Palin: Do NOT mess with the Barracuda!

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Again, I don't normally do politics on my blog. But after Sarah Palin's fantastic speech last night, I want to put out a few words. Mostly in response to this bit of silliness: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/biden-on-palin-whoa/

Most notably, to this paragraph: “It was a very skillfully written, very skillfully delivered speech. But there was not a word about the middle class or health care or how people are going to fill up their gas tanks or a single word about how we’re going to get our kids through college.”

News flash, Senator Biden! Palin was talking TO us, not about us. She didn’t need to use the phrase “middle class” because she’s one of us, she knows us, and she was talking to us, not to some insulated group of Ivy League journalism majors who haven’t worked with their hands in decades, if ever.

Now perhaps you feel the need to talk about the “middle class,” Senator, because you think we might not understand you if you didn’t use that phrase. Maybe you thought we needed you to be our protector in the big bad mean world. Guess what, Senator. We. Don’t. Need. You.

We are middle America. We are Small Town, U.S.A. We’re not interested in Beltway deal-making, speechifying, or interest groups. We don’t want a political savior—we want someone who will ensure that the government stays out of our way and does the job we elected it to do.


If you haven’t yet watched Palin’s speech, go watch it. Word is that the teleprompter was kept running through the applause, and by the middle of the speech was no longer cued up properly. You’d never know it by watching her. She knows what she’s doing.

One of the main critics I’ve heard by pundits on both sides is that she took too many low blows to the Obama campaign. I respectfully disagree. I think “Middle America” is tired of being talked down to, disregarded, and described as bitter gun-clingers. Palin hit back, with a smile, and gave the snobs a taste of their own medicine. That said, she should probably pull a few more punches from now on. But at least now they know she can hit!

And while she made the audience (and me!) clap, cheer, and laugh, she also made us cry—I know I teared up while she talked about John McCain’s service (great line: “There’s only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you.”)

Oh and just so it’s clear—her family is ADORABLE. A husband who seems genuinely happy for her, kids who look bright, clean, and happy (no traces of typical teenage jadedness!). And if you didn’t at least smile when little Piper Palin licked her hand on national tv to slick down her baby brother’s hair, you have no soul.

As Jonah Goldberg has said, "Sarah Palin was put on this earth for two reasons: to kill caribou and kick butt. She's all out of caribou."