Opinion - by Ned Resnikoff on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 20:29 - 26 Comments - 85 views
(Pictured above: Party! WOOOOOOOOO!)
Unlike our friends at the more venerable Washington Square News, us scrappy little underdogs didn’t have the resources to send someone to the Republican National Convention Big mommas house 2 download. But we can do something almost as good! We can watch it on television. And that’s what I’ll be doing starting tonight at 9, to catch Sarah Palin’s big speech. Not only that, but I’ll be liveblogging it, below the fold of this very post! Hopefully some of you will join me in the comments as well, so we can make a conversation out of it. Expectations are high for this speech, and there’s not a whole lot of middle ground in how people feel about Palin, so the speech is pretty much guaranteed to be a doozy. And if our little experiment tonight goes well, then you may be able to look forward to a liveblog of McCain’s speech tomorrow night.
9:29: It begins. Huckabee’s speaking right now. Via the inestimable John Cole, it turns out that the McCain camp started writing the VP acceptance speech before they had a candidate. [Candidate] for VP!
9:34: Shorter Huckabee: “Stop talking about Palin’s inexperience! She was very popular when she was the mayor of a small town that required a completely different skill set than being a heartbeat away from the presidency!”
9:38: The vast majority of Americans have no opinion on Palin. I guess this is her big coming out party.
9:41: Huckabee finishes off the folksiest speech of all time and Keith Olbermann immediately fact checks him. Party pooper! Rudy Giuliani up next. Here’s a preview of his speech:
9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH 9/11 9/11 9/11 TERRISTS 9/11 9/11
9:54: FOX and MSNBC won’t stop pointing their cameras at Bristol Palin, and it’s getting more than a little weird. Aren’t there actual politicians they could be talking about (or to) right now?
9:57: Nora O’Donnell: “Sarah Palin has to prove tonight that she’s qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.” By delivering a speech? That’s got to be some kickass speech.
10:01: Giuliani just took the stage. Rudy Can’t Fail! Except when it comes to elections, when he clearly can. Quite badly.
10:05: Did you know that John McCain was a prisoner of war? Rudy Giuliani brought that up just now, but I swear I’ve never heard that before.
10:10: Giuliani on John McCain: “He’s never run a city! He’s never run a state! He’s never run a business!” Yeah! I guess he’s totally unqualified to be presid- “He’s never run a military unit!” Oh. Never mind, they were talking about Obama.
10:13: Great moments in unfortunate cutting: Mike Huckabee and his wife looking profoundly uncomfortable in the audience as Giuliani speaks.
10:17: Rudy brings up 9/11 for the first time! Anyone playing the RNC drinking game, you may now take a shot.
10:19: Since there’s all of this talk about Palin the great reformer, TPMMuckraker has a wakeup call.
10:25: Rudy: “Palin took on corruption in Alaska!” Oy. See above link. Maybe by “took on,” he meant “embraced.”
10:29: Palin’s finally on! They canceled the inspirational video beforehand. Aww, man.
10:31: After a long standing ovation, Palin officially accepts the nomination. No takesies-backsies!
10:39: Here’s what I know about Palin so far from this speech: She really loves her family. Good to know, I guess? Call me a cold-hearted bastard if you want, but I want some red meat.
10:42: Apparently, the RNC really loves hockey moms. “HOCKEY MOMS! HOCKEY MOMS!” chant almost as intense as “USA! USA!”
10:47: Blogging wünderkind Matt Zeitlin, via IM: “this is the most nixonland shit i’ve ever heard” Context.
10:50: Palin just lied again about opposing the bridge to nowhere.
10:53: Palin keeps hammering away at ANWR drilling. It’s a national security issue! It’s a conservation issue! It makes lemonade!
10:57: Palin: “Victory in Iraq is finally within site and [Obama] wants to forfeit.” The weird part is, by “victory,” she means withdrawing using a timetable remarkably similar to the one Obama proposed. So the difference between “victory” and “forfeit” is apparently if a Democrat proposes it.
10:59: OH NO OBAMA WANTS TO RAISE YOUR TAXES. Except for he, uhm, doesn’t. Apparently Palin skipped Obama’s convention speech.
11:01: Palin calls the current Senate the “do-nothing Senate.” Why don’t they do anything? Oh, that’s right – because the GOP has threatened to filibuster more during this Senate than any previous one in history.
11:04: Jess Roy in the comments: “Sarcasm and glibness in a woman are going to come off as pure bitchiness to the middle American base the Republicans are aiming for. Those on the floor love her, but this speech is not going to make her likable.” I don’t know. I think the sarcasm lines are doing pretty well. If there’s one thing Republicans are good at, it’s belittling their opponents. I sort of wish Democrats would do more of that and less of the whole, “our opponents are honorable people” thing.
11:05: DID YOU KNOW THAT JOHN MCCAIN WAS A POW?!! It’s been almost five minutes since I’ve heard anything about that!
