A Second Hand Conjecture

Could a liberal lesbian rights activist actually win South Carolina’s 1st congressional district? Sure looks possible, as Linda Ketner has closed to within 5 in her aggressive challenge to incumbent Rep. Henry Brown. Of interest, Ketner is also a member of  “the Cabinet” which Time just published an interesting piece on. It’s an informal group of gay tech and hereditary millionaires, who have been investing large sums toward a systematic defeat of social conservative Republicans nationwide.

The success of Ketner and other socially liberal Democrats running on explicitly pro-gay rights platforms in traditionally social conservative friendly districts, would certainly tend to complete the trinity of broader Republican political decline. Not only are economic and national security focused conservatives losing on their traditional strong suit thanks to economic woes and Iraq, but the cultural debate may be shifting substantially leftward as well.

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The title is what Time Magazine labeled New Jersey’s Senator William Warren Barbour in 1940. The expression takes on a better curve for Sarah Palin, but it fits the occasion of a very partisan and frankly rather phenomenal speech tonight (transcript).

I suppose I’m surprised by the surprise in so many media reactions I’m seeing. Then again it’s a reminder that we on the pro-Palin political right have been following Sarah for over a year now, and this sort of thing is still very much an introduction for others.

Michael Crowley for instance calls Palin’s speech “alarmingly strong” and describes emails from liberal colleagues as “panicked.” I think that’s probably an ungenerous assessment. There is afterall a reason so many on the left have been trying to destroy her these past few days. You saw it this evening. Sarah does have a certain magic. Even when she fumbles in a long speech as she can, it tends to amplify her humanity. A characteristic interestingly shared with Barack Obama and almost totally alien to wizened veterans.

The amplitude of the attention and the stress of the experince is of course very new for Sarah, but you’d never know it from looking at her tonight. I realized I’d become a little emotionally invested in this candidate over the course of the week, with its grotesque slander and innuendo campaigns in the press. When the Republican party in assembly gave her a near endless welcoming ovation I kept saying “don’t cry, don’t cry,” which was slightly sexist for Sarah and slightly for my own sad benefit.

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