Like many others, I will be watching Sarah Palin’s speech with great interest tonight. With that event coming up, here are just a few bits and pieces of leftover punditry that I found lying around the house here.
1. The barrage that has been unleashed against her means that the left is in a deep panic. Worthy of noticing, and remembering. That panic is not an irrational panic.
2. If the attack machine is sucessful over the next two weeks, then it will have been successful. But if Palin emerges comparatively unscathed from this initial attempt to brand her, and then establishes her own brand, then in my mind, the election is over.
3. Following all this with interest and appreciation is not the same thing as thinking that McCain is a swell guy. As one who believes that the abortion issue is the defining issue for our nation, I like the corner he has painted himself into. But I am not constrained to believe that he did this because he wanted to. Someone who doublecrossed his first wife the way he did would certainly be willing to doublecross me. Before I would consider voting for him, I want to see some money down. Sarah Palin could well be that money down.
4. Political momentum, when it exists, is largely a matter of charisma. McCain doesn’t have it, and Obama early in the primaries (at least) did. Sarah Palin has it. This means that however much we try to keep it limited to “the issues,” politics is ultimately personal. People are motivated personally, and this means that the “role model” concerns that many social conservatives are raising are not irrational concerns. While many of them articulate it woodenly and poorly, there is still something there to be concerned about, and something to talk about.
But it must also be said that the role model concern works both ways. Sarah Palin might lure some poor girl into a series of bad choices in an attempt to be a conservative feminist, in a vain attempt to “have it all.” But Palin might also be used to inspire some girls who have been taught, by half-educated patriarchal fathers with thin skin and thick egos, that women should read just well enough to read the instructions on the back of the biscuit box. Any more than that is just tempting the devil.