Some additional thoughts on last night’s RNC speeches:
They plan to play the elitism card to what can only be described as its illogical conclusion. First, there was Mike Huckabee with his cracks about “the elite media” and “Barack Obama’s excellent adventure to Europe,” which he said
took his campaign for change to hundreds of thousands of people who don’t even vote or pay taxes here. But let me hasten to say that it’s not what he took there that concerns me. It’s what he brought back: European ideas that give the government the chance to grab even more of our liberty and destroy our hard-earned livelihood.
European ideas? What is he talking about?
Mitt Romney followed with his own attack on a Washington that he said was beholden to the liberal elite.
You know, for decades now, the Washington sun has been rising in the east. You see, Washington has been looking to the eastern elites, to the editorial pages of the Times and the Post, and to the broadcasters from the — from the coast. Yes.
His big target, however, were the liberals running the federal government. You know, the liberal president who has run the executive branch for the last eight years and the liberal Supreme Court that has been chipping away at civil rights protections.
OK. Maybe there is now a liberal Congress, but it has been in charge for just under two years and with the barest of majorities — not enough to override vetoes leaving that liberal George Bush with the ability to stymie its ability to do much of anything. From 1995 to 2207, however, liberals like Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay were in charge, so I can see where Romney might want to take them on.
(This whole anti-Washington thing — which both sides have made into general themes of their campaign — is getting tiresome. It is not Washington that is the problem, but a culture of corruption that has come to define Washington. The corruption — both legal and illegal — needs to be rooted out, so that government — Washington — can operate more effectively. Targeting a more generic Washington plays into the drown-the-puppy crowd (you know, Grover Norquist’s famous line about shrinking government until it is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub) and makes it that much more difficult for reformers who think that government has a real role to play in the lives of Americans to effect the kind of change that is needed. But I digress.)
Rudy Giuliani took the anti-elite theme a step farther, attacking Obama’s work as a community organizer (a job that put him in contact with people in poor neighborhoods, helping them to improve their lives):
The American people realize this election represents a turning point. It’s the decision to follow one path or the other. We, the people, the citizens of the United States, get to decide our next president, not the left-wing media, not Hollywood celebrities, not anyone else but the people of America.
Obama, he says, is a “celebrity senator” who denigrates small towns:
I’m sorry — I’m sorry that Barack Obama feels that her hometown isn’t cosmopolitan enough. I’m sorry, Barack, that it’s not flashy enough. Maybe they cling to religion there.
Of course, I don’t remember him ever saying that. but Giuliani has never been one to concern himself with the truth.
Palin closed things out with a rather harsh attack speech — unusual given that it was the first impression most people will have of her. That said, she hit on many of the same anti-elite themes raised by Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani (does anyone else find it humorous that the former mayor of New York City and a former Massachusetts governor — and scion of a famous political family — are decrying Eastern elites?), tagging the press for writing off McCain (a well-deserved rebuke, by the way), but then ratcheting up the criticism. Consider these excerpts:
On Obama as community organizer:
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.
On small towns and “bitterness”:
I might add that, in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they’re listening and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.
No, we tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
She bemoaned the “permanent political establishment,” adding that she has
learned quickly these last few days that, if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
And Obama, of course, because of his eloquence, is just another part of the establishment. One thing Palin is good at, based on the speech, is damning with faint praise and then turning the praise into derision:
And now, I’ve noticed a pattern with our opponent, and maybe you have, too. We’ve all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers, and there is much to like and admire about our opponent.
But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the State Senate.
This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting and never use the word “victory,” except when he’s talking about his own campaign.
But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed, when the roar of the crowd fades away, when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot, when that happens, what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet?
What exactly do these speakers offer, however, except for more of the same? More tax cuts to bankrupt the federal budget, more war and bellicosity and more faux concern for the economic plight of working Americans.
That said, the contours of the campaign are set: Run against the media and the so-called elites, paint Obama as an elitist, and call for more oil drilling.
Hank Kalet 