VP debate post-mortem 3

The transcript of the debate is available at The New York Times and I thought I’d offer a few thoughts about her use of catch phrases.

From Gov. Sarah Palin’s first response, talking about the bailout plan and John McCains (uhem) role in it:

I think that the alarm has been heard, though, and there will be that greater oversight, again thanks to John McCain’s bipartisan efforts that he was so instrumental in bringing folks together over this past week, even suspending his own campaign to make sure he was putting excessive politics aside and putting the country first.

Now, consider: The ticket apparently is still prepared to foist the kanard of McCain’s selfless decision to abandon his campaign and broker a bailout deal, a deal that failed to materialize and that most of those involved say he had no role in.

That said, this response offers a glimpse into the basic themes she will be pushing throughout the night, through the use of campaign catch phrases — “John McCain’s bipartisan efforts” and “putting the country first.”

She then launched the “maverick” meme — “maverick, maverick, maverick” — which left me thinking of the Biden joke about Giuliani (noun, verb, 9/11), only in this case it was the noun, verb, maverick, noun, verb, bipartisan, noun, verb, country first.

I wasn’t impressed, but I wasn’t the target audience. We’ll have to wait a few days to see what the polls say.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet