Former Governor Sarah Palin is best appreciated in person. Even though I headed a small cadre of folks (hundreds of phone calls, thousands of emails, dangling sponsorships) for more than a year to bring Sarah Palin to Portland for a Tea Party, reception etc, I must admit that for just a minute or two I wanted to give in to the part of me who didn’t want to spend four hours in the car Friday going to and from Eugene for the rubber chicken, rah rah dinner/reception I thought this would end up being. I figured that I’d seen Palin’s high lights already and wouldn’t be missing anything.
I was wrong. I’m glad I went and I sure hope she comes back.
First, Dennis Morgan and the Lane County Republicans showed they could set up a first rate event at the Hilton Hotel next to the Hult Center. A precious few of Eugene’s finest showed up on their bikes, but the rent a cops were in abundance. An anemic band of mostly professional protesters lined the streets and got plenty TV time with their street theater and signs reading, among other things, “Palin=Sedition,” “Hate Free Zone” (with signs around it reading hateful things they thought about Palin–see orbusmax), and the usual anti-fur-corpations-america-republican-success-prosperity protester dressed up in a boa carrying their typical sign reading, “billionaires for Sarah” or some such thing (I think she’s the chick I’ve seen in Portland). The usual. Later we found out from Palin that daughter Bristol talked to several of the protesters and, among other things, thanked them for their lovely reception in Eugene. Classy. She took pictures on her camera phone, Palin informed us.
The head of the Oregon republican party, Bob Tiernan, gave a terrific introduction of Palin invoking the words of Teddy Roosevelt about the ‘man in the arena (here),’ which captured the essence of Palin’s continual pursuit on her message (stand up for what’s right and take our country back) amid the distractions and slings and arrows from the left. It was good stuff.
Rubber chicken was NEVER served. Asparagus and pancetta salad, salmon, porcini mushrooms, sliced beef with wine reduction over polenta, a Panther Creek Pinot Noir and an amazing 2007 Cabernet Savignon Reserve from Silvan Ridge were served. A chocolate cup filled with fresh berries was dessert. First class.
Then Palin came on. She came equipped with her smart phone and read off some of the facts she’d learned about Eugene such as it being the ‘granola capital’ and ‘running capital.’ She said she fit in nicely with the organic food and running crowd. For one, she said, she’s a runner, she loves granola and the only difference between her and the organic food bunch in Eugene is that she shoots hers.
Her delivery was friendly and affable. It’s everything the left hates about her (‘if only we could get her cranky we’d win!’).
I didn’t take notes through the whole speech but there were a few things I jotted down. She said she felt sorry for the Tea Party members who are surprised by the left’s hatred toward them. She’s grown a thick skin and can dispense with the left’s vitriol at the end of the day, but she felt that some Tea Party members might not be used to this treatment. She mentioned she was sick of the media’s lies about Tea Party members. The soul of the movement, she said, was the goodness of the people and the truth of its message. Palin even quoted Eugene’s first son, Steve Prefontaine, about gutting out a win in November (“A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more”.) She urged the hooting Tea Party folks in the audience to keep at it. She called the movement a Great Awakening whose first test will be in November but admonished the movement not to become a third party.
Palin told the hundreds gathered of what her father told her to do when she was down, “Don’t retreat, just reload.” She hastened to add for the benefit of the hatas in the audience that she wasn’t urging people to take up arms, although she loves her second amendment rights, but that, rather, it was a figurative reference.
Palin told the crowd that Washington doesn’t “give a hoot” about the bottom line of America’s finances. She declared Washington is addicted to OPIUM. And then explained it: OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.
She linked freedom with prosperity, prosperity with liberty.
She showed us what she’d written on her “poor man’s version of a telepromptr”–her hand. The word “muttonhead,” was scribbled on it. The word had been used in a joke by one of the previous speakers and she wanted to remember it. Once again Palin has used a jab from her critics (here) to jab right back and turn it to her advantage. It’s why people love her.
With the exception of her acceptance speech at the 2008 GOP convention, Palin’s speech delivery has always bothered me a little. The media dislike her because of who she is but I think it might also have something to do with how difficult it is to get a clean, cogent soundbite out of her. Though scripted, she speaks in an almost stream of consciousness way. She barrels through applause lines. I tried to start applause at those places (and sometimes succeeded) but for the most part she just kept on talking. And that’s because Palin is in a hurry to get out what she wants to say. She’s got an even greater point to get to and doesn’t want to camp out at an applause line. While I think this is a problem, she doesn’t. This is how she WANTS to convey her message.
I believe if I’d seen the script of her speech side by side any other Republican stump speech, hers would sparkle just as much, have as much meaty content (I didn’t even get to the part where she spoke effortlessly about energy) and possess the oratorical schemes often seen good speeches.
Palin is denigrated because she’s a good looking woman of faith who stands firm in her convictions and doesn’t let anyone or anything get in her way to preach it.
Good. For. Her.
I was glad to see it in person last night.
Oh, and I got to meet her, hug her, shake hands with her AND Todd.
Gold.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com