Formula for Failure

In the heat of a political battle, selecting an astute vice president can give any presidential candidate, democratic or republican a great boost, but selecting a less then stellar VP can really hinder a presidential hopefuls chances. John McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, may prove to be detrimental as seen from her debut speech at the Republican National Convention.
She begins her speech by praising John McCain and moves quickly to the introduction of her family to the American public. Then she transitions to her life in Alaska and lastly, finishes by bashing the Obama Campaign. She devotes most of her speech to introducing us to her family and cracking down on Barack Obama.
In the introduction of her family, she introduces everyone including her husband, Todd, newborn baby boy, Trig, and even her parents. Palin only leaves out one member of her family, her seventeen-year-old daughter, who happens to be pregnant, bringing attention to that might not be such a good idea since the daughter isn’t currently married to the father of the child. She moves on after introducing her family to talking about the hard working people of Alaska stating, “…we grow good people in our small towns…praised Harry Truman”. She uses a quote about Harry Truman to describe the people of her tiny town in Alaska. Now, what’s strange about this statement is that president Harry Truman was a democrat. Why would Palin praise him and then later in her speech bash democratic ideals?
Palin then takes the time to inform us of all the great things she has contributed to the state of Alaska. Her contributions may have helped get her the VP position but, rather than listing past accomplishments, she should have listed her plans for improving the future of America. As the saying goes, it’s not where you’re coming from, but rather where you’re going. She mentions how we must “challenge the status quo”. Challenge the “status quo”, by selecting McCain for President? Odd, seemingly because the current “status quo” is the Bush Administration and by selecting McCain that would, rather than challenge the “status quo”, continue the current ways of the government.
It continued to catch my attention that Sarah Palin was contradicting herself through the entire speech. When speaking of the war in Iraq she claims, “victory in Iraq is in site” and claims that Obama wants to pull out even though victory is near. Well, if victory is close then why is the McCain administration planning on staying in Iraq forever, if needed? Her constant jabs at Obama seemed rather to be her own hubris, as seen with the Iraq war statement but, also with her take on drilling for oil. She says that Obama points out the obvious by saying drilling is not the answer but, then continues to say that something has to be done about oil. It’s understood that the vice president has the job of verbally putting down the rival party’s candidate but Palin’s attempts to hurt the Obama campaign backfired on her because of her constant contradictory statements.
When Palin finally manages to get to what she can bring to the White House she makes statements that seemingly sound like promises rather than plans. They have no depth or support to them, just plain old promises, kind of like something a sixth grader would say when running for an ASB position at school.
While the content of her speech caused issues for Palin, her weak communication with her audience made her debut speech less then stellar as well. Throughout the entire speech Palin pauses for a second and then continues with her thought. The pauses came off as a lack of ideas from Governor Palin. It made it seem like her speech was being “winged” rather then being thoughtful and concise. Palin may have not had a teleprompter, but if she did it certainly seemed like she was ignoring it at times. Her biggest communication blunder came when she was talking about terrorism and Iran’s vice grip of power on the United State’s foreign allies. While talking about terrorism she begins to stumble over her words and has to restate herself. Being that terrorism is a major fear in the United States having the possible future Vice President stumble over her take on how to stop terrorism is not a very comforting sign.
One could give Palin the benefit of the doubt since she is being thrown into the fire of a heated political showdown. It’s true she came from a small city in Alaska and to be put into an auditorium full of people, possibly her awe may have gotten to her during her speech and caused her to make statements that under regular circumstances she would have avoided. With that said, Palin must be ready for these type of scenarios. She is not talking from a governor’s point of view anymore but, rather from the role of a United States of America leader. Being that this was her debut speech it would have done her well to give us more of an understanding of who Sarah Palin really is. From the speech we get two views of Sarah Palin, which is real and which is the façade is yet to be determined.





A Hole in One


In the heat of a political battle, selecting an astute vice president can give any presidential candidate, democratic or republican a great boost. Sarah Palin, the selection for VP for the Republican Party brings an insurmountable boost to the McCain campaign. Her solid repertoire was displayed clearly in her debut speech at the Republican National Convention.
Sarah Palin, a relatively unknown entity in the political world, opens her speech in a fitting way. Since she is relatively new to the American public, Palin introduces the members of her family and goes on to give the audience an idea of who she is. She jokes around by saying, “ the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick”. By opening up to her audience and “breaking the ice” from the beginning, she seemed to be backed by the republican supporters throughout the whole night.
While describing the people of her small town in Alaska she refers to a quote about Harry Truman, “…we grow good people in our small towns…praised Harry Truman”. The reason this statement is astounding is because being a republican, she still recognizes Harry Truman, a democrat, for his strong values while President. This shows that, Palin gives credit where credit is due. One can also discern from this statement that regardless of political party and differences, Palin is able to see the good in rivals.
Palin then proceeds to inform us of her past accomplishments in the state of Alaska. She mentions how she began as the president of the PTA at her children’s school and later progressed to becoming the mayor of her small town and ultimately, received the highest honor of her state by being elected governor. Her credentials and experience make her an ideal candidate for the vice presidency. Her qualifications far out weigh those of rival party candidate Barack Obama. Her strong background will provide an effective complement to McCain, given that he’s elected president.
Speaking about her home state of Alaska she mentions that while she was governor, money was sent from Washington D.C. for the building of the “bridge to nowhere”. She took the money that was sent and reinvested it into the people of Alaska rather than waste it on building a pointless bridge. Palin also explains how a tax was put on the oil of Alaska; she took the money from those taxes and used it to aid Alaska’s development. From this, one can see that Palin is an iconoclast, she is not afraid to break the rules in order to fight for what she feels is right. Palin’s ability to march to the beat of her own drummer is rather admirable for it shows that she is unafraid to stare criticism in the eyes.
Palin’s iconoclastic ways can be partly contributed to her being fairly young in age. This provides a perfect compliment to McCain. This is because McCain being older comes off positively to the elder members of American society, who support traditional American ideals. While, the younger generation identifies well with Palin because of her youthfulness and movement towards change. Her points about her actions while governor of Alaska are the reason why I make this point because having separate ideals provides a perfect yin and yang between John McCain and Sarah Palin.
From the speech one can also pick up on Sarah Palin’s powerful charisma. Her ability to identify with her audience makes her ideals come off as appealing, weather one agrees or disagrees with them. Throughout this entire political race Obama has been looked up to for his power and charisma while making his speeches, but from Palin’s speech it’s safe to say that she may have just as much power and charisma if not more than senator Obama. Listening to her speech one almost forgets that she is only the vice president candidate because of her effective speaking one she comes of as the person running for president rather than John McCain.
At the national convention the job of the vice president candidate is to bash the opposition’s presidential candidate. Palin does this exact thing. She picks apart the flaws in senator Obama’s plans, yet still maintains her dignity by not caustically attacking her opponents. Rather she uses humor and sarcasm to get her points across.
For her debut speech Palin does an excellent job. She’s brand new to the American public and after hearing her speech it almost feels like Palin is someone who has been in the political spotlight for years. Her speech provides excellent support for why she is highly credible for the vice president position. She is able to juggle her three lives of being a politician, a mother, and a wife. She is a lady who wears many hats and wears them well. The selection of Sarah Palin for vice president may provide John McCain with the boost needed to overcome the Democratic candidate and vault him to the ultimate position of leadership in America, President.