A few more morning-after RNC thoughts:
* The more I think about the Sarah Palin speech, the more I wish I were writing this column again today. Mind you, I’m not saying that Palin is a national figure because of the popularity of reality shows like Deadliest Catch, or that the popularity of these blue-collar reality shows predicts anything about the election. But it is at least interesting that the focus on blue-collar voters in rural areas—which is looking more and more like Palin’s target rather than Hillary voters—comes at the same time that TV is (successfully) fixating on the same group, at least as represented by the likes of Black Gold, Ax Men and so on. And some of the shows are probably at least partly responsible for a shift in the pop-cultural attitude toward Alaska—and thus, toward Alaskans—from the quirky exoticism of Northern Exposure and Men in Trees to the respectful roughneck realism of Deadliest Catch.
* I don’t know much about this “Themedia Elites” guy Obama picked for his running mate—weird name, I know, I think it’s Greek—but he sounds like a real tool. (Those hostile chants of “NBC! NBC!”? Probably not the kind of product placement the network was looking for at this juncture in time.)
* Seriously, though, this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, I already heard McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace make the case—full disclosure, it was to my colleague Jay Carney—that it was laughable that Sarah Palin should have to take questions from the media because of how unfair the press has been to her. (When Jay argued that a candidate is obligated to answer questions about her policy knowledge and positions, Wallace answered, “Not from the media!” Which raises the question: If the definition of “the media” is not, in part, “someone asking you questions you may not want to answer,” what is it?) Clearly this is already a strategy to justify keeping Palin from the press. Will it fly?
* Having lived in New York for both his terms, I had no idea until now how much Rudy Giuliani had against big cosmopolitan cities.
* I suspect this morning that the McCain camp is slightly warmer to the concept of political celebrities.