Sarah Pallin

(Com justificação a eventuais leitores pelo texto vir em inglês ; não é snobismo; é falta de tempo para retroverter os meus contributos para o WAIS)
Answering John Eipper’s call for European perspectives on SP, I viewed her speech.
From 00.00 SP until 9:58, amid roars of applause, SP elaborates family values and presents her dear ones in a very moving way. She has a “celebrity” touch and she is emotionally persuasive. This mix of public and private issues is not palatable in any European nation, both for good and bad motives. So much family awareness would be misconstrued as a bridge to nepotism and “special interests” or protecting a dysfunctional family. On the other way, the energy she gets from family life is obvious and attuned to what is current in peripheral US regions.
14: 15 Attack on Obama as unqualified. Obama is about words. McCain is about deeds. This rethoric is useful but it may develop a blowback. SP has good words “for the common good”, and “against special interests”. Yet, a VP has much less executive power than the Governor of Alaska and no use for “veto powers”. Or is she considering the possibility of being President, just in case?
22:35. After a reference to “dangerous Foreign Powers” she (or the neocon text writer) absolutely misrepresented the latest crisis. “Russia wanted to intimidate Europe”; “Europe is at the mercy of foreign supplies”. In fact Russia is much more dependent upon UE machinery than UE is on Russian natural gas and oil, with the exception of Germany. She had not a single word for South America, Asia, and Africa. She is obviously ignorant on foreign policy.
She is immensely energetic, in all possible senses of the word, from supporting “drill” to being unbalanced. The sound-bite “The difference between a Hockey Mum and a Pit Bull is lipstick”. It sounds good for local politics. If you are behind McCain, it is an awful sound-bite. You would entrust her your dog, a babycare system, town government and, of course, Alaska; nuclear weapons, never. That said, and considering the contempt for current politicians, I think she will gain votes for the RP. Wolf Blitzer said that, exceptionally, her speech had 42 million viewers. I agree with Michael Sullivan that SP “electrifies people”; for the time being, not in the electric chair.
I have not yet seen Mc Cain’s speech but one thing is obvious. He will get votes by being presented as a moderate “patriot”, not a “nationalist”, which is the European profile of Sarah Pallin. Good electoral tactics!