Palin's Practically Perfect (Tea) Party Presentation

If anyone doubts the power of the tea party movement, they didn't really listen to Sarah Palin's carefully crafted speech last night. I watched it twice before writing this post.

Last night, I watched nervously, hoping she wouldn't mispronounce a word, be grammatically incorrect, or lose her place on the typed pages on the podium. In recent weeks, after watching her utter the word "uncomfortableness" on O'Reilly and hearing her use the words "common sense conservative solutions" repeatedly, I began to wonder if in fact, her vocabulary was too limited for prime time, even though I am in alignment with most of her principles and agree wholeheartedly with what she stands for.

I must note here that CNN may have not intentionally planned to show Sarah Palin in a positive light, but this time, they did not make the mistake of pretending that the tea party movement was "unimportant" or "irrelevant." They actually provided more fair and balanced coverage than Fox. Geraldo Rivera never stopped talking over the introduction that Andrew Breitbart gave prior to her speech. I would have liked to have heard that. Even the camera angles and color saturation on Fox were not as good as on CNN. So bravo to CNN for their excellent camera work and for getting out of the way so Palin could be heard.

I also appreciated CNN's pre-speech coverage. Unfortunately, no matter how hard the anchor tried to minimize the tea partiers as "socialist" calling radicals, those on both sides of his split screen shut down the spin with facts. It was refreshing to see. MSNBC was too busy airing their latest tabloid "lock up" show and of course, ignored the speech completely. But I'm sure their famous trio is busy pulling out any sound bytes that will make Palin look inarticulate, like a religious freak or an uneducated bimbo. She did use the word "distrust" instead of "mistrust" so look for that to be run again and again and again on Monday evening. Let me think like an MSNBC producer—they'll likely air the "blowing the kiss" to the serviceman in the audience, and they'll likely show her "tear up" when she commended the audience for their work and mentioned special needs children, and for good measure, they'll probably laugh off the audience standing up when, predictably, the host mentions "President Palin." Oh, and I can't forget when she asks "how's that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya now?" Of course, they'll say that she can't even pronounce hope and change, failing to see that the "yolk's" on them. But let's see what happens tomorrow on the cable news outlets—my favorite sport to watch.

Today, before writing, I decided to watch the speech again with my 12 year old son. He didn't make it through the whole thing; his DSI was getting cold. BUT he did make one very astute observation. "Mom," he said. "She sounds like your neighbor, like someone you can trust. She doesn't talk down to people." I love that children find it so easy to spot genuine when so many jaded adults, with their preconceived ideas of what a "leader" should be, fail to understand that the reason Palin resonates with so many is expressly because she does not TRY to dazzle us with her brilliance. She is an action oriented, simple talking, morally consistent, idea driven, accidental hero to the millions of heretofore silent Americans who have watched for years as our country has been taken over by wolves in sheep's clothing on both sides of the aisle.

When the far left uses the ridiculous rhetoric to malign the entire tea party movement as "Obama" haters, questioning "where were these people when George W. Bush was in office?" what they fail to understand is that we were already losing faith in our government during that time, but what put us over the edge was when this president spent more in his first month in office than all other presidents in U.S. History COMBINED.

We began bubbling over when our president said "no" lobbyists and then hired them, when he promised complete transparency, and when we saw Barney Frank on tape say nothing was wrong with Fannie and Freddie. Probably nothing was worse then watching Timothy Geitner, who didn't pay his own taxes, be touted as the BEST qualified person in America to become our Secretary of the Treasury. This man can throw me in jail if I don't pay my taxes but he's in charge of the entire U.S. Treasury! It's an outrage. If that isn't enough to take an already frustrated electorate a reason to simultaneous shout "someone's going to need to throw a tea party," then the far left will never be able to handle the truth. I said those very words in my own living room last February and attended the first tea party on April 15, 2009. What a difference a year can make! I don't expect that in 2010, Newsweek and Life will be able to ignore the mass crowds that are sure to march on Washington as real hope and change greets our "let them eat cake" congress.

