Shrill, Baby, Shrill

I was up on Cape Cod over the Labor Day weekend spending a long weekend at the beach. I saw no Television. I read no newspapers. And I only found out in passing that John McCain had picked some woman named Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, as his running mate -- and that she shortly thereafter had to hold a press conference to announce her unwed teenage daughter was pregnant, leaving the media and both parties dumbfounded.

Upon getting back into New York on Tuesday, and catching up on the media coverage, I like many people wondered, "Who is this woman?", "Will she buckle under pressure?", and "Has the McCain camp made a massively huge miscalculation?" All would be told when she delivered her big convention speech.

Bottom line...Sarah Palin knocked it out of the park. She passed the first test. She was poised, confident, humorous, feisty, and grounded. It was clear that she successfully reached her audience. That is if you are a small town, white, heterosexual, Republican. Whether you agreed with her points or not, you had to admit she delivered her message really well; that you were witnessing a new Republican star being born -- in much the same way Barack Obama's star was born when he delivered his big convention speech four years ago.

That aside, I found the tone of the Republican convention to be disconcertingly divisive and shrill. It's difficult for me to discern whether this is simply due to my own bias. I'm a Democrat. So of course, much of the Republican message is not going to speak to me. But given that this was John McCain's convention, I guess I expected something different. I wondered if any of the speeches would stir hope in me, the way they did the week before from Denver. They didn't. The Democrats were criticized by pundits for not tossing the delegates enough red meat. The Republicans on the other hand were having a ground chuck food fight. And in the midst of this was a jarringly out of synch speech by Joe Lieberman. You felt the unease in the room as Joe preached his message which seemed to criticize both Democrats and Republicans. You could feel the delegates hesitancy. "Should we be clapping?" they seemed to be asking themselves. And you could almost hear a collective sigh from the McCain Camp behind the curtain which said, "Thank God we didn't let Lieberman happen."

At both Conventions big impressions were made and rousing speeches delivered. Personalities emerged. For the Republicans, Mike Huckabee reminded people that strong character, natural charisma, and warm charm can produce compelling leaders. But Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Lindsey Graham went for blood through very personal attacks on Barack Obama. And Sarah Palin lived up to her VP role as attack dog with some pretty sarcastic digs herself (not all of them grounded in fact).

But perhaps what was most unnerving was the personality that emerged from the party itself. The Republican delegates sounded less like an energized party and more like an angry mob. It's a little uncomfortable seeing hockey mom's shouting "Hit him again!" when their sons get into a fight on the ice. But that's what this convention felt like. The overwhelmingly white delegates persistent chants of "U.S.A. - U.S.A" conveyed a disturbing partisan jingoism that I did not sense at the democratic convention the week before. There was a guttural quality to their chanting like they were conspiring to hit the streets of St. Paul and turn over cars and pick fights with the first foreigners they encountered.

And what was with all the signs and buttons declaring "Drill, Baby, Drill!"? Are they serious? Is this the clarion call the Republicans really want to win over the American people? Drill, Baby, Drill? Drill off our shores. Drill in Alaska. Drill wherever we think we can suck up more oil. Put more billions into the hands of big oil. Global warming, global schwarming. Who are they talking to?

If they come away with anything, they certainly come away firmly establishing John McCain as an American hero in a big way. It may be well known that John McCain was a POW during the Vietnam War. But the story has never been told so frequently and so well. And McCain's war story was told at least five times, including by McCain himself.

I don't know. You tell me? One Party declares, "Yes, We Can!" The other Party declares "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Which one do you think speaks to a more hopeful, forward thinking future?

The Better Left Unsaid "Stream-of-Consciousness" Index
Cape Cod...Sarah Palin...Joe Lieberman...Angry Mob...Drill, Baby, Drill...John McCain