I’m now in the BBC suite in St Paul stadium with my former Spectator colleague Emily Maitlis. She’s off air and we’re all waiting for Sarah Palin – I’m due to do a Five Live phone-in on whether her personal life is fair game but the tennis may displace us. Both CNN and Fox are running Cape Canaveral-style countdowns to Palin’s big speech – which must surely rate as the most important at an American convention for years. It will have none of the theatre of Obama’s stadium speech, which everyone knew would be good. More is at stake now because if she fluffs it could well be terminal. Delegates here are fired up, convinced the left – as broadly defined – is coming after her with sexist and dirty jibes. The Republicans have whipped this one up to perfection, and Obama dare not attack Palin now, lest it adds credence to McCain’s claims of foul play. So far the Republican campaign machine has been smarter, faster and deadlier.
It’s often said that Palin’s point is simply to woo female voters. It’s far more cunning. Her job is first to energise the conservative base, which had been sniffy about mccain but is wildly enthusiatic about Palin. Next, this Alaskan tax-cutter puts rocket boosters on McCain’s “reform” message. “She was put on this earth to chew gum and kick ass,” said one conservative journalist I spoke to. “And she’s all out of gum”. Her third point is to appeal to women. And her fourth, which not much attention has fallen on so far, is to draw attention to Obama’s record on abortion.
Last night, Joe Lieberman described 9/11 as a “natural disaster” when he meant national disaster. An understandable fluff, which precisely no-one commented on today. If Palin makes the same mistake, it could well be seized on as an example of her unreadiness to lead. Making a speech like this is something which most people who do it spend months preparing for. This time last week, Palin was known to almost no one south of Siberia. I’d hate to be in her position, and admit that I can’t wait to see how she does. According to CNN, I have just 3 hours, 31 minutes and 20 seconds to wait.
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