The Competition

UPDATE II

"Mark Penn (Ex-strategist for Bill Clinton): Well, no, I think the people themselves saw unfair media coverage of Senator Clinton. I think if you go back, the polls reflected very clearly what "Saturday Night Live" crystallized in one of their mock debates about what was happening with the press.

I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don't do that for all four of the candidates, they're on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.

And I think that that's a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media — not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan — but all of the media is now being viewed as partisan in one way or another. And that is an unfortunate development."

Not from McCain's point of view, of course.
It's part of his election strategy.

UPDATE:
It seems my interpretation (below) of McCain's motives were not entirely without foundation.
See here and here.
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I should begin this discussion by declaring a small bias.
If it weren't for the fact that we're both already married, I might very well propose to Sarah Palin.

It is so incredibly refreshing to see her in the VP slot.
It would be even better if she were running for President, but that's certain to happen in four or eight years, so I will wait patiently for that particular joy.

But my enthusiasm over Sarah is not the point of this essay.

As I watched her speech at the Republican National Convention last night, I realized a couple of things.

First, we finally have one of us in a position of power, and by "one of us," I don't mean just a pro-lifer. Sarah Palin has the common touch because she is common people. Five years ago, she was a PTA mom. She is not an Ivy Leaguer; she thinks Skull and Bones (the secret club at Yale which boasted both George Bush and John Kerry as members) is what you find in when you stumble on a wolf-pack kill. Not since Andrew Jackson - the man who destroyed the National Bank - and Abe Lincoln have we had a person so highly placed who came from such humble background, and even they don't compare, because both served in Congress before entering high office.

What does this mean? It means, if she is successful, that the Ivy Leaguers are washed up. You don't need a degree from a high-falutin' university to be great. This is the harbinger of a much greater change.

Many people have commented on how the Internet is a great equalizer. On the Internet, nobody knows if you are a dog. On-line courses can be taken from anywhere, by anyone, offered by anyone to anyone. I have written elsewhere on how the computer is destroying the great publishing houses; the former glorious gateways to publishing are slowly coming apart. A similar movement may be in store for the Ivy League.

For the last century, the large universities have been the gatekeepers to political power.
Unless you graduated from the right school, where you met the right people and were brainwashed with the right values, you could not attain high office.

The universities have been the political version of the Mafia, they are gangsters who had to be paid off, they get kick-backs in the form of government loans. For the professors and the policy wonks, it is La Cosa Nostra - Our Little Thing.

But that may be changing, and to the extent that it does, Sarah Palin is the face of that change.

But can this really be accomplished?
That's my second point.

Sarah is in a race against the clock.

Serious pro-lifers have never made it this high precisely because the vetting process kept us out. In the lower 48, the leftist news media have regularly destroyed the reputations of any moral person whom they cannot first subvert. We all know the stories: Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and many more: these politicians all began their careers with pro-life sentiments, but the news and political machines ground them all down. The vetting process subverted them, it demonized and destroyed anyone who clung to pro-life principles. You have to agree to kill children if you want real political power in this country.

Even those who made it through the process with some semblance of pro-life sentiment came out battered and bruised. There was a reason Ronald Reagan and the two Bush men never appeared at a DC pro-life anniversary march. They didn't want to be seen in public with us. When Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, was held out as a favorite for the McCain pick, he responded by refusing to make his usual appearance at a pro-life event in Minnesota. When suddenly faced with the possibility of being President of the Seant, Pawlenty, for the first time, found himself unavoidably detained at a city council meeting twenty minutes away.

Politicians are afraid of being tarred by the media and the university policy wonks as pro-life whackos.

But Sarah Palin did not go through the process. She didn't go through the Ivy League nuthouse. She lives in Alaska, she came out of nowhere and beat the system in a state the media had never paid much attention to. Thus, she never had to accomodate the fruitcakes on Meet the Press or the homosexuals who run the New York Times front page. She was never taught to be afraid of them.

The media hate Christians because Christians - good Christians - aren't afraid of them. As Christians know, perfect love casts out fear. As Christians know, we are not to fear the one who can take our lives, rather, we fear only the loss of our souls. If they can't make us fear them, they can't control us, and it's all about control.

A woman who can disembowel a moose does not fear a prancing man with a microphone.

So, now Sarah is racing to get to the American people before the American media and machine politics can destroy her.

And this is the third point.

Sarah's speech last night merely confirmed something I've been ruminating on since she was chosen. John McCain chose Sarah Palin not only because he's a maverick, but also because he's a maverick who likes to get revenge. He's got a mean streak in him a mile wide, and I have a certain respect for that. Being mean can, under certain circumstances, be just.

The media dumped John McCain for Barack Obama, and he wanted to get even.
So he picked Sarah Palin.

He knew full well what Sarah Palin would do to the news rooms. The Sarah Palin pick wasn't just meant to pick up Hillary supporters, it was meant to tear the news rooms apart. He intended to ignite a civil war. Either the newsies would tear each other apart as feminists fought the Obaminationists, or the newsies - by heaping contempt on Sarah Palin - would dig their own grave with us, the public who employs them through our purchase of their mindless chatter.

The Internet had already begun to knock the supports out from under the MSM, or this tactic wouldn't have been possible. But because they are already weakened, because they no longer fully control the channel, McCain's plan will work. He's flooding the channel with more reality than they can process, more reality than they can chew up and spew out.

The Sarah Palin pick was meant to destroy them.

We identify with Sarah Palin. When they spit in her eye, they spit in our eye. And this particular cat fight is not being held in a dark corner of a small town where the politicos and the newsies abide over it like a dark fog, this fight is in the middle of the American national rodeo coursing through channels that are no longer fully controlled.

So, here's the question: can Sarah Palin get out in front of the people often enough? Can she make her natural resonance with us grow strong enough to out-pace the drumbeat against her?

If she can, then the world is changed, and for a very simple reason.
Sarah Palin is a normal, pro-life woman.
Once the nation gets a taste of normal, I don't think we'll settle for any more plastic men.