Obama got it wrong.

 

Obama was going to take public financing for his campaign, until he didn’t.

Obama was against wiretapping before he voted for it.

When speaking to a pro-Israel group, Obama favored an undivided Jerusalem. Until the very next day when he changed his mind.

I hope for his sake, Joe Biden got that VP thing in writing.

 

When Russia rolled over Georgia, John McCain knew exactly how to respond.

Having been to that part of the world many times and having developed a clear worldview over many years, John knew where he stood. Within hours, he established a very strong, informed position that let the world know exactly how he’ll respond as President. At exactly the right time, John McCain said, “We’re all Georgians.”

Obama’s first instinct was to create a moral equivalency – that “both sides” should “show restraint.” The same moral equivalency that he has displayed in discussing the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel.

Later, after discussing it with his 300 foreign policy advisors, he changed his position and suggested that the “the UN Security Council,” could find a solution. Apparently, none of his 300 advisors told him that Russia has a veto on any UN action. Finally Obama put out a statement that looked …well, it looked a lot like John McCain’s.

Here’s some free advice: Sen. Obama, next time just call John McCain.

How do I count Sarah Palin’s strengths, at a few days’ remove?

Sharp.  Photogenic.  A short but action-packed record.  Paleocon.  Of faith.  Dealing with some of life’s challenging vicissitudes like very American family does to one degree or another, and doing it with style.  Has to have Ahmadinejad thinking if he steps out of line she’ll stalk, shoot, skin and mount him on her office wall.

Oh, yeah – and an agent of rebellion. 

I don’t agree with Pat Buchanan a whole lot (once he steps outside of interpreting conservative orthodoxy, anyway), but I think he’s got the real importance of Palin figured out better than anyone I’ve heard yet.

The arrival of Palin on the national scene, with her youth, charisma and vitality, probably also portends a changing of the guard in Washington.

With Republicans having zero chance of capturing either House, and but a slim chance of avoiding losses in both, a Vice President Palin, with her reputation as a rebel and reformer, would surely inspire similar revolts in the Republican caucuses.

As Thomas Jefferson said, from time to time, a little rebellion in the political world is as necessary as storms in the physical.

And the GOP needs this; indeed, Palin’s record in Alaska, upsetting the Murtkowski/Stevens GOP machine’s applecart, is the GOP’s challenge in microcosm.  The party needs to clean its house and focus on its real mission – interpreting Hayek and Jefferson into terms that make sense to people like the ones next to you at little league or the grocery store or the gas pump or on the freeway during rush hour.

The Palin nomination could backfire, but it is hard to see how. She has passed her first test, her introduction to the nation, with wit and grace. And the Obama-Biden ticket, having already alienated millions of women with the disrespecting of Hillary, is unlikely to start attacking another woman whose sole offense is that she had just been given the chance to break the glass ceiling at the national level.

It’s been noted today by better bloggers than I – the Democrats are the real bigots (although I did kinda make the point last week).

Let the Dems try to crucify a teenage couple, to babble on about the woman’s “experience” when their Presidential candidate can’t hold a candle to her, to try to keep standing on the glass ceiling (for non-establishment liberal women).  There’s a party to resuscitate out there; we’ll come back to them later.

They want McCain to be a maverick and then when he acts like one they pounce like hyenas.

They want women to assume more dominant roles and when an ascendant, accomplished and confident one does, they say she’s too young, too cute, too average, too motherly.

They want reform and an end to the entrenched policies and personalities of Washington; along comes an agent of that very change and they attack her for not being chosen by them; for not being of the ilk.

WSJ: Even as the Obama camp ponders how best to handle John McCain’s veep pick of Sarah Palin, the high priests and priestesses of the media have marked her as an apostate. The Beltway class is in full-throated rebellion against a nondomesticated conservative who might pose a threat to their coronation of Barack Obama and the return of Camelot-on-the-Potomac.

If we know anything about John McCain, it is that he is by instinct a reformer, sometimes to a fault. Yet when he acts like McCain and picks a maverick reformer in his own mold, his former media cheering squad turns on him for not conforming to Beltway mores and picking someone they’ve all met 10 times in the CNN green room.

They want a break from politics as usual and then won’t recognize Sarah Palin for how much she has accomplished in a short time as Governor, not to mention fighting her very own party in the interest of her citizenry.

The Beltway class whines constantly about how it wants fresh voices in politics, but we guess this means a first-term Democratic Senator rather than a first-term Republican Governor from some godforsaken U.S. state few of them have ever been to. 

A sample of some of the spray from the media of late on the Palin candidacy:

– Eleanor Clift, the McLaughlin Group: “If the media reaction is anything, it’s been literally laughter in many places across newsrooms.”

– Sally Quinn, Newsweek: “It is a political gimmick . . . I find it insulting to women, to the Republican party, and to the country.”

– E.J. Dionne, Washington Post: “Palin is, if anything, less qualified for the vice presidency (and the presidency) than [Harriet] Miers was for the court. But there is one big difference: Palin passes all the right-wing litmus tests.”

– Maureen Dowd, New York Times: “They have a tradition of nominating fun, bantamweight cheerleaders from the West.”

– Ruth Marcus, Washington Post: “But as a parent in the media, I also know that the Palins assumed this risk. Anyone who watched coverage of the Bush twins’ barroom exploits knew that the avert-your-eyes stance toward candidates’ children has its limits.”

– Charlie Cook, Beltway pundit, on PBS’s “Charlie Rose”: “I had a friend that had a young person tell them that they had three interviews to get a job as a server at Ruby Tuesday! So this is like putting a whole — for someone that hasn’t played on a national — Geraldine Ferraro had more — Dan Quayle had undergone more scrutiny, had played on a bigger stage than this. This is putting an enormous risk on someone he didn’t know. And he has to just pray that it works!”

Watching the Obama/Biden camp squirm is a lesson in political schizophrenia.

We are instructed that Mrs. Palin isn’t qualified, because she lacks Washington experience. But until recently that was said to be a virtue in Mr. Obama, who is at the top of his ticket. Meanwhile, there’s hardly a peep of media notice that the Obama campaign is preposterously trying to remake Joe Biden into a poor scrapper from Scranton when he’s been in the Senate for 36 years. They all know Joe. But when Mr. McCain picks an authentic middle-class mother who is also a Governor, we are told she’s not up to the job.

Tonight, in what will undoubtedly be one of the most-watched events of the presidential race, the American people will find out if in fact she is up to the job. Ostensibly even more so when she enlists her intellect in a VP debate with Joe Blow’s mouth.

That night we may find ourselves witness to one of the most historic debates of all time as most certainly Joe will underestimate Mrs. Palin or will otherwise be incapacitated by her charms and his inability to control his diction in the presence of a lady.

John McCain is counting on it.

Politico:

So far — and it is hard to tell what the future may hold for Palin’s unexpected national candidacy — the travails of the Palin family probably seem awfully familiar to many average Americans. It is this averageness that makes her such a politically promising running mate for John McCain — and such a dangerous opponent for Democrats. Many voters will find it easy to identify with her family’s struggles — a significant advantage in an election where the voting calculus is so unusually and intensely personal.

I believe much of the “hope” for “change” in this election comes from people wanting Washington – government at all levels, really – to “understand” them; to legislate without talking down, to operate without overreaching, to do the right thing by us.

I think the symbolism of the Palin candidacy is a complete bombshell.