Oral Exam, Part II

Two fleeting thoughts on staging.  The slide show behind the speaker is distracting and annoying.   After a while, I began to think it was commenting on the proceedings or even mocking the speaker.    Then there was the crowd. My kids, whose main convention exposure was watching last week's Mile High Stadium event, were startled to see Texas delegates in matching suits and cowboy hats, row upon row of white hair under cowboy hats.  My ten year old, scandalized, looked at the screen and said, "Dad, they're all white." It looked like a colorized C-SPAN retrospective, with Olbermann and Mathews substituting for Huntley and Brinkley.  Just before Palin spoke, men were moved away from the stage, and women pushed in front to cheer.  The networks dutifully then showed mostly women's faces rapturously looking at Palin.  I think the ritual cries of media bias over the past week had their desired effect, as my friend  Brooklyn College professor Eric Alterman puts it, of working the refs.

Previewing Palin's Speech
Posted 2:35 p.m. ET, Sept. 3

MICHAEL GERSON
The quality and appeal of a candidate on a national ticket is ultimately determined by his or her strengths and performance, not the behavior of their teenaged children.  (The natural human response to a mother in Governor Sarah Palin's circumstance is compassion and sympathy, not the cruel derision of the blogs.)  But she remains a relatively unknown quantity, so her debut will be closely watched.

Palin was chosen, not for her gender (though it is historic) or for her conservatism (though conservatives are generally pleased) but because she has been a reformer, who took on the ethically-challenged Republican establishment of Alaska.  And this is precisely what Palin needs to talk about on Wednesday night: an agenda of Republican reform. Her attacks on Obama should be light and humorous—an eye-twinkling likability seems to be one of great advantages as a candidate.  And her praise for McCain should be not only fulsome, but challenging to Republican orthodoxy on issues from climate to campaign finance reform.  Palin can't talk like a typical Republican—or praise McCain as one.

MICHAEL WALDMAN
Tonight we hear from the GOP vice presidential nominee—still Gov. Sarah Palin.  Based on her brief remarks in recent days, she is an appealing person, with a spunky vibe.  (As noted, she seems like a "real person" from a candidate's anecdote.)  Beyond that, we have little clue about her views, record or rhetoric, foreign or domestic.  She need only vault over a very low bar—she must do better than Dan Quayle did.  (History tell us Thomas Eagleton never gave an acceptance speech.) She could easily overcome controversy by reveling in her normalcy, as Nixon did with the "Checkers" speech.

Palin's prime appeal is her appeal to the conservative GOP base, so we can expect to hear red state red meat (moose?), as well as "dog whistle" references audible only to fellow Evangelicals. She will also dust off McCain's reformer credentials, taking advantage of an issue left largely unmentioned in Denver.  Tip to Gov. Palin: avoid bridge metaphors.