A Roman triumph
How do I describe the Sarah Palin experience? Her speech to the Republican Convention was a Roman triumph: there's no doubt about that.
I was sandwiched somewhere between the Kansas and Arkansas delegations on the floor of the hall and there was weeping and wailing throughout (and no gnashing of teeth). At the end, people were luxuriating in that strange mixture of relief and exhilaration that comes only after a period of tension, because no-one knew whether she could deliver.
They loved it, as they should have.
It exculpated the feeble George Bush performance on video of the night before - and it reminded them why they are Republicans in their party of today. It reminded me of Norman Tebbit or Michael Heseltine or Tony Benn at their height, lifting a party audience in Blackpool or Brighton to a brief passage of frenzy. The question is: will it last?
Republican organisers around the United States will be thrilled, and rightly so. She'll be a star on the circuit. This weekend she'll be trailed by every camera crew they can find. The shock-jock hosts of Talk Radio, resolutely placed in the right-wing corner, will make her a hero overnight. But that's not the whole story. In the course of her speech - much longer than had been planned for her - she sent forth two big salvos. One was aimed straight at Barack Obama (the man who'd written two memoirs before he'd written a piece of Senate legislation, she said - a very good line) and other against the 'big powerbrokers' who're lumped together with 'the lobbyists' and 'Washington' as the enemy of the people.
It was odd to see be-suited New Yorkers and corporate lawyers - they're everywhere around the convention hall, as they were with the Democrats in Denver - rising to applaud her. Did she know they were there? Of course she did. Rather like the claim, made by both parties, that what's called 'energy independence' is available to Americans in the foreseeable future, it's an easy gesture that doesn't bear too much examination. Indeed, it's rather absurd. A speaker who is preceded by Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney promising to dismantle the 'old boys' network' and being cheered, just as they had been cheered one by one a few minutes beforehand, is promising a journey into the surreal.
But, make no mistake, Sarah Palin was very good. She gave this party a feeling that it could still win, which it didn't have in its guts last night. It hadn't sunk into despair, but there was real worry about Obama's performance last week. A clutch of polls putting him over 50% for the first time across the country (however sceptical we should be about these national surveys in the US) and streaking ahead in some toss-up states like Iowa and Minnesota (where we are) added to the concerns.
It was reported this morning that the Republicans have given up television advertising in New Mexico because they think the state has gone already: these are grim tidings at the start of the last act of the election.
Relief
Well, Palin managed to expunge all that, or much of it. It may be a passing victory, but it was a victory for McCain all the same. When he came on stage for a brief appearance, as Obama did last week after his running mate's speech, you could see the relief. The maverick had made the right bet.
So it seems now. She will be a pivotal part of the Republican campaign, but she will have difficulties. On the social agenda, she differs from McCain; they'll be asked to explain their differences, and that will be a challenge. What of global warming, which he thinks is a crisis but many on the right of his party describe as some kind of liberal plot? Can they manage their message on abortion, on gay rights, on immigration? We have only just begun the real policy fight.
That, however, is for next week and beyond. Remember now that the Republicans have rallied. They've effectively sidelined George W Bush, whose presence at this convention has been like that of the embarrassing relative who's soon to be gone, and they've got a candidate and running mate who can tell stories of experience and innocence, and make them seem one.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions
The Democrats, if they're to trump that, are going to have to work hard. Obama has some magical political gifts and Joe Biden, his running mate, is a street fighter of experience and skill. But the McCain pitch - 'Country before Party' - is strong; and so is the shucks-I'm- an-all-American-hockey-mom style of Palin. To foreign eyes the flag-waving seems ever-more over-the-top (and the references to 'Europe' from the platform and the floor this week have been universally tart; even mocking) and the idea that 'service' can trump any political argument or record is sometimes alarmingly simplistic.
But it matters in this contest. Voters, who've been polled and polled until some of them must be worn out, are assumed to care about authenticity and commitment to the country: everything else is an add-on. That's why the candidates seem so often to be saying the same thing, despite the arguments on both sides that this is a vital choice.
I leave you with one question. Because the polls and the focus groups report that Americans, in general, want more consensus and less poisonous partisanship that is a theme that is repeated again and again on the platform here (John McCain will certainly use it tonight) just as it was in Denver last week.
But during the Sarah Palin speech, if I'd suggested to any of the delegates around me that perhaps what was needed was a little more of what McCain has always championed - less crude party battling and deals 'across the aisle' in Congress - I'd have been in danger of being bashed to an ugly pulp by one of the hospitality umbrellas given here. The same would have been true last week in Denver.
