JUSIPER
Friday, September 05, 2008
Gail Collins on the convention
Entertaining and smart:
It’s been one big reunion in Minnesota for the old gang — Rudy and Mitt and Fred and Mike. Together again, for the first time since those primary debates. Reliving the golden days in which they managed to convince Republican voters that no matter what John McCain’s defects, he could not possibly be as bad a candidate as they were.
Did you see Fred Thompson? We had forgotten the electricity that is Fred until his speech on Tuesday, when he railed at the Democrats for overplaying Americans’ economic woes. (“Listening to them, you’d think we were in the middle of the Great Depression.”) It was that same instinctive connection to the common man that had caused him to refer to the problems of unemployed Detroit factory workers as something that “you always find in a vibrant, dynamic economy.”
Reform Day was, of course, tailor-made for Palin, who is all about reform. Particularly, reforming the Republican party. Normally, in a democracy, the way you reform a party is by tossing it out of power until it learns its lesson and gets its act together. But the McCain-Palin plan is to reform Republicanism by keeping Republicans in control of the White House and most of the powerful posts in the federal government. That’ll show them.
Also fiscal reform. How many times have you heard McCain promise to slash taxes and pay for it by eliminating unnecessary programs? And who better to help carry out that agenda than the governor of a state whose residents pay less taxes than anyplace else in the union due to their genius in making the federal government pay the tab for virtually everything?
“Taxpayers have an advocate in Sarah Palin!” said Giuliani in his keynote speech. Rudy had been extremely busy all day. In a stroke of genius, someone picked him to run around to the TV shows before Palin’s address to defend McCain for picking her after having met her only once. When he was mayor, Giuliani hired people who had been in his inner circle since about the third grade. And most of them were terrible! So you see, there are lots of ways to screw up a big hire besides not thinking about it until the last minute.
For all her great skills at presentation, many people, including some Republicans who think the microphone is off, believe that Sarah Palin is a terrible choice for running mate. But you have to remember who the other options were.
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