It was comforting to learn that Sarah Palin has entrusted her first make-or-break speech to my friend Matthew Scully, the former Bush speechwriter (maybe he can slip in a line vowing to take on the factory farms!) What are the key goals for the Palin address tonight?
1. She has to show that she's tough, and not intimidated by all the scrutiny and all the garbage of the past few days. She's got to look like a fighter, but also cheerful -- a happy warrior.
2. She can't fake it on foreign policy, and she shouldn't try. She should emphasize her character, and why character is more important than hands-on experience when it comes to setting foreign policy goals. (N.B., I'm not saying that this is necessarily true, but this is the smartest way for her to spin out of this problem).
3. She's going to have to cold-cock the folks who have been questioning her character based on her daughter's pregnancy. This is the riskiest moment of the night for her. Reports this morning are that the kid who impregnated her daughter is going to be with the Palin family at the convention tonight. Is that wise, to remind folks of this? Yes, I think so, because it shows that we are family, and we're not ashamed of our daughter, and we're going to welcome this boy into our fold and stand shoulder to shoulder with him and our girl and their unborn child. Palin's got to finish tonight with those on the left who have trashed her and her family for their complicated situation looking shameful.
Like I said, very risky, but it just might work. I talked to a voter yesterday who said he is basically a Democrat, but he's a pro-life Catholic too. He was thinking of writing in candidates in the presidential race, but the ferocity and the ugliness of the left's assault on Palin over the abortion issue -- and that's what this thing is entirely about, the Culture of Death baring its fangs -- has made him seriously consider voting McCain-Palin.
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One more thing concerning community organizing.
There is an iron rule in organizing (at least in the two organizations I've worked with, Gamaliel and Industrial Areas Foundation, the largest of the several national organizations): Never do for anyone what they can do for themselves. That means an organizer's job is to help people discover what they need to get done in their communities (close a crack house down, get brownfields back onto the tax roles, combat domestic violence, etc.), work with them as they develop as leaders, train them in the use of tools to find others who share their concerns and then assist them in organizing people and money to win an issue. I can't for the life of me understand why republicans think doing that is naive or dangerous or both. It seems very American to me. I get being against the government to wade in and solve everything. I'm against that too. But how can you also be against someone working with people in a community to take responsibility for and solve their own problems?
Steve
Community organizers save lives, make people have hope and empower them for the future. Sounds like the American Dream to me. When you help others you help yourself. I guess this is where Obama learned about what it means to start from the ground up. He learned that you never look down or mock or belittle others. Thank you for understanding that the people at the bottom have pride in themselves and want to do better. You are on the pulse of small town and middle America. When Sarah Palin treated community work so badly, I shook my head. She was not attacking Obama she was attacking community activism. For all the community activist out there do not be discouraged you are needed and appreciated for your dedication, hardwork that goes unappreciated and your love for the world to become a better place. To bad Guliani, Palin and the republican party don't get it. My hats off to all the community workers out there, we need you more than you need us.
I wonder will Palin explain why she quoted an avowed racist during her speech
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Posted September 15, 2008 | 11:27 AM (EST)
"Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."
I am a Republican and I do not and will not support Palin as Vice President. Her cruelty towards animals is unacceptable. Her way of hunting is not hunting...it is a coward's way. She is barbaric. I wanted to like her, and I really did at first...until I found out about her. If she gets in office our wildlife will disappear faster than it already is. Please, please, please, do not vote a woman like this in office. A woman vice president would be wonderful, but not THIS woman. She didn't even know what the vice president did a month ago. That speaks volumes about her...that and her sadistic cruelty. I am so disappointed in her...she doesn't believe in womens' rights, she doesn't want to recognize that many of our animals are endangered, she makes rape victims pay for their own kits, and she also allowed a law to let people shoot dogs if they annoy a neighbor. The more I find out about Palin, the more I despise her.
:What population of voters does Sarah Palin hope to win over with her stay-the-course-in-Iraq, winning-with-honor, no-white-flag-of-surrender comments? Doesn’t she realize that the growing number voters in fear of losing their jobs, homes, and health benefits, if they haven’t already, are not inclined to continue blowing $9 billion a month on an open-ended war that should not have been waged to begin with? For proof that this imperialistic blunder doesn’t sell anymore, if it ever did, all Governor Palin has to do is hint that as VP she would support a reinstatement of the military draft, then watch her already slipping approval ratings plummet to zero.
Carlos the Carpenter (a real person)
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