They're not the most... wisely thought out talking points.
Some of them are downright insulting, and many open up unflattering comparisons to Obama himself.
RedState goes through and compares Obama and Palin on "experience".
Of course the short answer to "Does Palin have foreign-policy experience for the VP slot?" is given by Rober (the other) McCain. "John Edwards 2004"
It's nice to see the Dems hold their opponents to a much higher standard than they're willing to be.
Also, if Palin has made you want to donate to the McCain/Palin cause then you won't be alone. So far they've raised $7 million. In one day. But you better hurry as you have until Tuesday to make a donation.
Ed Morrissey responds to a Time piece by Michael Grunwald and Jay Newton-Small.
Time: Why is everyone surprised by Palin pick?
Ed agrees.
McCain had several options open to him in this choice, but none of them would have addressed all of the points that Palin does. Tim Pawlenty is a Washington outsider and an Everyman too, but fortunately Minnesota has not been plagued with official corruption, and Pawlenty has not had to crusade for massive reform. He has governed as an effective and strong center-right leader, but doesn’t have the dynamism of Palin. Mitt Romney, who would have been my first choice, has a proven track record in both private and public sectors of strong leadership, but his compromises as governor of Massachusetts already had people calling him a flip-flopper on key points like abortion. Also, Romney isn’t exactly an Everyman; although he is a Washington outsider, his wealth hardly gives the impression of one.
Palin is, in a way, Pawlenty with a ferocious record of reform. She went after her own party’s state chair and exposed his corruption at the Oil and Natural Gas Commission. Palin defied Ted Stevens and Don Young in refusing to accept the Bridge to Nowhere and told them that Alaska can build its own bridges. Otherwise, like Pawlenty, she enjoys and excels in sports, has a young family, and prior to entering the governor’s mansion lived in a solidly middle-class home. Palin is, as Pawlenty often points out, more Sam’s Club than country club.
As stated before, Palin has a big risk. If she can't handle the pressure or gives a big gaff, she can easily sink the McCain campaign. On the other hand, she's already had a great effect given the donations, enthusiasm from the base, the obvious and more than partially cynical female angle and her social and libertarian cred.
The timing also cut Obama's convention off at the knees. In one move, his speech and the whole convention are old news.
In that case, it may have been better if his speech reached out to more than just his base. Obama speech bounce: nil
Meanwhile Ed Morrissey (who I've gone back to three times today) has some comments on "The Man Trap"
This trap has two doors, as Powers notes, and the Obama campaign and its supporters fell through both of them. First, it didn’t take long to speak dismissively of Palin as a “beauty queen” and a “small-town” hick, even though she governs the state of Alaska and has a favorability rating in the 80s. No one actually came out and called her “Sweetie”, but to women who resented the Obama campaign’s real and imagined sexist slights against Hillary Clinton, it was deja vu all over again.
The bigger trap, though, was the knee-jerk attack on Palin’s experience. Calling her a “small-town mayor” only underscored Obama’s own woeful lack of experience. Two years as Governor trumps a year as Senator before running for the presidency, and having been an executive in Wasila trumps having been a “community organizer” in Chicago’s South Side. Further, Palin has a record of attacking her own party’s machine to effect real reform in Alaska, where Obama never lifted a finger to support reform of the Chicago political machine while in Illinois, and had one of its fixers, Tony Rezko, raising money for him most of his career.
The most you can say is that "McCain was wrong to highlight experience given his own pick for VP." But most of the Obamabots are saying "Palin doesn't have enough experience."
Knee-jerk is right. The Obama camp's initial response to Palin was not thought through. In their quest to not be "Swiftboated" they lash out quickly and without thinking. This makes them predictable, and as we saw, one can use that to set traps.
Ed asks:
Did McCain set Obama up to fall into this trap? If so, then perhaps that more than anything demonstrates how poor a candidate Obama is and how much more masterful McCain can be. Would you rather have the man who set the trap dealing with our enemies abroad, or the man who fell into it?
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