My Girl Comes Thru!

I have to admit I watched this debate with enormous trepidation. Actually, I "watched" very little - I mostly paced back and forth between rooms, listening for the most part but not always watching. It reminded me of a Yankees-Boston game this summer when the Yanks had a 2-run lead in the ninth and they brought in Mariano, of course. Before you could say "Enter Sandman", the lead was down to 1 and the bases were loaded with no one out. I could barely watch - I had to peek in every now and then but couldn't just sit and watch it. As it turned out, Mariano came through - he got the last 3 outs without a run-scoring. And that's what Palin pulled off tonite - she was facing bases loaded with none out, and she got out of the inning. It was a really clutch performance, though she basically extracted herself from a problem of her own making. And of course the Yanks as it turned out eventually lost to Boston in the wildcard race.

But her performance will surely stanch the bleeding, put her back on a solid footing, and enable her to get out there and save votes, particularly in places like North Carolina, where Obama has pulled ahead. Just a couple well-timed hunting trips thru the hill country should pull that one back. There was very little 'conservative' in what she said, except for one bright moment when she talked about "personal responsibility" in the financial crisis. It boggles my mind why the McCain camp doesn't play this up more - make their campaign the one that represents the vast majority of Americans who are responsible with their money, who don't get mortgages they can't afford and save rather than spend. Even if only a minority of Americans actually behave this way, surely a majority think they do. But otherwise there seems very little in either Sarah Palin or of course McCain that appeals to conservatives on substance.

What's important, from a conservative's viewpoint, is that the election be as close as possible. Obama is going to win - with the financial crisis and two aimless wars, there's no way a well-run campaign like Obama's can't win. But the last thing we need is for Obama to go into office with a lost of confidence, particularly thinking he's got middle-class voters in his back pocket and thinking he can with impunity wage a race/class war. True, barely winning the election didn't keep George Bush very humble, but Obama is much more cautious than Bush and unlikely to take decisive actions that will alienate large numbers of voters.