Obeisance is paid to bipartisanship, but the truth is that America's divisions are real, and unhealed. Sarah Palin exploited them very skilfully last night.
She's good news for the Republicans at the moment. But her arrival does mean that this campaign is going to be very rough indeed. That cannot now be avoided, even if they're talking throughout about being nicer to each other. Bipartisan? Pass the smelling salts. This is an election, down to the wire.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~37~RS~)
CommentsSign in
You need to sign in to contribute to this page. If you're new to BBC Blogs, creating your membership is quick and easy.
Hmm....
Q. How can you spot a pro-lifer?
Ans. They always carry a gun (See Observer 31st August).
I suspect when the Democrats delve into Palin's background a bit more, the Republican's euphoria over her will fade somewhat.
The notion that someone who could become the US president also thinks the world has only been around for 6,000 years, rejects basic scientific principles and relies on beliefs rather than facts is scary to say the least. Indeed the parallels between Palin and Bush are there already, and ripe for being exploited by the Democrats.
I'm hoping that her stance on climate change (it 'doesn't exist') should help to finish off the republicans for this election. You would have thought that America had had enough of this kind of attitude in those charged with running their country; but maybe not, maybe they have still not learnt from their mistakes.
Stil, I'm predicting an Obama win and Palin can go back to playing with her guns and hockey sticks in the frozen north.
Greg Glendell
Complain about this comment
Her job is to energise the conservative pro-life wing of the party who don't like McCain, and to make sure they turn out and vote. and if she can bring in some centrists who just like her looks and family and general warm appeal that's all to the good. I think all the attacks on her will only strengthen her base - everyone who's from a "small" state, or who's had family difficulties, or clings to religion - every liberal attempt to blacken her, merely strengthens that support. You vote for Mc Cain you get a president and a sharp apprentice. You vote for Obama and you get the apprentice and some old guy - that's the choice.
Complain about this comment
Why do the BBC think that I might be interested in the daughter of the person who might be Vice-President to the person who might be the next Presidednt, who might be having a baby?
Please, enough already - just let me know who wins the election.
Complain about this comment
The fact that the Republican Party needed someone as right-wing as Sarah Palin, in order to rouse the Republican sympathisers in America, is truly worrying. A woman who opposed the teaching of sex education in schools - Oh, the irony!! A woman who demonstrates a complete ignorance of science and who takes a literal interpretation of the bible. How can McCain claim to be serious about climate change, when his running mate doesn't even accept that humans are in any way responsible? I find the prospect of such a person being in charge of the world's largest nuclear arms stockpile very frightening.
Complain about this comment
A very good piece.
GOP-USA is getting very introverted, though. Crowd-pleasing with fantastical positions on 'reality' issues like global warming, energy and creationism may be pure politics (she did nothing about them once in office) but such a cynical attitude sits oddly with McCain's genuinely principled stands over his many years of experience, surely his most attractive feature. But perhaps she will sound quite different talking to real people rather than delegates - flip-flopping?
Complain about this comment
You don't seem to get the executive experience point - that's very powerful. And she's "normal" in a way that the other 3 candidates aren't - they are all "pols" even McCain.
Also she *does* believe in climate change - thinks it's v important for Alaska.
Complain about this comment
The overly negative content, snide delivery and total lack of policy substance has further damaged the standing of the Republican Party among the fiscally conservative / socially moderate people that make up the bulk of the electorate.
The last eight years have been an abysmal failure for the economy and the standing of the US throughout the world. Making an attacking speech in the style of a high school class president's election will do nothing to bring disappointed and hurting Republican voters back into the fold.
Complain about this comment
Excellent piece.
It's a scary thought that a person with Sarah Palin's fundamentalist beliefs could conceivably become President of the most powerful nation on earth. If she does, no doubt she'll take a hard line with Islamic fundamentalists.
We really need leaders who rely on reason, facts, and hard evidence - something she has yet to demonstrate.
Complain about this comment
For the first time in my adult life (I am 70)
I feel anti-USA sentiments.
If the answer truly is the rabid nonsense talked by that lady then even I will come to appreciate the wonderful EU.
My only comfort is that "reality" has a habit of sneaking up and slapping you in the face
(hopefully).
Complain about this comment
It is dismaying to hear politicians in the US clinging to the old cold war rhetoric - Romney and Giuliani exhorting McCain's ability to defeat terrorism and 'bring victory to this country'. Have they learned nothing from the last eight disastrous years?
