Noonan: Biden No Match for Palin

Friday, October 3, 2008 11:51 AM

By: Jim Meyers 

Sarah Palin “saved John McCain again” with her performance at Thursday night’s debate with her vice presidential rival Joe Biden, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan declares.

“She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles,” Noonan writes on Friday.

“Zap! We’ve got a beat! She will re-electrify the base.”

Noonan states in her column, which carries the subhead “Joe Biden was no match for ‘Joe Six-Pack,’” that Palin “killed. She had him at ‘Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?’ She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man.”

Palin’s style was “classic ‘talk over the heads of the media straight to the people,’ and it is a long time since I’ve seen it done so well,” Noonan opines.

“Joe Biden seems to have walked in thinking that she was an idiot and that he only had to patiently wait for this fact to reveal itself. This was a miscalculation.”

The heart of Palin’s message, according to Noonan, was that “Joe Six-Pack” and “soccer moms” should unite “to fight the tormentors who forced mortgages on us. She spoke of ‘Main Streeters like me.’ A question is at what point shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.”

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And here, for your reading pleasure, is the Peggy Noonan column from the WSJ

Palin and Populism

The downside of appealing to Joe Six-Pack.

By PEGGY NOONAN

She killed. She had him at "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?" She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy.

The whole debate was about Sarah Palin. She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

As far as Mrs. Palin was concerned, Gwen Ifill was not there, and Joe Biden was not there. Sarah and the camera were there. This was classic "talk over the heads of the media straight to the people," and it is a long time since I've seen it done so well, though so transparently. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial.

Joe Biden seems to have walked in thinking that she was an idiot and that he only had to patiently wait for this fact to reveal itself. This was a miscalculation. He showed great forbearance. Too much forbearance. She said of his intentions on Iraq, "Your plan is a white flag of surrender." This deserved an indignant response, or at least a small bop on the head, from Mr. Biden, who has been for five years righter on Iraq than the Republican administration. He was instead mild.

The heart of her message was a complete populist pitch. "Joe Six-Pack" and "soccer moms" should unite to fight the tormentors who forced mortgages on us. She spoke of "Main Streeters like me." A question is at what point shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.

Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We've got a beat! She will re-electrify the base. More than that, an hour and a half of talking to America will take her to a new level of stardom. Watch her crowds this weekend. She's about to get jumpers, the old political name for people who are so excited to see you they start to jump.

Her triumph comes at an interesting time. The failure of the first bailout bill was an epic repudiation of the Washington leadership class by the American people. Two weeks ago the president of the United States, the speaker of the House, the secretary of the Treasury and the leadership of both parties in Congress came forward and announced that the economy was in crisis and a federal bill to solve it urgently needed. The powers were in agreement, the stars aligned, it was going to happen.

And then the phones began to ring, from one end of Capitol Hill to the other. And the message in those calls was, essentially: We don't trust you to fix the problem, we suspect you may have caused it. Go away.

It was an epic snub, aimed at both parties. And the bill tanked.

We have simply, as a nation, never had a moment like this, in which the American people voted such a stunning no-confidence in America's leaders in a time of real and present danger. The fate of the second bill is unclear as I write, but the fact that it has morphed from three pages to roughly 450, and is festooned with favors, will do nothing to allay public suspicions about the trustworthiness of Congress. This, as a background, could not have helped Mr. Biden.

We have never seen an economic meltdown like this? We've never seen a presidential meltdown like this. George W. Bush's weakness is not all lame-duckship. In the last year of his presidency Ronald Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow and helped change the world. In the penultimate year of his presidency, Bill Clinton sent U.S. troops, successfully, into Kosovo.

After the first bailout failed, Mr. Bush spoke like a man who was a mere commentator, not the leader in a crisis.

We witness here a great political lesson. When you are president, it matters—it really matters—that a majority of the people support and respect you. When you squander that affection, you lose more than mere popularity. You lose the ability to lead when your country is in crisis. This is a terrible loss, and a dangerous one, for the whole world is watching.

Young aides to Reagan used to grouse, late in his second term, that he had high popularity levels, that popularity was capital, and that he should spend it more freely on potential breakthroughs of this kind or that. But Reagan and the men around him were wiser. They spent when they had to and were otherwise prudent. (Is there a larger lesson here?) They were not daring when they didn't have to be. They knew presidential popularity is a jewel to be protected, and to be burnished when possible, because without it you can do nothing. Without the support and trust of the people you cannot move, cannot command. You are left, like Mr. Bush, talking to an empty room.