Palin's speech began with a Happy Birthday to President Reagan. It was quintessential Palin throughout a 45 minute or so appeal to the movement to stay focussed on objectives. I wish I could be Palin's speech writer. I feel that she gave an overall good speech but that it repeated many of the buzz phrases and talking points we have already heard. I was hoping she would get more specific about strategy. However, the three greatest moments in her speech (in my opinion), were when she said "we need a Commander in Chief not a professor of law at the lecturn, " when she said emphatically that the tea party movement did NOT need a leader because it was from the people, and when she smartly said that the GOP would be WISE to absorb the tea party—instead of saying that the tea party should absorb the GOP.

I was impressed by this because I feel that Palin is now (by circumstance) too famous to be the default leader of this grass roots movement and would diminish the "we the people" every day American foundation that the tea party springs from. Her acknowledgement of this as well, certainly cemented my belief that she is authentic, says what she means and means what she says. Finally, she clarified that the tea party is not an extension of the Republican party but, is in fact, going to have a huge influence over who win elections, regardless of party. That needed to be stated. We tea partiers have a good memory and we know which republicans came out right away for the tea partiers and which ones maligned both Palin and the movement for a good part of 2009.

I'm looking foward to seeing how this all plays out. I really believe Rush Limbaugh is wrong when he says that we tea partiers are "splitting the party" which will fail like the Ross Perot split election did years ago unless we join "them." What I feel in the air is that the Republicans are going to be forced to revert to the true conservative principles they USED to have or face strong opposition from a non-partisan tea party that will continue to endorse new candidates and vote the status quo out—no matter what that little letter indicates next to their name.

During the opening of Palin's speech last night, I was so nervous for her, not wanting her to fail. But when I watched it again today, I had the ability (knowing how it all turned out) to fully appreciate her speech. It was not as smooth and polished as her fiery convention speech. She stumbled a bit and probably stalled a bit at the beginning with a little too much "I'm proud to be an American." It's hard not to be nervous when every single thing you say is apt to be used against you. She has managed, for the most part, to stay on message. She went so far as to say that she will be supporting third party candidates and some others in hotly contested primaries.

We all know that she is going to tour with John McCain. While I do not support that, I can understand why she is going to do so. In her book, Going Rogue, Palin NEVER says a harsh word about John McCain. He, during the vitriol expoused by the media, never blasted the media BUT he also never maligned her. I believe that Palin is a bit like George W. Bush in this way. She turns the other cheek and gives the benefit of the doubt to those who don't give her an overt reason to believe that they are her enemy. And though, John McCain, passively threw her under the bus by omission, he has never publically demeaned her in any way. And so, I believe she will support him out of friendship and probably because, were it not for him, she would not find herself in this position of power today. However, in light of his comments on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, I think she would be wise to withdraw her support. McCain is just so inconsistent and, other than being a true American hero, I don't feel he is sincere in much of what he says and does.

As I said earlier, she is supporting Governor Perry instead of the more independent Debra Medina, whom I think is probably a Scott Brown kind of candidate. I think it is a fair question to ask Palin "why" is she not throwing her support toward the "renegade" and "rogue" candidate. However, knowing what I know about Perry after researching him a bit and how WELL Texas is indeed running as I celebrate 3 years of living here, it makes pretty good sense that Palin is supporting him. She did govern Alaska through principle centered decisions over ideology. She does profess to support great ideas (even if on balance, not ALL of the ideas are "perfect") and clearly says that we can't agree with EVERY decision candidates make. I agree with her position that faith needs to be placed on ideas above the people who serve, as they are fallible. Still, the question of not supporting Medina is one I would like answered.

Palin emerged last night as the powerful communicator we have seen before. She, of course, publically stated that her $100,000 fee goes straight to the Tea Party PAC. Now, if Fox News will just let her be the analyst they hired her for instead of repeating campaign interviews, Palin might be successful there as well! Looking forward to seeing what the pundits think on Monday!