(Cross-posted from Obamaism.org)
No, I'm not echoing Magic Mike Huckabee; rather, during his speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention last night, he echoed me during his speech by mentioning "freedom, security, and opportunity" in that order, as desirables. This is interesting since it is terribly similar to my 2006 Daily Kos diary Jim Webb, teacherken, & SECURITY, LIBERTY, OPPORTUNITY. (+g10), which extolled those same things, if not always in the same order, e.g.,
...So arguably, Jim Webb's (and my) "liberty-security-opportunity" or "security-liberty-opportunity" theme is just an updating of that, to reflect post-September 11, 2001 conditions. If it worked for Clinton, then maybe an updated version could work for today's Democrats. ...
Now let's hope Obama does similarly, especially the "freedom/liberty" part; "hope" and "change" are fine but it's nice to have a "change" from those two words, "hopefully"... (And W Bush probably did get some mileage from talking about "spreading freedom around the world"; people do like big, world-historical themes sometimes. So couldn't B Obama do similarly? though better, of course??!)
Bill Clinton talked about "opportunity, responsibility, and community" (cf. Drew Westen's take on that); I am looking forward to Obama's update.
As for the baking Alaskan: I didn't like her speech but I often do recognize an effective speech when I see/hear one, and this one was a scorcher. Sarah Palin dumped on Harry Reid; and nuked Joe Biden; and drove a truck over Obama, ten thousand times... And that vignette about selling the gubernatorial jet on eBay: did Meg "Wise" Whitman write that one? In any case, it's a memorable story, delivered crisply to a large TV audience.
Considering all that: the "Republican Xena" may not be very easy to beat, despite all her recent troubles in the press. And if you think McCain's dropping her from the ticket for anything short of an actual criminal indictment or such, you could be very sorely mistaken.
No, she might not stir Democrats, or all independents; but firing up the "red-meat Repubbies", not to mention many small-town types of whatever (or no) party registration, is something I can see her speech doing. Not to mention the visuals of her family's appearing with her at the convention (5 kids, little baby with little daughter spit-smoothing baby's hair, scary-looking crewcut son with bulging eyes and about to take the track to Iraq, etc.). A lot of Low Information Voters will eat that all up. Be ready.
(Joebama may want to make special efforts to reach out to small-town voters, and to women, at this point; emphasizing Joe's "Violence Against Women Act" work may help, and also focusing on the economy and how the average person, Main Street instead of just Wall Street, can profit from "Obamaism". Even if Barack and Biden thought of all that already, it doesn't hurt to repeat it here.)