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Sun. Update: Palin in Asheville
posted at 2008-10-26 21:29 | Last modified 2008-10-26 22:40
Highlights from GOP Veep hopeful Sarah Palin's rally in Asheville tonight...
At 8pm, before Palin arrived (she was delayed), country star Gretchen Wilson took the stage with a setlist that included “Here for the Party” (“Are you here for the Republican party?” Wilson asked the crowd), and a pretty credible cover version of Heart’s "Barracuda." (Wonder how Heart feels about that.)
“‘Cause I'm a redneck woman -
I ain't no high class broad
I'm just a product of my raisin'
And I say "hey y'all" and "Yee Haw"
And I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Charlie Daniels song
So here's to all my sisters out there keepin' it country
Let me get a big "Hell Yeah" from the redneck girls like me.”
Dressed down in jeans, black blazer, and a white collarless shirt (no 150K duds tonight -- First Dude Todd Palin was dressier than she was), Palin thanked Wilson for “that beautiful song.”
(Cute moment: Palin gets Wilson and the crowd to sing Happy Birthday to her mom up in Alaska while Palin holds up her cell phone. “No Mom, I’ve gotta go. REALLY.”)
The speech
“This election is coming down to the wire,” Palin told the crowd. “It’s gonna be close.”
“Our opponent seems to be getting out ahead of himself. Just yesterday, the NYT reported that Barack Obama’s inaugural address is already written.” (Note: that story's been debunked already, but hey, who cares, right?)
“Barack Obama and I have something in common,” she said. “We’ve both spent a fair amount of time on the basketball court. But where I come from, you gotta win the game before you start cuttin’ down the nets. It’s kind of like the presidential seal that he had made for himself a few months back" (crowd boos) "…or the stadium he’s rented for his “victory party.”
“You get the feeling that the Obama campaign just thinks that this election process is kind of a formality…Judging from the media coverage of all this, it seems like the coronation has already been set.” (More boos).
From there on out, it was pretty much the standard stump speech. Palin promised the crowd that Obama "is not being candid with you" about what she says is his secret plan to raise taxes on lower-income workers.
She brought up the “redistribution of wealth” charge again. “John and I, we’re for a real tax cut, which is when the government just takes less of your earnings to start with. ...Joe the Plumber said, to him, [Obama’s plan] sounded like socialism. And now is not the time to experiment with that.”
She went on to criticize the media’s ”roughing up” of Joe the Plumber. The crowd ate it up. “Our opponents have treated a guy poorly who just asked a simple question… and on Nov 4th, doesn’t sound like a lot of you are going to be supporting Barack the wealth-spreader.”
Palin talked about her record on tax cuts and her ticket’s position on an “all-of-the-above” energy policy: “We will drill, baby, drill, and mine, baby, mine.” She also spoke about her passion for special-needs kids in a moment that sounded like it was aimed squarely at Roe v. Wade: “John and I, we have a vision of America where every innocent life counts.”
She also brought up ACORN, telling voters they have “a choice between a politician who will not disavow a group that is committing voter fraud and a leader who will not tolerate it.”
“It’s gonna come down to what we believe in,” she told her supporters, adding that "the greatness of this nation ….is in these areas where you love America – you have never been not proud to be an American. You are proud to be an American!”
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