Is the Today programme planning to interview Mrs Palin? I look forward to some uncomfortable squirmming as she is grilled by Jim Naughtie or John Humphrys.
Complain about this comment
As one of those 'europeans' so derided by the Americans at the moment, I think they should really be taking a much more critical look at themselves before they start euro-bashing.
Sarah Palin's speech was a 'great success' was it?
A woman who seems to think she deserves to be elected because she's female? Who trots her family out for endless publicity shots so she can be seen with GI going to Iraq, pregnant teen, new baby, other two and devoted husband?
Who dislikes choice for women, saving the planet from the mess we've made, scientific fact and sex education to protect children from diseases and *ahem* unwanted pregnancies?
Is she actually pro anything apart from guns and hockey? Forgive me for not trusting someone who exalts AK47s and Wayne Gretski(he's canadian btw Sarah not American) in a policy discussion. I know I'd want the most powerful country in the world co-run by a woman who not so long ago had no idea what the job she's now applying for involved.
So she poked fun at Barack Obama, it's not new and it's not clever, it shows a lack of any policies of her own to talk about. Got nothing good to say about yourself, have a go at the other guy, that's always a crowd pleaser.
Will American please wake up and smell the Starbucks! She's being investigated by her own state for abuse of power, so why give her even more?
I am all for equality in politics, particularly in America but do not elect a woman simply because the other choice is a man. You want the right person for the job and XX chromosomes do not a VP make.
Complain about this comment
Jim Naughtie is either hostile or patronising when reporting from the USA. His colleague Sarah Smith [yes, daughter of the late John Smith] sneered in her lunchtime C4 report, and Jon Snow, whom Denis Thatcher called ?that bloody pinko?, has been hostile and sneering throughout his summer sojourn in the states.
I watched the whole Palin speech and am perfectly able to judge it for myself.
We don?t need Naughtie, Smith and Snowy to tell us what to think. They can stay at home and we can read the Guardian.
Complain about this comment
Why are conference speeches regarded as important? They are bit like the person who tends to shine in meetings and are absolutely hopeless doing their paid job. Or the nobodies in paid employment who love running committees. They are all set pieces that suit some people but not others.
Complain about this comment
I've just thought. Hitler used to wow them at his party conferences ( rallys! )
Complain about this comment
"...the references to 'Europe' from the platform and the floor this week have been universally tart; even mocking..."
I wouldn't say that Sarah Palin's reference to Europe was either of those things.
"With Russia wanting to control a vital pipeline in the Caucasus, and to divide and intimidate our European allies by using energy as a weapon, we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers."
Complain about this comment
#BillBrinsmead
Maybe our politicians are really much like those in the US, but US politicians have a tradition of presenting themselves as 'ordinary' that looks odd to European eyes (not just left-leaning ones). Why on earth would one want someone ordinary for the top world political job? Surely someone very extraordinary is needed? No doubt this is mostly just political spin but there is the ever-present danger of getting someone who is actually ordinary - like last time...
Complain about this comment
Whether Sarah Palin's speech was a triumph or not does not detract from the fact that it was her party, with her support, that planned and conducted the cowardly and illegal invasion of Iraq. which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
She is typical of those hypocritical right wing politicians who believe in force and retribution to achieve their own ends whilst all the time calling on their god to bless their actions, notice similarities between her and some of those she criticises?
As for John McCain being a Maverick, read Cliff Schecter's book and then judge.
Complain about this comment
"It reminded me of Norman Tebbit or Michael Heseltine or Tony Benn at their height"
A bit like saying "Lawrence Olivier, John Gielgud or Jade Goody at their height". Even Harold Wilson had sussed Benn: "He immatures with age", and Oliver Kamm has just written a thorough takedown of this vastly overrated person. One has serious cause to doubt Mr Naughtie's judgement, if not his sanity.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/oliver_kamm/2008/08/ten-moments-f-2.html
Complain about this comment
Why am I not surprised that Jim is so wordy. And I got a real grin when he said "I leave you with a question." and proceeded to leave us with a long answer. On Radio 4's Today he frequently poses a question and answers it - as if anxious that we should not think he doesn't know a lot! All presenters comments about Palin and McCain are the same; wordy, gossipy and with lots of the obvious stated. I suppose they fill in the silences while we wait for the real players to produce the play. Now lets see if this is posted. If it isn't, it means that the blog process is just another opportunity for the in-crowd to blather while we, the out crowd, carry on swimming below the glass ceiling.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS