It takes a real man to admit when he’s wrong, and I’m an approximation of a real man. I confess I didn’t think she was up to the challenge, but I underestimated her, she proved herself up to the task, so let me say in all crow-eating humility: Congratulations, Serena Williams!
But seriously, about Palin (Giuliani, too). Three words:
Sarcastic
Condescending (Making fun of community organizers? Really?)
Lies (i.e., she was against the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’)
All in all, Palin was Fargo meets Martha Stewart. Red meat for Republicans, but I don’t think it will play well with middle-of-the-road undecideds, or ex-Hillary supporters. Not uplifting, just nasty. I mean, a few good lines against Obama are fine, but after a while it just got mean.
Interesting observation from 538.com:
I don’t think the Republicans are doing as good a job as the Democrats were doing about pairing their speeches to the strengths of the speaker. It’s as if they wrote seven or eight speeches, and drew lots to determine who would deliver which one. So you have Mitt Romney — one of the wealthiest men ever to run for office — critiquing east-coast elitism, and Mike Huckabee — who is an economic populist in disguise — critiquing big government, and Sarah Palin — who voters don’t know one iota about — critiquing Barack Obama’s biography.
Ezra Klein adds, "It’s amazing that Republicans are still pulling this ‘elitist Washington’ garbage when their candidate is an obscenely rich long-time Washington senator who doesn’t know how many houses he owns and wears $520 imported calf-skin loafers."
The Obama campaign responds to Tracy Flick‘s speech:
The speech that Governor Palin gave was 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 Governor Palin and John McCain want to define ‘change’ as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that’s their choice, but we don’t think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change," said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.
One nice thing about Palin being a "powerhouse" — it means Joe Biden can take off the gloves for the VP debate. She wants to take on the big boys? Fine. Here it comes, lady.