The Doer and the Droner

Mark Steyn reviews the VP debate as only he can:

Back in February, several political lifetimes ago, I was on the radio with Laura Ingraham, and she played Stevie Wonder's campaign song for Barack Obama, whose lyric, in its entirety, runs:

"Ba-rack O-ba-ma

Ba-a-rack O-ba-a-ma

Ba-ra-ack Obama-a ..."

(Repeat until coronation.)

Laura and I had a good laugh about it, until it occurred to me that, in politics as in pop, the tune is more important than the words. A guy can run for president with all the right lyrics – on the war, the economy, the social issues – but what matters is whether people respond to the underlying music: not what he's saying, but how he's saying it. At the time, I was reflecting on Mitt Romney: The song looked great on paper, but when he stuck it on the stand and started to warble it never quite soared.

That's where Sarah Palin scored in the vice-presidential showdown. A lot of the grandees in the post-debate analysis reviewed the lyrics and missed the music. Whereas, I would wager, a big chunk of uncommitted voters out in TV land listened to Gov. Palin, and liked the tune they were hearing. If you're one of those coastal feminists who despise Alaska's sweetheart as a chillbilly breeder whose knowledge of foreign policy is as full of holes as the last moose to make the mistake of strolling past her deck, Thursday night's folksy performance isn't going to change your view. But, if your contempt for her wasn't already chiseled in granite, she came over as genuine, confident …and different. Change you can believe in, to coin a phrase.

I was a bit alarmed at first. I hadn't seen her for awhile, not since the halfwits at the McCain campaign walled her up in the witness protection program and permitted visitations only by selected poobahs of the Metamucil networks. When she walked out on stage, her famous reach-for-the-skies up-do seemed a bit subdued and earthbound, like a low-budget remake of the famous scene in "There's Something About Mary." Then she started speaking. The lyrics were workmanlike, but the music was effective.

I have a couple of favorite snapshots from the evening. One was when Palin said that John McCain hadn't required her to check her principles at the door, and she still believed in drilling in ANWR and she was hoping to bring him round on that. And then she grinned and gave a mischievous wink into the camera, and to the nation.

"Don't sell the American people short," Obama honcho David Axelrod said. "They need more than a wink and a smile." OK, so how about this? Joe Biden mocked the McCain campaign's energy policy as "Drill, drill, drill", and the governor came back to correct the line: "It's not 'Drill, drill, drill'," she grinned. "It's 'Drill, baby, drill!'"

Read the rest of it here.