Hook, Line & Sinker
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 pm
If anyone had any hesitation — and some members of the Texas delegation seemed to have some concerns — about Sarah Palin’s suitability to be vice president, that doubt was more than swept away by the fiery rhetoric and firm confidence of the Alaska governor during her speech tonight at the RNC. The lady came out swinging, and the Texans were thrilled.
In the immediate aftermath, delegates on the floor went wild. They hugged. They used words like “ecstatic,” “pumped” and “out of sight.” “I can’t contain my excitement,” one delegate said.
“I teach communication, and she was the essence of it,” said an Arizona alternate delegate, a communications instructor who described himself as an old friend of Sen. John McCain.
And that pit bull lipstick joke? Major mileage for Palin, a Tina Fey lookalike.
The only lingering doubts seemed to come from the Texas delegation’s outliers: the dozen or so supporters of Libertarian-leaning Congressman Ron Paul, the presidential candidate who was refused a place at the convention podium.
But even some Paul supporters were wooed by Palin. One alternate delegate from Mineral Wells, an Iraq war veteran, said he thought Palin would be an even better candidate for president than McCain. (Attending his first national convention, he kept running out to see if any votes had been cast for Paul during the official delegate roll call at the end of the evening’s events.)
If the Democrats had any illusions that they were dealing with a light-weight, Palin certainly smashed those tonight. No wonder the grass-roots loved it.
