I was crowd surfing down First Avenue outside the Target Center in Minneapolis after the RATM show when the texts started pouring in. I guess I was going to have to tune into the Palin speech after all. Margaret seemed to be in the throes of another scotch soaked bout with delusion. My little half brother, Bertie Ernesto, twisted in a Naderian Madness, was madly texting corrections to the filthy lies promulgated by the moose-dressing hockey mom. Even the poor, bent Heeb, Wild Bill, who I haven’t seen since he embedded himself in the McCain campaign, was a froth in reactionary bile; luridly swerving through Vaginal Christ Metaphoria and Reagan filmography.
“Sacre’Poutine, boys! I’ve got to go! Let me down! The business of Political Writing is at hand!”
My ears still ringing from tunitis, I made my way to my rooms at the Graves 601, and sat down with a half coffee, half rye to watch the youtube, to see what everyone was upset about.
Ah yes, I realized, the American reaction to the success of an enemy. The bowel shattering crunch of an opponent’s home run. An especially bad ache when mixed with politics, a bio-hazardous Petri dish of economics and moral values. This is a most unwelcome occurrence for the Democratic population, anxiety-ridden and just wanting all this to be over, wanting their team to win so they can stop this eight years of hand-wringing and get back to the Netflix queue where they belong.
There’s nothing the Democratic faithful wanted more than a nervous, flighty backwoods hickette up there on the stage, clutching a Gideon in one hand, a Glock in the other; what they got was a confident, self-assured, Rovian trained Veep Candidate. A bulldog. An attack force and one painted in a true blue collar small town patina. What can I say? I don’t like it any more that you. But getting the thongs in a hizzy, mi bras, ain’t going to do it.
The first thing Dems need to do is keep their heads about them. Nothing Palin said, her stinging barbs at Barack, Michelle, or Joe, the seizing of her personal narrative back from the grasps of the national media was meant for them (outside the schaudenfruede any good GOP wonk gets watching liberal monkeys start the poo flinging). If you must, visualize that there were hundreds upon thousands cringing as you oooed for fifty-six minutes last Thursday. Nothing you can do about that. It’s battle time and reacting to the reactions of a bunch of republicans is like kvetching that Baphomet isn’t getting fair airtime at St. Patrick’s on Sundays.
There’s plenty of time for Lil Sarah to fall down. The media really hasn’t had a chance at her yet and the sooner they drop the business of babies having babies the better. Stick to experience (she doesn’t have any), stick to values (hers are evangelical Christian; she can and will be caught here), and most of all, stick to John (not as good with the teleprompter) McCain. Take the battle to him and the Dems should be fine.
Palin got a chance last night to wrest control of her narrative and sell her story. She did it well, she did it for her people. Not all of it was true or accurate (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/04/ap-attacks-praise-stretch_n_123771.html) but that’s a little beside the point when you’re in the church of GOP.
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