Postcards from home? I think I'd rather stay then, please.

As I'm currently trapped not only in England (by a volcano) but inside (by a rampaging cold), I thought I'd reconnect with the American political discourse I miss so much by reading a transcript of Sarah Palin's speech in Hamilton, Ontario last week.  For a little under two hundred grand, some lucky Canadians were treated to some theater whose absurd circularity does Beckett proud.  More on that in a moment, though, as I first want to make something absolutely clear: Sarah Palin does not scare me.  No one whose speech twists into modernist thickets while ordering coffee counts as a worthy political opponent; but as she is a political force amongst people who think no sandbox is complete without a couple of blowtorches—the parenting equivalent of having her serve as Commander in Chief—I feel it my duty as an American to condense her Hamilton speech down to its Platonic essence: 

This is such a melting pot.  This is so beautiful.  I love this diversity.  There were a whole bunch of guys named "Tony" in the photo line.

It is so good to be here tonight.  We'll kind of shift gears tonight.  Having a conversation with so many of you is something that I look forward to.  And not being so political tonight, I will talk a lot about energy, because I want to talk about some of the things that both our countries can do to ramp up production so that we can ramp up our economy, because the better our economies do, the better we do in terms of having opportunity to help children and those who are less fortunate, the better the rest of us do.  We will talk a little bit about energy.

I'm wanting to kind of shift away from the political.  The shift from the political, so now that I have that shift from the political but still have that desire to talk about the political and the economy and talk about energy and resources and national security and all those things.  I was telling Todd, this is like on the the Vice Presidential campaign trail, where you never really knew what you were getting into when you get into that line before you get interviewed.  

Obviously, sometimes I never knew what I was getting into in an interview.  Obviously!  Whenever we do something big in life, like a Vice Presidential campaign, I like to say a prayer about it.  I need some divine inspiration and I need to remember what it really is all about, so that evening before the debate I remember being back stage and looking around for somebody to pray with, and looking around at the campaign staff and there's nobody to prayer with. Not that I would think that God would speak through me, but wanting to leave you with a little bit of inspiration and encouragement and maybe on a personal level have a conversation with you about some of the things that Todd and I have been through in the last year and a half, the last couple of years, that hopefully you can learn a couple of lessons from, because we've been through quite a few challenges, quite a few battles and you all too, everybody goes through battles, everybody has challenges.  Some are played out in the newspapers, some of ours have been.  Maybe yours have not been, but everybody has to make tough decisions and prioritize things in life and here we are tonight, given an opportunity to come together to reach out to help others, to help children, who are in need.  We don't want to squander this opportunity, we want to be inspired and encourage and remember that though we all do go through some tough challenging times, we talked at the head table tonight that we need to be able to count our blessings, not our problems.  We need to share our blessings, so we'll do a little bit about that tonight.

I pause to ask the pressing question: do any among you have any clue what this woman is talking about?  Does she?  My answer, as you might figure, is a vehement: "No, with thunder."  She is making me uncomfortable with her words and what she says not because of their content, as they're free of that burden, but because of their form; or, more accurately, their formlessness. Nine hundred poor Canadians purchased $200 tickets to listen to the segue-free ramblings of a woman who forgets the subject of her sentence by the time she reaches the verb, then the verb by the time she reaches the object but keeps talking anyway.  Such is, after all, the beauty of talking points: so long as you say them all, the coherence of the speech containing them is inconsequential.  "Sound bites" are called "bites" instead of "meals" for a reason now.

Comments

[tomemos]

Falconer: Not at all; I think you've got it exactly right (although I don't know when Palin's "dress sense" was criticized as "trailer trash"—was that before she spent a hundred and fifty grand on clothes, or after?). My point is that, not only is there no reason to think that Scott's critique contains class bias, but Palin's working-class pretensions have always been just that—pretensions, a total sham meant to build the brand.

By the way, can anyone explain how we liberals are so elitist but went crazy for Bill Clinton, an Arkansan who not only speaks with an accent but was actually brought up poor? (Fritz's accusation of sexism, of course, is not worth responding to.)

[Falconer]

Projection?

Those qualities of Bill Clinton you mention are the precise reasons some people say the Washington insiders decided they didn't like the Clintons.

However, when it comes to Palin, her working-class pretensions are presented by her supporters as indicators of her authenticity.

"Real America" is held to exist in the rural communities of the country. The rural poor are exalted above the urban anyone, except the party leaders who are all, surprise surprise, urban white folk ... and Michael Steele. Perhaps it's because the rural poor are perceived to be landowners while the urban poor are perceived to be black kids in the ghetto.

[Falconer]

Or perhaps it all comes down to Shirts v. Skins. Everything in defense of your team, or against the other team.

[John Emerson]

Palin's dialect is the famous Fargo/Wobegon accent. During the depression the Matanuska Valley was settled from MN and WS.

The affinity with Bachmann is thus unsurprising. On the other hand, MN and WS have lots of liberals too, and even the rural areas are less reactionary than you'd expect. (Bachmann is exurban).

[Mike]

Is it me, or has she started to resemble Fey's impersonation?

[alkau]

Poo misunderstood Sarad. Just remenber she can see Russia from her window at home and she needs lots of help from professionals because she speaks plainly and wears suits that are "borrowed". And, yes, Tina makes a better Sarah then Sarah herself. Perhaps because Tina knows what she is saying is stupid! But, in this great country, a simple woman can go from losing an election to earning millions "not" running the next time around!