“Point to heart.”.. (report from the RGA meeting)..Thank you, Margaret

[SoCalDem]

This is pure gold.. comedy of the highest order :)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a8rBJX.lvwms&refer=home

Queen Bee Palin Shows Up Party, Then Splits: Margaret Carlson

Commentary by Margaret Carlson


Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- It’s always bracing to go to meetings of the Republican Governors Association, and this year’s gathering in Miami last week was especially bracing. The Intercontinental was an island of relative happiness in a sea of turmoil, happiness being in short supply in a party that got whopped on Nov. 4 by vote totals not seen since LBJ.

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The governors who trooped on stage with Palin seemed surprised that it was all about her. Yet everyone knows a camera is to Palin as cheese is to a mouse. After three questions, in an act of male political aggression not seen since former New York Senate candidate Representative Rick Lazio lunged toward Hillary Clinton in their final debate -- ending his career -- Texas Governor Rick Perry took over the microphone and called for the last question. Four minutes start to finish and Palin’s virgin press conference was over.

Greatest Hits

Then she reprised her greatest hits, including Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder. She exhibited enough self-control not to accuse the president elect of “palling around with terrorists,” but not enough to resist a swipe at Barack Obama for voting “present” in the Illinois state senate. Her few hours at the meeting, most of which were spent in the spotlight, ended before lunch. The vice-presidential nominee didn’t win a seat in the RGA leadership for the coming year. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is the party’s Great Brown Hope. Too bad he had to leave early, since he’s the opposite of Palin in that he’s all about doing his homework. The 37-year-old who looks 20 cut taxes, strengthened ethics, reformed education and saw his state through Hurricane Gustav. He’s a rising star the other governors can get behind.

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People, he said, “don’t want to follow cranks” and that the party needed more than “a comb-over.” It needs “dramatic change to win over new voters.” In their roundtables, the governors agreed that they were going to have to recapture parts of the electorate that now seem lost to them. About 95 percent of African-Americans and 67 percent of Hispanics voted for Obama.

Love of Order

Democrats are much better at soul-searching than Republicans, who value order and orderly change, if any change at all. If the schedule says the Plenary Session will begin at 9 a.m., you can set your watch by it. They are sensible. The decaf runs out at breakfast first. The red velvet rope used to pen in reporters might as well be an Iron Curtain. Nothing is left to chance. A sentimental passage in Governor Crist’s speech includes explicit stage directions: “Point to heart.”

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To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at [e-mail]
Last Updated: November 17, 2008 00:01 EST