There is no question that Sarah Palin did well tonight. She spoke well, and the speech she read was very effective. The strongest section was the middle when she was responding to the Obama campaign’s dumb attack on her for being the mayor of a small town. Let me quote it in full:
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
I thought that section of her speech combined her biography with her political appeal and turned it into a criticism of the Democrats and Obama’s indifference to the white working class and small town voter. I was less impressed with the rest of the speech. Her recitation of her own accomplishments--and her critique of Obama’s proposals--was less effective and less effectively delivered, but it was good enough not to raise questions about her suitability as vice president.But what voters who would not otherwise vote Republican would be attracted by this kind of appeal? I don’t think the Hillary voters would be, particularly upscale or older women. But there is a voter that might be attracted by this appeal: the downscale Perot voters, who were more male than female and who were very anti-Washington and who would not care about questions of experience. They might not vote for Sarah Palin for president, but her presence on the ticket might help John McCain get their vote. It’s not a big group of voters, but it has some importance in the Midwest and parts of the West like Colorado that Obama wants, or needs to win.The big question about Palin, though, remains unanswered: It is whether the smaller questions about her family and her past political associations will continue to dog her, and force McCain to defend his choice of her. A good test will be how much time McCain has to devote to answering questions about Palin when he appears on Sunday talk shows. If it takes up a quarter or third of the questioning, then he will be diverted from getting his own message across, and Palin will have proven, in spite of her small town appeal and speaking ability, to be a liability.
--John B. Judis
Related: More from TNR on Sarah Palin's Big Convention Speech