ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 4 -- Let's face it: she was likable.
By rolling out the kids, the hockey-mom narrative, the small-town roots, the woman who got rid of the governor's jet and the governor's chef, Sarah Palin struck some populist chords that are likely to resonate with viewers from the other 49 states.
She was relaxed, confident and charismatic. I ran into McCain confidant Mark Salter moments later, and he was ecstatic--well, as ecstatic as the taciturn Salter can be--and said they knew of her
speaking prowess all along. "We looked at tapes," he said.
But did the Alaskan persuade those watching that she was a potential president? I thought she was less effective in the second half, as she read the speechwriters' words mocking Barack Obama as all talk and no action. Does the former mayor of Wasilla really have the standing to criticize Obama as inexperienced?
The most telling passage Wednesday night made clear that John McCain and friends are going to continue running against the media--as should have been clear from Steve Schmidt's comments to me that news organizations are on a vicious mission to "destroy" Palin.
"If you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite," Palin said, "then some in the
media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone." But that's all right, because she had a "news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion."
Well, running against the press is old hat in Republican circles. And there may be a few graybeards who say, "How can so-and-so be a serious candidate for president when I've never had lunch with him/her?" But most journalists weren't so much biased against Palin as skeptical that she had the experience to step in as commander-in-chief, the standard that McCain himself had repeatedly touted.
Palin didn't do much on issues beyond energy, and that may have been a missed opportunity. But amid the media circus of the last few days, one observation about the way she spotlighted her eldest son, going to Iraq; her pregnant 17-year-old daughter; and her infant son, who has Down syndrome: It is perfectly fine to showcase your family as you introduce yourself to America.
But then you can't turn around and slam the press for writing about your family in a less flattering light than you would prefer to present them.
L.A. Times: "The woman seeking to become the Republicans' first female vice presidential candidate portrayed herself as a feisty small-town outsider willing to take on the Washington establishment."
N.Y. Times: "Her speech at the Republican National Convention, if delivered with confidence and ecstatically embraced in the hall, may prove to have been the easy part.
"From here, Ms. Palin moves into a national campaign where she will have to appeal to audiences that are not necessarily primed to adore her. She will have to navigate far less controlled campaign settings that will test not only her political skills but also her knowledge of foreign and domestic policy.
And she must convince the country she is prepared to be vice president at a time when the definition of that job has been elevated to the status of governing partner.
"The NYT follows up on my piece: "If there is one mission Mr. McCain wants to accomplish at his convention, it is to galvanize conservative voters who have shown signs of depression this year. Traditionally, one surefire way to do that has been to attack the 'elitist,' mainstream news media."
In my story, I quoted Schmidt as saying--without providing evidence--that Newsweek correspondent Howard Fineman had been suggesting that Palin might have to drop out. Fineman told me has never said any such thing. Fineman asked Schmidt to accept his word that it never happened, and this is Schmidt's e-mailed response:
"I will not disclose names of credible sources. Five of them --who told me this. I will say that I
accept your representation that you never said it on the basis of your word . . . I will tell you that given who my sources are that I will take a leap of faith but a leap it is."
Back to Palin: San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders says it's all about the MSM taking offense that McCain "chose an upstart. He took a risk. To the Washington press corps, that means she was 'not vetted.' This gives the press corps a grand excuse to tear Palin and her family into little, tiny pieces.
"News reports question how voters might feel about a mother of five serving in the White House. Because Palin's elder son, Track, is about to be deployed to Iraq, she would not be raising five children in the vice president's residence. So why mention five? Because five is three too many.
It's not the norm. "With a fisherman/oil-worker husband, a son in the military, and a daughter in high school about to start a family, Palin safely could be called 'working class.' Except that the cognoscenti don't know how to deal with real working-class people.
They think Biden is working class - he must be, because he grew up in Scranton, Pa." 'Ms. Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States,' the New York Times reported. Again, this rankles journalists, who believe that politicians must share their zest for tourism.
How disappointing, then, that Palin did get a passport in 2007, not to trek the Himalayas or walk through the back doors of quaint European villages, but to visit members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait, as well as wounded troops in Germany. (I suppose it would be a cheap shot to report that Obama did not visit wounded troops in Germany.)
"Palin is a walking style crime. She was a beauty queen. She wears a beehive hairdo. She hails from a small town. She believes there should be debate about teaching creationism in public schools, but she opposes 'explicit' sex education. She is so unlike the tolerant brainiacs who report America's news that they just have to comb through her personal life in search of all the details that shout that Palin would not fit in at their cocktail parties. You read it here first - she is a freak."
The whole pregnancy tale is ticking off Atlantic blogger Megan McArdle:
"So this is what this race has come down to? Arguing about the fecundity of Sarah Palin's daughter? This is news because . . . ?
"Because Sarah Palin lied about sex? So let me get this straight. Bill Clinton using a White House intern like a cheap whore in the Oval Office and lying about same under oath: not a problem. Sarah Palin relieving her sixteen year old of the burden of raising a special needs child: a huge character issue. This sounds like a parody of the ridiculous beliefs that social conservatives attribute to liberals.
"Because Sarah Palin is a bad mother? Because only bad mothers have children who do unwise, risky, and even immoral things? Apparently every single person in my high school class had bad parents, 100% of whom were liberals.One might also comment on the belief that a woman cannot be a good leader unless and until she is a good mother. If one of Barack Obama's girls gets caught shoplifting, do we impeach him?
"Because Sarah Palin is a social conservative and therefore a hypocrite? About what? Which social conservatives guarantee that raising your children with good values will prevent them from getting pregnant?"
I would agree on one point: the media almost never question whether a male politician can be a good officeholder and a good father at the same time.
By the way, don't miss this WP story on Palin's e-mails in allegedly trying to get fired the trooper embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody battle with her sister:
" 'It was a joke, the whole year long "investigation" of him,' the e-mail said. 'This is the same trooper who's out there today telling people the new administration is going to destroy the trooper organization, and that he'd 'never work for that b****', Palin'.)' "
My piece Wednesday about Steve Schmidt accusing the media of viciously trying to "destroy" Palin has sparked plenty of comment and debate.
Time's Joe Klein pushes back, hard: "Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days: there was McCain's rude, bizarre interview with Time Magazine last week.
Tuesday, McCain refused to an interview with Larry King, for God's sake, because Campbell Brown had been caught in the commission of journalism on CNN the night before, asking McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds what decisions Sarah Palin had made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska national guard. (There was an answer that the unprepared Bounds didn't have: she had deployed them to fight fires.)
"So what's going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he's ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field . . . any intimations that he's gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable.
"The second thing is more insidious: Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair--sexist (you gotta love it)--personal assault going on against Palin and her family.
This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media--about the substance of Palin's record as mayor and governor. Sure, there are a few outliers--and the tabloid press--who have fixed on baby stories. That was inevitable . . . the flip side of the personal stories that the McCain team thought would work to their advantage--Palin's moose-hunting and wolf-shooting, and her admirable decision to have a Down Syndrome baby.
And yes, when we all fix on the same story, whether it's a hurricane or a little-known politician, a zoo ensues. But the media coverage of the Palin story has been well within the bounds of responsibility. Schmidt is trying to make it seem otherwise, a desperate tactic."
As for Palin's record, such as being for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it, Klein says: "The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme."
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