11:08: Well, I think that speech counts as a rousing success, in that Palin was able to successfully read words off a teleprompter. It was basically FAMILY IS AWESOME/BARACK OBAMA IS BAD for a very long time with very little in the way of new content. But the talking heads are going to gush about it for a while. Oh well. Bring on McCain’s speech tomorrow!
Photo by Flickr user NewsHour used under a Creative Commons license.
26 Comments
A very special NYU Local event « Ned Resnikoff
Wait wait wait wait wait. She just accepted the nomination, but Wolf Blitzer JUST said that they haven’t voted on the VP yet. They’re doing that tomorrow.
My Dad and I are watching this right now and are continually screaming at the TV. She’s a great speaker, I’ll give her that, but what a fucking HYPOCRITE.
Jess–agreed. She’s not nearly as honest as she seems , but she is doing a great job delivering this speech. Like I hate her policies but love her.
Her gestures are so deliberate; she has rehearsed the rise and fall of her voice, and she’s delivering those jokes not naturally and personally but like someone who has nervously rehearsed them time and again. But that’s WORKING.
Sarcasm and glibness in a woman are going to come off as pure bitchiness to the middle American base the Republicans are aiming for. Those on the floor love her, but this speech is not going to make her likable.
Oh and good job using your mentally challenged son as a way to gain support. SHAMELESS.
Jordan W.
I’m sorry but any politician running for the high office who can’t properly pronounce the word “Iraq” really bothers me.
At least Alaska is close to Russia. Foreign policy experience!
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be surprised if she, at least partially, won over a lot of undecideds from this.
I could be wrong, we’ll have to wait and see. But as a woman I do think that sarcasm (unfortunately) doesn’t work for women in power and comes off wrong. Also, there’s a difference between a few sarcastic/biting lines and basing your entire speech around them.
I don’t think this speech is going to have a lasting impact. I agree with Jess that the people on the floor are lovin’ it up right now, but we’re going to forget about this in 2 days.
BUT could john mccain look any more robotic? It’s almost comical, but really just sad.
Okay one last night: Cindy McCain looks like she is still popping pills.
Jordan W.
I do think the speech will work at solidifying the base, which is what McCain partially aimed to do by picking her in the first place.
I think the speech will reassure the base, because it did seem everyone was kind of skeptical concerning McCain’s choice, but I’m not sure it will lure in any undecided supporters. It’ll be interesting to see the ex-Hillary now pro-McCain voters’ opinion on her. Her personality could be something they’d be attracted to, but her issues are just so anti-woman and different from Hillary’s that I don’t see how they could possibly vote for her for any reason other than the fact that she’s a strong woman.
Oh, the girl who sang “Redneck Woman” is singing the National Anthem.
And they pulled some black man up to do a Def Poetry thing. WTF?
SAM YOU WIN YOU FOUND A BLACK REPUBLICAN
I’m sure it’s the same one they kept flashing on the screen intermittently. Literally. One black Republican, and they would show different angles of him to make it seem like it was more than one.
For the record, I really hope Jess and Sam are right. And no, I don’t think that this speech will shift the tides or any of that–I agree with Jess that there was too much snark not enough substance. That said, I do think a lot of Hillary women are still SO BITTER about her not winning the primary and not even getting to be veep, and those that are more centrist may be willing to overlook some of Palin’s politics and just see a strong, Midwestern (well, Midwestern-sounding, an important distinction), down-home mom who can also be a stern, powerful leader.
LOL @ the cowboys singing both the National Anthem and the Pledge. Like, at the same time.
Jordan W.
MIdwestern sounding? She sounded almost Canadian to me, eh? What was that all “about”?
Marshall Finch
His name is Cowboy Troy. He is country music’s one and only rapper. He is oddly not rap’s one and only country musician.
Best Sarah Palin impressions to date:
http://www.youtube.com/SaraBenincasa
Dene Chen
I’m a little late to this, but does Palin remind anyone of some character in a movie? Honestly, when I was watching her, I kept thinking of a movie where there is a woman talking that EXACT same way with the EXACT same expression on her face, except in the movie it was in a parodying spirit.
Ned do you like how we took over the live blogging here in the comments section? Just like democracy!
Quick Palin Reaction « Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper
[...] was liveblogging the speech at NYU local, and apparently I dropped the first Nixonland reference at 7:47 [...]
@ Josh: I think it’s awesome. Getting a conversation going was the whole point of this thing.
NYU Local - “That’s not change we can believe in!”: Liveblogging the McCain Speech
[...] last night’s liveblog got a lot of comments, we’re going to try the same thing again for McCain’s speech [...]
[...] September 3, 2008 by Ned Resnikoff I’m trying a little experiment out over at NYU Local tonight and liveblogging the big Palin speech over there. Check it out. [...]