Friday, April 01, 2016

Trump Reverse Midas Touch on Sarah Palin




Update: Sarah Palin has passion and expression when she speaks, but she is not so good at explaining issues that have some complexity. The Benghazi statement near the end gets applause, but her other points are not delineated clearly enough. Think of "Drill, baby, drill!" Clear, concise, easy to understand.

Palin is also good at concise joke commentary.
He’s got Al-Qaeda on the run. Yeah. Perhaps, towards us.
. . .
Mr. President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.
. . .
Nah, I’m sorry, but really I’m probably being too hard on the President. After all, who could have seen this coming? 
Palin does much better when attacking liberals and Democrats who her audience is also against than attacking conservatives and Republicans some of whom her audience supports.

People at this Wisconsin meeting were not against Palin. This is shown by the ovation she got at the end of the speech. But, it's clear that most of the people were not pro-Trump, and Governor Palin did not do a good job of telling them why they should be for him. She used talking points and unclear jabs at Cruz (and Kasich?) rather than explaining how Trump's positions are much better than those of his opponents. She tried, but didn't really engage the crowd and so was unable to close the deal.

Further, Palin should have clearly owned the jabs (Ted Cruz handing out soccer balls and teddy bears) instead of using fuzzy attacks. Though that would have been somewhat embarrassing regarding Cruz since her political action committee, Sarah PAC, recently was fund raising bragging about Palin helping get Cruz elected and wanting to elect more like him. "[I]t is up to us to elect new conservatives in 2016 like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul." (!?!)


Then there were the non sequiturs like:

"Be civil. Then vote. And I say vote for Donald J. Trump." (21:15-20) Saying "be civil" after all the incivilities that come spewing out from Donald Trump?

Sarah Palin seems to be a victim of the Trump reverse Midas touch which turns everything he contacts into second rate goods or garbage.

H/T Byron York:
The audience sat on its hands when Palin spoke. Taking in the scene, it was hard to remember how popular she was with Republicans eight years ago, when she was the GOP vice presidential candidate, and even four years, when some thought she might run herself. On Thursday, Palin stuck mostly to a script touting Trump's positions on trade, illegal immigration, and military strength. The room was extraordinarily quiet.

4 comments:

MAX Redline said...

Sad to see.

Palin called on Republicans to unify behind Trump’s candidacy. She said he’s the only candidate who understands that “common sense is an endangered species in Washington.”

T. D. said...

I left off the last phrase of the "Be civil" quote: "And then unite to make America great again." It's too bad that I wonder if she will unite with Cruz and against Trump (who will undoubtedly rant against the Republican nominee if it's not him if not try to organize his own campaign).

Again, the "common sense" describer. Which amounts to make it up as you go along.

You're right, it's very sad.

OregonGuy said...

Remember the cartoon of an ostrich with its head in the sand?

That's me.
.

T. D. said...

Don't blame you, OG. I've started turning off candidate speeches/interviews/coverage too--especially hour long segments. Tired of hearing most of it. Bombast to the max.