…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.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 6:51 am and is filed under Campaign '08, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.