The McCain - Palin Rally. Stagecraft + Witchcraft = McPalin.
I've been to my share of GOP rallies. The latest being the McCain Town Hall here not too long ago. Because of that, never in my born days would I ever imagine describing a GOP event as "sexy," but trust me, it was.
Call it the Sarah Palin Effect, if you will, but this event confirms that what came through our televisions last Wednesday night was not just unreal, or even surreal, it was witchcraft.
John McCain is suddenly younger in voice and carriage. The average age of the event, compared to the Town Hall, dropped seemingly 30 years. Females outnumbered males. There were children on shoulders. There was anticipation, excitement, mojo.
There was Van Halen. And Whitesnake. And Twisted Sister. Twisted Sister? Who in the GOP agreed to Twisted Sister?
It's witchcraft. Supernatural. Magic. It's the only answer.
There was also one of the best bits of stagecraft EVER for a political event. As you'll see in the video we'll post, the Straight Talk Express bus appearing from behind an enormous American flag - inside the Civic Center, mind you - to a smoke show and thumping Van Halen was, well, as un-GOP an entrance as could possibly be imagined.
And there was the actor Robert Duvall introducing Sarah Palin. Cue the explosive, sustained, giddy, rapturous, grateful, we just might do this, applause.
It can only be witchcraft.
The McCain folks have made an interesting decision regarding Palin on the stump. While it may seem repetitive to have her repeating some of those memorable lines from St. Paul, it still plays in the room, as they say. Same can be said for McCain. They clearly worked then, and it's apparent they will for a bit of time.
To her and their credit, they have dropped the knocks on Barack Obama from her. This makes sense to me. As effective it may be, it is Mr. McCain vs. Mr. Obama. In fact, the knocks on Mr. Obama were few from John McCain.
Also gone was the Vietnam bio of Mr. McCain. My guess is coming out of the convention, they wanted to throttle back on it and get to issues more.
It was going around the press pool that the number actually exceeded the 6,000 tickets distributed. In fact, a GOP insider told me their computers crashed, so many requests were coming in. I heard 10,000 showed, but my guess is not nearly that amount.
No matter. Whatever the actual number, the gathered fairly floated out of the Civic Center in delight.
There is new life in the GOP here, not the most buoyant set usually. And certainly not even last week. The timing of having McCain and Palin in Albuquerque within days after the convention made a convincing case that the excitement wasn't a phenomenon of St. Paul swept up with the deflated balloons. This has legs. You can feel it in your bones watching.
How is this possible in less than a week? A week!
I'm tellin ya, it's witchcraft.
Call it the Sarah Palin Effect, if you will, but this event confirms that what came through our televisions last Wednesday night was not just unreal, or even surreal, it was witchcraft.
John McCain is suddenly younger in voice and carriage. The average age of the event, compared to the Town Hall, dropped seemingly 30 years. Females outnumbered males. There were children on shoulders. There was anticipation, excitement, mojo.
There was Van Halen. And Whitesnake. And Twisted Sister. Twisted Sister? Who in the GOP agreed to Twisted Sister?
It's witchcraft. Supernatural. Magic. It's the only answer.
There was also one of the best bits of stagecraft EVER for a political event. As you'll see in the video we'll post, the Straight Talk Express bus appearing from behind an enormous American flag - inside the Civic Center, mind you - to a smoke show and thumping Van Halen was, well, as un-GOP an entrance as could possibly be imagined.
And there was the actor Robert Duvall introducing Sarah Palin. Cue the explosive, sustained, giddy, rapturous, grateful, we just might do this, applause.
It can only be witchcraft.
The McCain folks have made an interesting decision regarding Palin on the stump. While it may seem repetitive to have her repeating some of those memorable lines from St. Paul, it still plays in the room, as they say. Same can be said for McCain. They clearly worked then, and it's apparent they will for a bit of time.
To her and their credit, they have dropped the knocks on Barack Obama from her. This makes sense to me. As effective it may be, it is Mr. McCain vs. Mr. Obama. In fact, the knocks on Mr. Obama were few from John McCain.
Also gone was the Vietnam bio of Mr. McCain. My guess is coming out of the convention, they wanted to throttle back on it and get to issues more.
It was going around the press pool that the number actually exceeded the 6,000 tickets distributed. In fact, a GOP insider told me their computers crashed, so many requests were coming in. I heard 10,000 showed, but my guess is not nearly that amount.
No matter. Whatever the actual number, the gathered fairly floated out of the Civic Center in delight.
There is new life in the GOP here, not the most buoyant set usually. And certainly not even last week. The timing of having McCain and Palin in Albuquerque within days after the convention made a convincing case that the excitement wasn't a phenomenon of St. Paul swept up with the deflated balloons. This has legs. You can feel it in your bones watching.
How is this possible in less than a week? A week!
I'm tellin ya, it's witchcraft.
posted by Gene Grant at
7:36 PM
1 Comments:
By Margarita Mercure Hibbs, Rural Advocacy Specialist
After watching the VP debate, I have to ask, is history no longer important or real to the masses or for that matter to the GOP? I contend that this may be the case. Here follows one facet of my frustration.
