Maverick and Goose

Friday, 29 August 2008 by bbbeard.

Well, Mother Goose, anyway – Sarah Palin has five kids.

The consensus will no doubt evolve over the next few days, but right now conservative circles are reportedly ecstatic and the Obamaites are in disarray. It seems like a masterstroke, slashing the twine and pulling on the chewing gum with which the Obama campaign has tried to bind the “puma” faction, while simultaneously reassuring the red-staters that there will be a conservative presence in the administration. She has a lot to recommend her, including experience running the nation’s largest state. I had fretted over the possibility of a 4 x Senator race.

I have to say, this has been the smartest campaign McCain has ever run. I might even vote for a McCain-Palin ticket.

UPDATE: Well, as I said, the situation is evolving. Bristol Palin is reportedly with child, and unmarried, and the left is in a tizzy. I wish Bristol well, but in this unforeseen development, she will be an issue in her mother’s campaign.

The left is salivating at the prospect of inflaming the Jerry Falwells of the right. I predict that once again, the Kossacks will be outraged at the “hypocrisy” of the right — meaning, Christians just won’t react with the hatred that Hollywood has led them to expect. In the end, just as the trumped-up campaign against Mary Cheney fell flat, Bristol Palin will evoke smiles from the right — because she will marry her baby’s husband and raise a chubby, happy baby.Meanwhile the “liberals” will fret that Bristol is “too young to have a baby”. Welcome to the real world.

I think there is a gulf in worldview between the leftist humanists and the rightist religionists. In the left’s ideal world, Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin would openly cohabiting, for sure, but Levi would have worn a condom, and if Bristol had gotten pregnant anyway, they would have had “the tissue” removed, as though it were cancerous. In the right’s ideal world, Bristol and Levi would wait until they were married. And in the right’s real world, they would be discreet and careful — and if Bristol got pregnant, they would get married a little sooner and raise a baby (which appears to be their trajectory). Because life happens while you’re waiting for something better to come along.

UPDATE 2:

BO remains, umm, geographically challenged. In response to a question about experience from CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he pointed out the diminutiveness of Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, AK, and by all appearances seemed unaware that a Governor runs a state and that Alaska is a state. Ordinarily one might not even notice this omission, dismissing it as “clever” campaign-rhetorical jujitsu. But Obama now has a considerable track record of geographical goofs: misplacing Auschwitz, Poland; confusing Rapid City with Grand Rapids; confusing Sioux Falls and Sioux City; confusing Sunrise, FL, with “Sunshine, FL”; misstating the number of states in the Union; not knowing that the state he represents, Illinois, shares a border with Kentucky; and just last week confusing St. Louis and Kansas City. Not to mention acting as though Germans had votes that will count in November. Weird.

A Spenglerian would speculate that Obama is not merely “post-racial”, but “post-Faustian” — a candidate free of the tyranny of number and map.  Someone should ask him about his web experience.

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