We saw this week, too, a turn in the McCain campaign's response to criticisms of Mrs. Palin. I find obnoxious the political game in which if you expressed doubts about the vice presidential nominee, or criticized her, you were treated as if you were knocking the real America—small towns, sound values. "It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents "backwoods types," or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I'm not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it's possible they are—but this is subtly divisive. As for the dismissal of conservative critics of Mrs. Palin as "Georgetown cocktail party types" (that was Mr. McCain), well, my goodness. That is the authentic sound of the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House. Good move. That ended well.

We must take happiness where we can. Tina Fey's Sarah Palin has become, in that old phrase, a national sensation, and Ms. Fey is becoming, with her show "30 Rock," and now the Palin impression, one of the great comic figures of her generation. Her work with Amy Poehler (as Katie Couric) in last weekend's spoof on "Saturday Night Live" was so astoundingly good—the hand gestures, the vocal tone and spirit—that it captured some of the actual heart of the Palin story. Ms. Poehler as Couric: "Mrs. Palin, are you aware that when cornered you become increasingly adorable?" Ms. Fey as Palin mugs, adorably.

To spoof someone well takes talent, but to utterly nail a political figure while not brutalizing him takes a real gift, and amounts almost to a public service. After all, to capture someone is a kind of tribute: it concedes he is real, vivid, worthy of note. We are not as a nation manufacturing trust all that well, or competence, or leadership. But some things we do well, and one is comedy. Ms. Fey plays characters who are sour, stressed and who, on "30 Rock," live in a world that is cynical, provisional and shallow. But to observe life so closely takes a kind of love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The appeal of Sarah Palin is that she makes us think that she's one of us. No, that's not right. We know she's one of us. She's not Washington Elite. She makes us think of her as a sister, aunt, cousin, best friend.

She's a 40-something, hockey mom, businesswoman, mother of five. She just saw her oldest son off to war. Her family isn't perfect; her youngest son has Down's Syndrome and her oldest daughter is 17, unmarried, and pregnant. She isn't ashamed to show her love for her husband. She went to several colleges before she finally graduated (I can relate to that!). She's a pilot. She's a lifetime member of the NRA, hunts, and can field dress a moose. With her husband she's run a fishing business.

Did I mention that she has a job outside the home? As the Governor of Alaska?

I don't know whether she has studied psychology or not, but she's a master at it. She took control of the debate from the start and probably sent Joe into a mental tailspin when she said "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?" Classic move. Asking if she could call him "Joe" put them on a level playing field where they weren't political rivals, but friends. Biden couldn't beat her down as he probably planned without looking like a complete ass, not to mention probably feeling like one. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting that move and it sent him into a tailspin.

She's confident, upbeat, positive, and happy. What a change from the negativity of the Democratic Party! That is probably the number one reason I left the Democratic Party years ago. Nothing the Republicans did was right, especially if they were in power. I'm sorry, but no one is always wrong. The Democrats would have you believe that they are the saviors of the United States because they are smarter than anyone else and know what is best for the country. I'm sure the Republicans think the same, but I have never felt as if I was looked down on as I do from the Limousine Liberals. I feel like the current Democratic leadership looks down on the “Jane and Joe Sixpacks” of America, almost like we are children who must be taken care of.

In the debate she referred to "Main Streeters like me." And we believe it. She's one of us. She sees problems that need to be fixed, and like a mother, wants to fix them. Mothers are like that. Even women who aren’t mothers are like that. They see a need and they figure out how to fill that need or fix the problem. That’s just the way we as women are wired. Sarah doesn’t speak down to us; she speaks to us as if we are equals. She talks as if she knows what we are thinking and feeling. She talks as if she believes that if she could talk to each of us we could come to an understanding on the issues that are important to us – Jane and Joe Sixpack, Americans.

As I said, she’s a master of psychology. She knows that people like people who are like them. And she is like us. She’s one of us and feels our pain and our joy. She understands the fears of mothers sending their children off to war. As a former businesswoman, she understands how the economy impacts the small business. As a taxpayer, she understands our frustration at seeing Washington mishandle the revenue that is taken from our paychecks. We understand the need to pay for the infrastructure; we just want to see that the money is spent appropriately. Sarah gets it. She understands it because she has been on both ends as a taxpayer and as a governor.

The differences between Sarah and I are many. I don’t have children. I have never run a business. I don’t have a college degree. And I have never run for office. The differences are unimportant. I believe in her. I believe she’s open and honest and what you see is what you get. She’s confident, poised, and likable. She’s attractive and intelligent and not afraid to show it.

Will I vote for her? If you have to ask, you haven’t read this post or any other about her. I'm about to be one of the "jumpers" Ms. Noonan wrote about. I not only would vote for her, I already have. Because of my job, voting on Election Day will be problematic, so I requested an absentee ballot. I already filled it in and mailed it to the Supervisor of Elections.

Because she is like me, I like and trust her. And every time I hear her speak, I like and trust her more.