The Palin Pick: McCain Locks Up the Caribou Vote!

The best thing about out-of-the-blue announcements, like the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate, is the breathless reaction of the cable news blowhards. Few people outside Alaska know anything about the woman. Yet Fox is already celebrating the emergence of an evangelical Erin Brockovich, while MSNBC is sneering and sniping about a bobbleheaded beauty queen.

My thoughts:

• Yes, it's a transparently political choice, meant to draw disaffected Hillary supporters. But so what? The selection of Biden by Obama is meant to reassure voters nervous about Obama's lack of foreign policy experience. Does anyone think Obama is actually going to rely - or even seek - Biden's counsel on foreign affairs? Veep choices are about perception, or picking up an extra state's electoral college votes. (Okay, Cheney ended up running the show. But for the purposes of this blog entry, let's ignore that.)
• Her personal story is extraordinary and, yes, inspiring. She's raising five kids, one of them special needs, and she's governor of a huge state. I can barely handle separating recyclables from the garbage. This is a woman of obvious grit and capability, as opposed to the vast majority of hacks on Capitol Hill.
• The Obama camp can't fault her short time in office. (Remember that whole Change vs. Experience thing?) But McCain can no longer hammer Obama's lack of experience without seeming hypocritical.
• Palin calls herself a "hockey mom." Does that mean she flies off the handle and beats the crap out of people who disagree with her? If rumors about McCain's temper are to be believed, there could be one crowded White House penalty box.
  
• Conservative's one thing. Is she scary anti-thought conservative? (Faithful reader Clif Kuplen weighs in: "Sort of a James Watt/Leni Riefenstahl hybrid with some fermented Anita Bryant squeezed in... She does have a firm grip on early nineteenth century science.")
• Since she is a former beauty queen, can we expect Mario Lopez to moderate the V.P. debate? (See: Miss Teen South Carolina YouTube phenomenom)

Alaska has twice as many caribou as people!

***

When I walked on to the field at Invesco yesterday for the Obama speech, I cringed at the "Temple" set. Would Obama appear as Apollo, god of poetry, with Oprah as Athena, goddess of wisdom, by his side? And what of Scarlett Johansson as Aphrodite? Would an animal, presumably organic grass fed, be sacrificed?!

In fairness, it looked very much like the colonnade that connects the Oval Office to the main building of the White House. (Most viewers know the colonnade as the backdrop for Rose Garden press appearances.) It was meant to evoke the executive mansion (an example of Palladian architecture, itself derived from Greek and Roman classical), to make Obama appear presidential, not god-like.

It turned out that the Obama people had little to fear. I wasn't particularly impressed by the speech but I'm told it looked great on TV, focusing on tight shots of the candidate and avoiding the impression that this was some glassy-eyed cult-fest.

As for the speech itself, my favorite line was directed to John McCain: "You make a big election about small things." Bulls-eye. McCain's only successful blow against Obama has been the "celebrity issue," a total non-issue. If the election turns on that, we are a sorry people!

Speaking of celebrity, I sat only a few rows in front of Oprah's box. The crowd around me went batty. She handled it well, with the support of Gayle, waving to the crowd before settling back. (Is there any more high pressure job than Gayle's? If you're Oprah's best friend, you're on call all the time. You can't just hit the silence button when her name flashes up on your cell. I almost want to be Gayle's best friend, if only to absorb some of the stress Gayle feels from being Oprah's best friend.)


Oprah waves to the crowd

Soon she was joined by Forrest Whitaker, Mary J. Blige and Kanye West. Still the people at Invesco were more focused on what was happening on the stage. During Major General Scott Gration's speech, a woman in my section screamed "Kanye!" The shushes came down hard on her.