“The Most Macho Speech of the Evening”
September 4, 2008
by Sheryl Lee
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That’s what one of the CNN people called Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention tonight, and Amy Holmes, a conservative commenter for CNN said, She balanced toughness and femininity very well—something Hillary Clinton got a lot of flack for.
Hi, Everyone, I’d like to echo Violet’s welcome, and note that it’s clear from the above comments that gender is still a central issue in the campaign.
I was impressed with Palin, but then I expected to be. From what I knew of her before McCain announced her as his running mate, she seemed like the obvious choice for the Republican ticket. Her capacity to balance toughness and femininity is of no concern to me. What struck me as notable tonight was my impression that she could be right here in my living room, talking to me (in fact, her accent reminds me of my Aunt Linda) and, as Anderson Cooper noted on CNN, talking to small town America was the thing that won George Bush the White House.
Average Americans will listen to her and feel like they know her, and in a way they do—she’s our neighbour, our sister, or the woman we chat with when we’re in line at the post office. We get Sarah Palin. She’s one of us. And she’s sharp, too. The speech had some funny lines. My favorite: That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.
It was a great introduction to Sarah Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate.
Did anyone catch Cynthia Ruccia being interviewed on CNN earlier in the evening? Can we get a clip of it to post here?
I’m curious to know what others thought of Palin’s speech. Please let us know in the comments, if you’re inclined.
And I’d like to encourage you all to send me links to issues or stories you’d like to see us post about on the blog. I want to keep it dynamic, up to the minute, and on-topic, and for that, I’m going to need your help.
Thanks!
Someone called her speech “shrill.” Senator Reid? Begala and Brazile are defending the use of the word, others are criticizing it. Maybe we’re going to see the referendum on sexism in media. Finally.
Shrill? Her speech was a knockout. Everyone in the hall loved it, and everyone watching knew it was winner. The talking heads afterwards seemed rather disappointed, but they had to admit that she passed “with flying colors” and that the McCain camp was no doubt high-fiving it over a huge success (this was on CBS — Katie Couric, Jeff Greenfield, Bob Schaffer).
But I see the print media is weirdly unenthused. Weirdly. “Palin mocks Obama” says one headline. “Palin nominated” says another. Uh huh.
Look, I disagree with Palin on almost every policy position, but that is one powerful woman and that was one powerful speech.
What I’m loving: the talking heads on CNN doing a rebuttal of the speech are women. In fact, I saw a couple of women pundits yelling at each other the other day on CNN, and they weren’t talking about “women’s issues.”
I thought her speech was fantastic. Well written, well executed, overall an A+. Frankly, it brought up a lot of points that I felt Hillary’s campaign didn’t go after tough enough (though for partisan reasons, it is obvious why she didn’t.)
I thought it was funny that MSNBC pundits kept saying that her speech was “sarcastic” as though that was a negative. I like her sense of humour and I couldn’t care less if she had Bush’s speechwriter helping her on it.
Maddow continues to disgust me with her focus on Palin “pronouncing things phonetically.” I don’t understand how they gave her a show after the hit job she did on women/Hillary during the primaries.
A+ Palin. I disagree on the pro-life stance as well as on others, but I relished in a woman standing up to the naysayers with sass and attitude. Can’t say I’m voting for her, but she got my clapping tonight!
My favorite headline re Gov. Palin’s speech, “She shoots! She scores!”
What a welcome sight, your NewAgenda blog!
PUMA purrs
It was certainly an effective speech and her delivery was spot-on. But it was also hateful and nasty and for that reason, I’m disappointed to see such high praise of it here. I thought it was meaner than Rudy’s — and that’s saying a lot. Don’t get me wrong. I object to the media’s questioning of her capacity to be a mom and a VP, to the gratuitous camera shots of her legs and to the word “shrill.” But I in no way listen to her and feel like she’s a neighbor or some friendly aunt. She’s cut from the same vicious cloth as Rudy. I’m not fooled by her folksy ways.
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