How do you feel about Sarah Palin...

[Bikewer]

I just read an editorial in the local paper comparing Palin and Obama. Essentially, the author said that in difficult times, the American voter likes to hear simple, reassuring statements. As in....Palin.
Obama's attempts to explain and inform are actually (in the author's opinion) a turn-off to many voters.
He expressed considerable dismay at the situation....As do I.

 

[Snide]

You got that backwards. The media and the GOP did not go out and find her.

Remember, she's the one who managed to get the GOP interested in her mayoral race. That was her doing.

No one in the news industry was sitting around saying, "Damn, it's a boring news day... what can we drum up... hey, Sam, why don't we go look around for interesting characters up in Alaska?"

When she got on the McCain ticket, the vast majority of Americans were asking "Sara who?"

But she had already brought plenty of attention to herself within GOP circles because she knows how to work hot-button issues, regardless of their relevance (or lack thereof) to the actual office she holds. They chose her because of what she can do with their target audience, not because they thought she was easy to handle.

She totally bombed her VP interviews with the TV press. Nevertheless, she managed to parlay that into even greater devotion among the people who really matter to her.

She's making a ton of cash off her book. She's got a slot on Fox.

That didn't just happen by accident, and it didn't happen because someone else wanted to give her a break. It happened because she worked hard to make it happen.

There's nothing magical about Sarah Palin that makes the Republican Party or the news media pick her out as someone they can use for their purposes. It doesn't work that way. There are such cases, of course, but they're the William Hungs of the world. And Sarah's not that.

Look at where she comes from, and look at where she is. You don't get from there to here just because someone thinks you have a nice face.

The thing about Palin is that she knows who her audience is, and she doesn't care about the rest. She's extremely savvy about the language she uses -- yeah, I'm serious... we look at it and think "what a bunch of disjointed catch phrases", and yes, that's true, but it's a string of catch phrases that do exactly what she wants them to do.

It works, and it works brilliantly.

To her followers -- the people who donate to her, vote for her, and buy her books -- she's not a joke.

She works her crowds like faith healers work theirs, and it's not something that just anyone can do.

Sometimes people find their niche through nothing more than dumb luck. I'll give her that she's smart enough to milk it for all it's worth, because she doesn't have much else as far as marketable skills go. I wouldn't call that "extremely savvy about the media," however.

I'm reminded of Howard Hessman's character in the old Bob Newhart show, who wrote and directed a play called "All Noisy on the Eastern Front." He meant it to be serious; as such, it was terrible, and he was hurt when the audience roared with laughter. But he soon accepted the praise and went along with the comedy/satire theme of his new "hit."

I kind of see the hopey-changey Palin in that light.

 

[Piggy]

Sometimes people find their niche through nothing more than dumb luck. I'll give her that she's smart enough to milk it for all it's worth, because she doesn't have much else as far as marketable skills go. I wouldn't call that "extremely savvy about the media," however.

There would have been no "it" to milk if she hadn't created it.

 

[Allen773]

Comparing Obama, a constitutional scholar, to Palin, who ran a state smaller than many major cities in America, is moronic.