Palin Connects & Inspires

An op-ed was written by Rex Murphy in Canada's Globe and Mail last Friday called "Obama inspires; Palin connects." If by, people believing he'll magically pay their rent and utility bills you mean "inspire" then yes, I guess you could say Obama inspires.

I still don't understand what people found so convincing in Obama's campaign speeches. I listened hard but found that he never said anything... or anything I believed, rather. Anyone that spends that much time listing types of people in their rhetoric and all the things he can help those people with, is nothing more than a glamorized used car salesman. He never explained to those people how he was going to give them all of that help and those people never did their math. Nothing he ever said made any rational sense to me. The man is one helluva a teleprompter reader though.

Murphy wasn't talking about the shyster I see when Barack talks but I'll give him some slack given the other part of his piece. he states:

The other great speech of the U.S. campaign season was Sarah Palin's on receiving the vice-presidential slot on the McCain ticket. This was a speech delivered under even greater pressures than that of Mr. Obama. John McCain's choice of Ms. Palin had been early and widely criticized, and in some quarters ferociously reviled. She had never really been under the national spotlight before. The entire media were focused on her with an intensity almost unseen in the annals of vice-presidential politics. If she'd been just “okay,” or messed up, John McCain's campaign was over. It was the highest of high-stakes gambles.

Did she deliver? She soared. She was the very acme of self-confidence and ease. She mixed a natural charm with a mischievous edge of sarcasm toward her opponents – even daring the unthinkable by pinging The One himself. It was her “first serve” on the national stage and she delivered an ace. The backwoods hick knocked it out of the hall that night – not only did she not sink the McCain campaign, she gave it the only real vitality and spark that gloomy, tight, fussy little campaign had from start to finish.

Her speech, in fact, was the rhetorical equivalent of Mr. Obama's crucial one. They do not as speakers, it is obvious, share the same idiom. Mr. Obama is utterly composed, deliberate down to gesture and word, very conscious that he is a “figure” on a stage. Mr. Obama “bestows” himself on an audience. Ms. Palin has none of that. She will never speak in front of faux Greek columns. She walks on the stage much the same way she'd go into a gas station. But she's shrewd in her choice of themes, has a marvellous feel for her audience, and a confidence that will never be confused with arrogance.

Sarah Palin knocked that speech out of the park and ignited, for the first time in a long time, a conservative firestorm. Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians, and everyone in my house was positively giddy after she delivered those words.

The media however lost it's collective mind and Brian Williams even went so far as to read Joe Kline's blog post that amounted to a declaration of war upon Palin. A declaration that I believe is still in effect over a year later.

Murphy continues:

...Ms. Palin has a more forceful bond with her supporters than he with his. Mr. Obama offers a kind of self-flattery to his worshippers. They feel exalted that they have the intelligence or sensibility to see how remarkable their man is. But he remains remote. Ms. Palin works close up. She offers those much invoked, but actually neglected figures, “the ordinary Joe or Josephine,” a real sense that she does represent them.

That is one of the biggest threats to Obama's second term. Sarah Palin is actually what Barack Obama pretended to be. What David Axelrod and the others that were pulling the strings of that campaign wanted the public to believe.

Barack Obama isn't "one of the folks" as Bill O'Reilly would say. He grew up wealthy and has had everything handed to him on a platter ever since. Sarah Palin is "one of the folks" and always has been. We the "folks" know one of our own when we see them.. She is us.

That may account for part of her connection to her supporters. There is also the fact that Sarah Palin is courageous and is providing a voice for the people who felt theirs have been ignored for too long. Congress continues to make stupid decisions and Sarah continues to shoot Facebook missiles right into enemy territory. An instant rebuke to the actions of the power drunk political class.

Sarah Palin may have great people skills and a knack for communications. But at the end of the day, her connection with her supporters goes way deeper than any circular logo or single word slogan. Her connection is about who we are as lovers of liberty and taking our country rightfully back from those who abuse it and place us all in danger with their teleprompter speeches.