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August 29th, 2008 10:17 am

Welcome, Madame Vice-President

What can I say? McCain got it exactly right. Sarah Palin is an inspired choice to fill out the McCain ticket. Not only is she sound on the issues (drilling, right-to-life, corruption, etc.) but she is a brilliant campaigner who also, by virtue of her sex, trumps the “we’re all victims together” rhetoric of the Democrats. Hugh Hewitt sums it up beautifully: “McCain has turned the race on its head, and if Palin proves to be as able a campaigner as her fans say, GOP and American politics will have been changed in a way that fundamentally celebrates opportunity and talent. What a contrast to Obama’s rhetoric of last night.”

Note: when first posted, I said “Welcome Ms Vice-President”: I am grateful to the reader below for pointing out the solecism.

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22 Comments

1. Bill Walsh:

Madame Vice President, surely, Mr. K?

Aug 29, 2008 - 10:24 am 2. Roger Kimball:

Yes, I stand corrected! “Madame Vice-President” it is! (I will fix.)

Aug 29, 2008 - 10:48 am 3. Pajamas Media » It’s Palin!:

[...] Welcome, Madame Vice-President (Roger Kimball) [...]

Aug 29, 2008 - 12:24 pm 4. Sullihan:

My dear old Mom was for McCain until she heard Obama’s speech last night. This morning, resolved to vote Democratic, she heard Gov. Palin’s address and is again for McCain.

Aug 29, 2008 - 2:18 pm 5. Bill Bradley:

Expert.

Aug 29, 2008 - 3:29 pm 6. ic:

Why Madame and not Madam? We are all French now?

Aug 29, 2008 - 7:48 pm 7. coyotl:

>> . . . by virtue of her sex, trumps the “we’re all victims together” rhetoric of the Democrats.<<

So then by virtue of her sex she is a victim? Isn’t that the inference? A victim who refuses to wallow in Democratic-style victimhood? Perhaps you could elaborate on that a bit more Mr. Kimball. I’m not sure the point is clear.

Aug 29, 2008 - 8:43 pm 8. Alo Kievalar:

MARY POPPINS GOES TO WASHINGTON

Mark Steyn may once have written that he couldn’t listen to a speech by Obama without giggling.

I wonder if he’d be so forthright as to admit that he couldn’t observe the new Republican VP candidate Palin without gaffawing.

Wherever I turn, whomever I hear, McCain’s VP choice is lambasted left and right as a preposterous turn of events. What’s next? Anita Bryant for Secretary of State?

As I’ve said before, it really doesn’t matter who wins the White House. Like it or not, within a month or two “they” will be embroiled with the “Palestine issue”, the “Russia/Georgia” affair, the madpersons (formerly: madmen) of Iran and so on, and all the pre-presidential rhetoric and promises will long since have been forgotten.

But still, it’s sad to observe a basically decent man as McCain, who had no chance of winning anyway, hammer the last nail onto his political coffin with his outlandish choice for running mate.

Now, Obama’s winning the election is not only assured, it will be an avalanche in his favor.

The tens of millions of voters who were still uncommitted, the independents, the still vociferous and now embittered remnants of the 60s, the vast unwashed, tattooed and pierced members on the fringes of respectable society will all now make it a point of honor to go out and vote Democrat.

Larry, Moe and Curly…..where are you when we need you?

Aug 29, 2008 - 10:27 pm 9. dragonfly:

Mary Poppins? Sarah Barracuda is closer to the truth.

The bow-tie fixated twits will soon find out that this is an ass-kicking lady, who can talk straight, without drifting into inanity if she doesn’t have a teleprompter, without arugula-fed “nuances” and stammering, or the tired old “pie in the sky, in the sweet bye and bye” socialist drivel.

Bye, bye, Braggart Obama!

Aug 29, 2008 - 11:17 pm 10. ed stafford:

McCain did get it exactly right. He chose someone who has had to exercise jusgment and done so well; he chose a woman who has faced hard choices, personal, professional, and political, and chosen wisely. The notion that the left and right don’t like her misses the point – the insiders, the cozy club members of eastern establishment universities, think tanks, and Sunday morning talk shows are appaled that McCain went back to his reformist roots and picked someone they don’t control and won’t be able to manipulate. Senator McCain has just changed the dynamic, and the Democrats are railing and reeling. Instead of arguing experience, McCain has turned the argument to competent application of executive authority; instead of Republicans and Dems., he has turned it to the substantive Reformers (McCain and Palin) versus the out-of-touch, inside-the-beltway no-substance elitists (Obama and Biden – and spare the comments about Biden as a hero of the working class.) McCain has boldly gone where no establishment, East Coast Republican would even think of going. A gamble? of course. But a bold gambit to which the Democrats and insiders don’t know how to respond, except with sputtering cries that she has no experience. Well, it’s not about experience, it’s about competence, principles, and determination. Palin scores high on all three.

Aug 30, 2008 - 3:33 am 11. Jeff Sulman:

Well said ed stafford except for one thing, she does have experience. Read this morning’s WSJ article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122005082292884815.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Obama came through the Chicago systems as an appeaser who never rocked the boat (Oh yeah, I forgot, as a STATE senator he voted against the war). Palin has blazed her way through an entrenched good-old-boy network of republican and democratic cronies that show she is not only a skilled tough campaigner and executive but also a principled reformer.

Foreign Policy? Obama – lived in Indonesia when he was in grammar school, Palin – negotiated the building of an umpteen billion dollar pipeline through Alaska and Canada. Maybe not what I would call stellar but it took more experience, skill and diplomacy then anything Obami has ever shown

If the dems want to emphasize experience bring it on! We will tear them up.

Aug 30, 2008 - 4:47 am 12. ahem:

Alo: With all due respect, I suspect you’re going to be the only one present at Obama’s victory party.

