Joe Biden Writes the Textbook on Sarah Palin

[Blue_In_AK]

from Alaskan blogger "Polarbear" at http://divasblueoasis.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=130

Sarah Palin will never again debate without her competitor studying the 2008 Vice Presidential debate in detail. Palin's days of twinkling through a debate are over. Senator Joe Biden spoke with the authentic voice of a man who grew up in the middle class working neighborhoods, in the steel belt of Pennsylvania. Biden remembered his roots, evoked the lessons he learned, honored his community, and spoke of his lifelong friends and family. Biden ran on a little when he touched an issue he cares deeply about, and in doing so reinforced the authenticity of his caring and knowledge, just like a relative of your own might do. Joe Biden smiled inside when remembrance brought a touchstone, and when his smile emerged it was genuine and heartfelt. Yes, Senator Biden also had masterful and professional control of leadership, domestic, and foreign policy issues, and he also never left his genuine roots.

There is no quality of authenticity about Sarah Palin, and particularly so in her smile. Palin smiles at the wrong time, pulling her face back into a rictus grin, when nothing she has said calls for a smile. Worse, she affects false, off-putting vernacular. One moment she will be speaking to an issue in clearly articulated English, and the next moment it is "Ah'm speekin' durecly to the 'Merican peepul, don'cha know, and ah'll jus' haf to get back to ya on that (wink-nod)." One of these days, the other debater is going to put on that little fascade of hers, and shovel it right back to her as a parody, and the audience will collapse in the laughter it richly deserves.

Tina Fey does the Palin act masterfully; it is nothing to an educated and skilled actress of Fey's caliber. I suspect the Wasilla schools did teach diction when Sarah was a child. Sarah's parents do not speak in her affected manner, so it did not come from her home. Frankly, I have never heard a middle class Alaskan speak in the vernacular Palin affects. If she claims to be imitating Alaskans, then I find her act to be false and insulting.

If you watch carefully, Sarah Palin puts on her strange vernacular precisely when she cannot handle the question, as if to imply that the some mystical shared knowledge of nothing overcomes all (wink-nod). The problem is, Sarah Palin is not that good an actress. Especially when you know to look for it, and we Alaskans know when to look for it now, the put-on comes across as flat and affected. For Sarah Palin the act is all about twinkles, winks, flutters, and fake smiles.

Throughout the Vice Presidential debate, Palin could not provide a direct answer to a direct question. Palin's answers were noticeably scripted. When Joe Biden spoke, Sarah would affect her standard grin, look down at the podium, read her script as quickly as possible, finally responding with as much of her false folksie put-on as she could muster. The problem was, her debate script was an attack script, so Palin was unable to say how the McCain platform differs from the Bush administration. Conditional responses are not part of a script. Senator Biden sensed her difficulty about halfway through the debate, and from that point forward, Palin struggled, because the script notes could not help.

In the end, Senator Joe Biden hung the dead weight of the Bush administration around McCain's and Palin's necks, beating Sarah Palin soundly. Most importantly, Joe Biden beat Sarah Palin in a way that now becomes the textbook for all Democrats who follow.

[janx]

1. I've been dying to talk to you about this!

Where does that quasi-Minnesotan dialect come from? Sometimes it's there, and sometimes it's not. You know that I know Alaskans don't speak that way. Wouldn't the governor of Alaska know it? Has she always alternated dialects like that?

Also, has she always winked?

Please inform us! :hi:

P.S. I still have a few of your I'rod photos on my MySpace page and just love them.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Hey, Jan!

I have no idea where that dialect comes from, but actually I never noticed it before this campaign. Maybe it was there and I just never paid attention, but it seems so glaring now. You are correct that not too many people here speak that way. We do have a certain amount of Canadian inflection that slips into some people's speech patterns, and, of course, there are the various Native accents depending on which part of the state they come from, but this "Fargo" thing is surely different. I'll have to go back and listen to some of those 2006 debates to see if she was affecting the accent then...I don't remember it.

[janx]

3. I have a hunch she's putting it on, as the blog suggests.

If you find links to the 2006 debates, please post them!

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Here's a link from CNN

It's a whole debate between Sarah, Tony Knowles and Andrew Halcro, but you can kind of skip around and find the places where Sarah talks. She's still got a little twang, but not nearly as much as we've been hearing lately.

http://cspanjunkie.org/?p=407

[The Blue Flower]

6. *'s faux Texas accent

That's exactly what Texans have always said about *'s fake accent.

[firedupdem]

4. Thanks Blue

That woman is freaking crazy! They are going to make a "Lifetime" movie about this nut case in just a year or so!

[LuckyLib]

7. Her phony "dialect" is not Minnesota, and not Fargo (North Dakota).

Whatever folksy stuff she slings sounds almost Texan sometimes, with a Canadian inflection. It's all show, no substance.

[FlyingSquirrel]

8. "If you watch carefully, Sarah Palin puts on her strange vernacular precisely when...

she cannot handle the question, as if to imply that the some mystical shared knowledge of nothing overcomes all (wink-nod)."

EXACTLY!