McCain’s campaign suspension was nothing but a ploy to redirect the attention from the failing economy and the fact that McCain the Deregulator cannot win on the issues. In the end, after claiming credit for the bailout agreement, it appears that his own party would not do as he asked after stating that he was in support of the bailout at the same time he and many others claimed that this was an economic crisis. He is running scared, and realizes that people are finally learning that he is a hypocrite on many issues; The New GI Bill, VA Aid Bills, Military Aid Bills, the Post Katrina Aid Bills, the Farm Bill (The last time McCain voted for any Farm Bill was 1980), the SCHIP Bill, all of which he either voted against or opposed under claims of wasteful “pork barrel”. In the case of the Farm Bill, the pork barrel that he claims is in the bill, represents only 6% of the Farm Bill’s budget.
The Deregulation Bill, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, is responsible for most of this current mess, authored by Mr. Phil Gramm and passed during 1999 with a Republican controlled Congress during the last year of Clinton’s administration. John McCain supported this bill and it was Mr. Gramm that claimed we were a 'Nation of Whiners' and we were all suffering from a mental recession. Another of his economic advisors, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard took a very profitable company from profit making to a 50% drop in shares and then to keep dividends from completely hemorrhaging, she laid off 21,000 employees. Ms. Fiorina was asked to leave, but she left with nearly $42,000,000.00 as her severance package. nt.
For McCain to now claim that he is the reformer and regulator is beyond laughable, but he counts on the historical amnesia of the American public. Remember, this is the same man that was involved in the Keating 5 Scandal and because he is special, he only received a Congressional Reprimand. We must not let these memory lapses stand. These issues together speak volumes regarding the true record of Senator McCain.
Senator McCain claimed that he must get back to work during this crisis and lead the negotiations; he then stated that the Congress was not getting anything done without him. That is proof of his dishonesty and disrespect to his fellow Senators on both sides of the aisle. Remember, this Bailout Plan was a proposal from President Bush, Henry Paulson and Paul Bernanke and the Republicans. Of course many of these Republicans are up for reelection.
This was not a Democratic Plan. The Democrats, as the majority agreed to commit 2/3’s of there numbers in both houses to support the President’s request. They delivered on their commitment and President Bush’s own party members refused to play ball claiming that Pelosi’s speech hurt 13 members’ feelings. Who knew that the Republican group that opposed this bill were such sensitive people?
For the record on McCain’s importance to this Bailout solution, here is a Congressional Roll Call fact for people to chew on or choke on, you decide; He is the most absent of Senators in the Senate and to date has missed 429 roll call votes. He is ranked 1st for absenteeism. This Congress has been performing well or not without him either way you see the situation for a very long time. In spite of these facts, there will be many Republicans that will say that these details do not matter, so much for principles, huh?
As Palin speaks, she reveals her ignorance of the issues and what is more embarrassing is that she does not seem to know McCain's true history and positions. In one of her recent interviews with Katie Couric, she could not name one instance other than his recent claim that he is the reformer/regulator, in the over 26 year career history of John McCain. Her response to Ms. Couric was “I'll look for some and get them back to ya.” In another follow up interview with Katie Couric, John McCain sat by her side and ran interference in the interview to deflect from the issue of Palin’s own words, but there were few responses that made any sense. She apparently does not read The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Des Moines Register, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, because she could not mention one, when asked what her favorite news sources were. What is this, another anti-intellectual for the masses who want to drink beer with their President?
In her first national speech given at the Republican National Convention, she came out swinging at Obama and the Democratic Party and now we are being told that we should not expect her to answer any questions regarding her positions politically. This is the big league of politics and given the constant discussion over the subject of ‘readiness to lead’, she and McCain should realize that her political positions on governing this nation are fair game. Her personal family and religious history is irrelevant to me, but if she wants votes, she will have to do what every other candidate has done and reveal her knowledge, however great or small it may be.
Perhaps there are many Republicans that do not want to remember that many of them said they would not and could not trust McCain, but it seems that many have forgotten their own principles. Perhaps they should watch the Saturday Night Live parody of the first Obama/McCain debate and pay special attention to the portion when McCain presents and promotes himself as the 'maverick', the reformer and the rebel in his own party. McCain has always been a carefully constructed myth and if people would take the time to research the history of this man's voting record, instead of merely listening to FOX News and GOP talking points one would find out that he is not a friend to working America, much less our military men and women and veterans.
Lip service is cheap and when excuses are veiled behind the violation of the 9th Commandment to oppose McCain’s opponent, I really wonder about GOP values. The bottom line is that we want to hear specifics on McCain/Palin' future plans for the economy, the foreign policy, the resolution of the current wars and military plans, the health care crisis and every other domestic policy that is important to Rural America, as well as urban. Thank goodness for notable conservatives such as George F. Will of Newsweek, Kathleen Parker of National Review Online and Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post for their articles and the many others who are now speaking out.
In the end, the VP Debate did little to prove that this woman is anything more than a sponge/conduit for the Neocons and Theocons of the RNC. It is very obvious that whenever the American public begins to see the truth and reality of our economic crisis, this is political Kryptonite for the McCain campaign. The reality is that the current foreign and economic policies of our country are bankrupting this great nation. Each and every time people start to see the real issues, McCain is like the Wizard of Oz ordering Dorothy, “Do not pay any attention to the man behind the curtain!” I say wake up Dorothy, wake up America!
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