Aug 30, 2008 - 7:36 am 13. marymcl:

alo –
Mark Steyn is laughing, all right, but not in the way you pretend he might be. Go over to the Corner at NRO and see what he really thinks. Go on, I dare ya!

I woke up laughing myself. It could be the prospect of a three day weekend, but I have to admit yesterday’s announcement about Palin lit me up like Christmas tree. It’s the first thing I’ve actually felt really good about since this seemingly endless campaign started, which fits right in with the overall emotionalism of this election. A sign of the times, probably. So much at stake, both real and imaginary.

As for the phenomenonal cloud that is Himself, the far too early start of this race may be the silver lining after all. The real fight starts now. And Sarah Palin is a real fighter. I want to see her and Biden debate energy policy. O yes precious the sooner the better…

Aug 30, 2008 - 8:24 am 14. BBloom:

I was a Democrat (in every election since ‘72), the selection of Sarah Palin has clenched my vote for McCain/Palin for all the reasons Ed Stafford so eloquently stated.

Aug 30, 2008 - 11:43 am 15. Virgil:

As a longtime independent, this bizarre move by someone who was supposed to be a serious candidate for the Presidency makes it easy for me to decide whom to vote for. Sorry, folks, but I don’t want a former Miss Wassila (or whatever it’s called) to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful position on the planet — even if she’s willing to take evening classes on international politics at nearby Georgetown U.

Aug 30, 2008 - 6:04 pm 16. Jeff Sulman:

Virgil,
But you’ll have a do nothing, corrupt-leftist-teleprompter-addicted-no-executive-experience-pampered-ignorant-stuttering-I-voted-present-100+ times-idiot as president? Your not independent, you’re stupid.

Jeff Sulman

Aug 30, 2008 - 6:57 pm 17. Virgil:

Spoken like a true dittohead, Jeff. If Obama is an “idiot,” as you claim, the rest of us are one-celled organisms.

Aug 30, 2008 - 7:10 pm 18. Jeff Sulman:

Ok Virgil, I’ll leave the dittohead stuff out.
But you’ll have a do nothing, corrupt-leftist-teleprompter-addicted-no-executive-experience-pampered-ignorant-stuttering-I-voted-present-100+ times genius as president? Your not independent, you’re stupid.

There is that better?

Aug 30, 2008 - 8:00 pm 19. Jeff Sulman:

Virgil,
Let me apologize for my comments about you being stupid and what I said about Obama. It was childish and wrong.

Let me phrase my problem with your position this way – in an adult way I hope. I assume you have a problem with Palin’s experience. My concern is this. I do want two things in a president – somebody with experienced and a track record as a reformer. I believe that both parties are corrupt, the Democrats more then the Republicans, but practically speaking both parties need a good house cleaning. Now convince me that I should vote for Obama who has NO experience as an executive while Palin does has some. It may not be much in your eyes but she has been an executive and she has gotten things done.

Should I vote for Obama, if the head of your ticket has less experience that the VP of the opposing ticket?

Let’s take reform, what has Obama done to reform anything? He made his way through the famously corrupt Chicago system with his skids greased by the likes of Rezko and Aires. While in the Senate he went with the Dems something like 97% of the time (McCain was around 88%). He has done nothing to reform or buck the system anywhere he went. Palin on the other hand has done much to reform the politics in Alaska. She ousted the good-old-boy republican gov, her ethics probes forced members of her own party to resign from powerful lucrative positions as well as pay hefty fines, in fact she herself resigned from a position because of the corruption, she fought against the waist of the Bridge to Nowhere against a famous powerful Senator, she negotiated the building of a 25 something billion dollar natural gas pipe line that had been stalled for almost 30 years. She has bucked the system against her own party and gotten results. Obama has nothing to show in these areas.

Now am open to your views. Tell my why, in light of what I just stated (not very eloquently I might add, I’m very tired and its late) I should vote for Obama. Please do so without name calling or the caricaturisation of Mrs. Palin.

Again please accept my apology for what I said in my previous posts.

Jeff Sulman

Aug 30, 2008 - 8:30 pm 20. gaetano catelli:

it was classic McCain genius: with one stroke, he cut the Gordian Knot of getting independents to wake up and pay attention (a system-bucking reformer like himself), getting the base revved up (a pro-life evangelical mother of 5), and, last but not least, getting the media to finally put *his* candidacy on the front page (a beauty queen who fires assault rifles for recreation).

Aug 30, 2008 - 9:18 pm 21. marymcl:

OK Virgil, one longtime independent to another, let’s try your line of reasoning.

You don’t think Palin should be “a heartbeat away” (a tiresome expression that’s sure to get worse) because she won a scholarship in a small town beauty contest 25 years ago? Would that be before or after Barack Hussein Obama was a madrassah student in Indonesia?

He was, wasn’t he? Sure, it was a long time ago but something like that “makes it easy for me to decide whom to vote for.”

I’ll take a former Miss Wasilla (known at the time as Sarah Barracuda and currently Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard) over a thin-skinned, secretive, charismatic media darling who may or may not have been schooled by jihadis during his childhood.

Fair enough? No?!?!?!! Sorry, we all have our prejudices.

Aug 31, 2008 - 2:09 am 22. TNC Fan:

Hey Virgil:

Obama’s the beauty queen in this race. Every race he’s run has been a beauty pageant. Palin’s a former beauty queen who’s actually got a record of executive experience. He’s run a campaign, she’s run a state government. He’s a corrupt Chicago pol, she’s an anti-corruption crusader. If you can’t see the difference then you’ve drunk too much of that Democrat Kool-Aid. Time for you to become an independent again.

Sep 2, 2008 - 11:44 am