Palin "Shuffles the Cards" of the U.S. Campaign

You do not have to agree with what Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for the American vice-presidency, says in order to admit that she is the great sensation of the Republican convention. At the moment in which this text was going to print, John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate had yet to speak- and I dare say that his pronouncement was set to have far less of a repercussion than the words uttered by his ballot partner the day before.

The elephant in the room since last Friday is whether Sarah will add votes for the GOP or if she is only getting in the way of a successful Republican campaign, which, at least at the moment, appears to be much less organised and far more aggressive that that of the Democrats. My personal opinion is that she does indeed add to the ticket, and quite a lot at that, due simply to the fact that she has shuffled the cards in a manner which I believe to be irreversible.

Obama’s message is one of change as far as the political habits of a country tired of “Washington” are concerned. (In Brasil we just call this “good old politics.”) Palin has acused Obama of partaking in the club he criticizes. Is the Democrats’ message their proximity to the middle classes, those who have been the most affected by the current crisis? Palin claims that she still lives as a middle class family woman, while Obama, on the other hand….

Palin made a great joke in her speech, explaining that the difference between a “hockey mom” (one who spends a lot of time shuttling her children to sports classes) and a pitbull, “is the lipstick.” The comparison here is incredibly dangerous, and a good part of the liberal press (in the American sense of the word) and democratic activists have already picked up on this.

Attack a woman like Palin, and the result is to turn her into a victim of machismo, sexism, prejudice, etc. Turn your back on her, and you will emerge with a beautiful bite on your behind. Obama’s is undoubtedly smarting: Palin attacked him in a way that not even Hillary Clinton had the audacity to do. Not even his wife Michelle was omitted from the fray.

When I speak of Palin having shuffled the deck, I am also referring to the fact that she has brought to the forefront of the next nine weeks the very topics which have been the most debated between the contenders up till now. Specifically, a) who is the most experienced at running the country; b) who brings true change to political habits; c) who knows best what goes on in the average American’s life; and d) who can fix the economy.

The McCain-Palin ticket has reinvented itself as corageous and competent, not for broaching specific topics but, on the contrary, for risking to speak without mind to the poilitcal consequences. Palin attacked a large part of the so called “big” American press, accusing it of bias in favour of someone who, like her, was not known at the cocktail parties frequented by the well-informed politicians and journalists of Washington.

But irony, sarcasm and good humour are integral components of well organised political speeches aimed at a public chosen for a home game (the case of the Republican convention). It is difficult to calculate how much Palin can take at the same rythym over the next nine weeks, especially when she has ceased being any sort of news. The election has not yet been lost by the Democrats, but Obama and Biden are still far from having guaranteed a victory.