Following a long phone chat with my American daughter, Sarah (Yes, she is now an American citizen and has a vote), I watched Sarah Palin's inaugural speech at the GOP Rally in Dayton, Ohio, which was her first appearance since being nominated as Vice-Presidential candidate by John McCain.To this point, I had only seen the stuff from those who don't like her: lots of sniping, lots of satire, lots of snide comments too, combined with the suggestion that McCain had finally lost his mind.
His choice is either an act of folly, or the shrewdest thing he could have done. I plump for the latter.
As my daughter Sarah said, Sarah Palin has great appeal, precisely because she is "ordinary", but, let's face it, a very handsome and elegant woman. She's married, she has five children, she talks the language of the people, she smiles a lot, she is patriotic, she is homely (in the British sense!), and I think, having finally seen her in action, that McCain has got it right.
Put another way, if Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination, or had been chosen by Barak Obama as his running mate, I think the Democrats would have walked it. But now, I think Barak has blown it (Can you even remember the name of his cardboard cutout running mate?), and my money would be on John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Not that any of this really matters to an old scrote living out his days on the Cambridgeshire fens.
Unless someone presses the wrong button on the red telephone.....
2 comments:
This election is Obama's to lose, I think. The tide is running his way.
That said, the choice of Gov. Palin as running mate, the day after the Democratic convention, was a wonderful piece of political jujitsu.
It really is the most complex presidential election in my lifetime: the race factor, the gender factor, the health factor - there are so many reasons why people might vote differently from their usual preference.
I love the expression "political jujitsu", Chas. I will steal it from you!
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