I was sitting about 30 metres away from Sarah Palin when she walked on stage, and lost all remaining objectivity at that point. She looked bashful and nervous, as well you might if you had 20,000 boisterous Republicans roaring at you. I don’t normally feel sympathy for politicians but there was something about this tiny mother of five being plunged into the toughest bear pit in America that made it almost hard to watch. She stood at the podium for what seemed like an eternity, as the crowd roared. It was as if she was waiting for them to calm down, but they don’t. She had to just start talking, and they’d shut up. But she didn’t – she just stood there, not even quite smiling confidently. Unlike Giuliani – who had just worked the crowd to perfection – she would never have ever seen anything like that before. At that point, when she hadn’t said a word, I feared she might fluff it after all.
The speech was very well crafted, with plenty of killer lines. (“Being a mother of a special needs child involves a special kind of love”). But she rushed some of them – often she’d started on the next sentence before the gravity of the last one had hit the crowd. Then they’d cheer, then she had to pause. And when she did, she didn’t often beam. She’d look pensive. It was a slow and (for me, anyway) agonising beginning. I wondered if any McCain team members had their heads in their hands at this point.
Then she warmed up, just like she did at her initial speech on Friday. The family was again the icebreaker and, once she’d introduced them, she started to lay into Obama. For television purposes, this speech will be about (at most) eight extracts – and there were plenty in which she was on her smiling assassin, Sarah Barracuda form. When she said “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities”. When she said the only difference between a hockey mom and a rottwiler is lipstick. When she said “there is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you.”
From where I was standing, I could see the autocue and, ergo, the lines she gently fluffed. It also spelt nuclear “new-clear”. This spoiled it a bit, when you see the strings. And, often, the bits didn’t quite flow together. But that doesn’t really matter: bits are all you need. She’s a former newscaster, and knows how to work the camera with little facial expressions that weren’t picked up from the crowd floor. And the picture of her holding her Down’s child will be probably the single most powerful moment of the evening. This will be all the revving up the conservative base need.
I had a beer afterwards with Liam Fox, who is leading the Tory delegation here. “She nailed it,” is his verdict. “We witnessed something pivotal, maybe historic tonight. If there was one word to describe what we saw it is ‘authentic’. There was nothing she said that could not have come naturally for her, her background and experience. She’s the real deal.” The networks were showing her greatest hits: a women with beauty, poise and venom. I was sitting beside Eleanor Laing who leaned over to me a few times saying “That’s the kind of thing Thatcher would say.” She meant the parallels between government and running a household. Pointing out the difference between the leader pages of the newspapers and the vox populi. In 1975, the Tories picked a mother with no foreign policy experience, and it turned out pretty well.
The stage call at the end had me thinking: what reaction would David Cameron draw if he invited his disabled son on the stage? Or if he said – as Palin did – that parents of special needs kids would have a friend at the top of government? Yet American politics is full-on “meet the family” so this is not just accepted but expected. And “family” included Levi Johnston, the 18-year-old fiancé of the 17-year-old Bristol Palin – pointedly holding the hand of his pregnant bride-to-be. Great how Palin gave him a perfunctory “you bastard” peck.
Given her lack of experience of speaking on this scale, tonight’s performance was little short of miracle. Sure, she was heavy on attack – but this isn’t a First Lady In Waiting speech. She needed to be punchy, clever, defensive (or, more accurately, a very cleverly-spun offensive) and confident. It was much better than Joe Biden’s speech last week – which bodes well for their coming debate.
She needed to come across not just as tough, but as being ready. She needed to do all this without looking angry or vindictive, as Hillary often did. She needed to simultaneously brandish her executive, combative and maternal credentials. She passed all these tests, though I wouldn’t say she did so effortlessly. Yet if Team McCain’s aim is to have America fall in love with Sarah Palin, then they can say the first date was a resounding success.
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