A Pit Bull in Lipstick

It was contrived. It was derivative. It was hokey. The tone and tenor of the speech was utterly predictable, but the delivery was extremely effective.

After eight years of George Bush, a half-year of John McCain and an evening of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, it can be fairly said that Sarah Palin did not face a particularly high rhetorical bar. Still, this, the single most improbable running mate—ever—made an astonishing impression in her debut as a national figure.

To be sure, those who did not see this coming are legion, and hands are wringing on both sides of the ideological divide. How will she do in an unscripted environment? What will happen when she debates Biden? Given her gender and her stand on key social issues, what will the PUMAs and Hillaryites do? What is the best way to handle a hockey mom who says the only difference between her ilk and pit bulls is lipstick? (The line of the convention, BTW.)

I was quick to dismiss this missey, with her dorky glasses, her beauty queen/local sports reporter background and her messy personal and professional issues—and I’m still not entirely persuaded that she is the magic bullet that McCain so desperately needs. But she has demonstrated that, so far at least, she’s no liability. She’s crazy fearless and nifty on her pins (with a teleprompter, anyway.) She looks like ballet- and soccer- and hockey- and gymnastic- and Little League- and what-have-you-moms all over America--and these women vote.

What she said about special needs kids was (at least to this father of one) downright disabling. The cocksure attitude was strangely refreshing: This was no Hillary Clinton, and while she’s yet to distinguish herself as a policy wonk in Hillary’s league, she’s tough on taxes and she can sing and dance and laugh and tell jokes. Two words: Bread and circuses. Two more: Be afraid.

Andrew Sullivan fell right into her trap last night, as he breathlessly “live-blogged” the speech. He spotted Cindy McCain holding little Trig, Palin’s four month-old son, and got all pisssy.

“Can we have it one way or the other?” he exhorted. “Either the family is out of bounds or it is in the spotlight. Brandishing a child with Down Syndrome as a campaign statement is daring the press to ask questions about him.”

I like Sullivan. I think he's a bit fixated on some pet issues to the detriment of other, more broad-based concerns. But this little snit was spoken like a deeply confused, gay Republican/conservative Obama-backer who has no kids, and he should have known better.

This attitude is not just boorish and stupid. It is dangerous, if a non-Republican White House is the goal. Sullivan expects the whole world to accept him and his husband as a perfectly normal, natural and righteous folks who just want to get on with their lives without being hassled by opinionated adversaries who don’t know what they’re talking about. Fair enough. But he, and his compatriot sophisticates of the leftern Blogosphere would do well to note that there are a lot more people out there with kids than there are men with husbands.

Up to now, a vast swath of the electorate has been dispirited and disinterested. A perky little pit bull in lipstick may have just revived their interest. It's time to re-engage in the campaign, and stop taking lazy pot-shots at a target that is best left alone.