A conference call with conservative-movement leaders this morning was a roadmap for what the McCain-Palin campaign rhetoric is going to look like. But while they're trying to portray her as a typical mom in touch with the lives of American women, she's no maverick: She is perfectly aligned with the far right.
She's Reagan with a vagina: In a nutshell, all sectors of the conservative base are thrilled: the anti-choicers, the gun lobby, the anti-taxers (although no one weighed in on her most obvious weakness, her complete lack of foreign-policy and national-security experience). "She's the whole package," gushed Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which describes itself as the pro-life Emily's List. "She just could not be a better pick. She represents all three legs of Reagan's stool," said Dannenfelser, and "is truly in sync with the way American women think."
She's a real Catholic, and Joe Biden isn't: Frank Pavone, president of Priests for Life, highlighted her anti-choice record and her fifth child, whom she had at age 44, who has Down's syndrome. Pavone put himself in charge of deciding who is a genuine Catholic -- Palin is and the pro-choice Biden is not, said Pavone, who added about Biden, "You can't practice the faith when you deny it."
She likes non-elitist food: Sandra Froman, NRA immediate past president, asked, "How can you go wrong with a mooseburger-eating, fishing governor?"
Can being loved by Grover Norquist be a positive thing? Grover Norquist, leader of Americans for Tax Reform praised her as "a star at the state level."
She has more executive experience than Obama and is closer to regular people: Absurdly, Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who served as the vice chair of the GOP platform writing committee, kept hammering at how, because she's been a mayor and a governor, Palin has more executive experience than Obama. (Doesn't she then have more executive experience than McCain?) Blackwell said, "John McCain couldn't have made a better choice. ... He chose someone who represents the next generation and brings more executive experience than the top of the opposition's ticket." What's more, Blackwell added, having served as mayor she's closer to regular people than the, uh community organizer. Blackwell was making no sense today.
Did I mention the baby with Down syndrome? Dannefelser said, "There could not be a more beautiful contrast" between the two tickets, and several participants on the call promised that her baby would be persistently contrasted with Obama's supposed support for infanticide.
The fifty-state challenge: No more Southern strategy. Blackwell said, "She represents the values and the lifestyle that plays across all fifty states, but especially west of the Mississippi."
Finally, soccer moms are out. Hockey moms are in.
--Sarah Posner
Update: And the conservative-movement elites at the Council for National Policy gave her a standing ovation.
The CNP was behind trying to take down the Clintons. PUMAs might want to think about that before pulling the lever for McCain.
