Victoria Taft: Sarah Palin is best appreciated in person

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Blogger Victoria Taft, who says she was the leader of a group that tried for for more than a year to bring Sarah Palin to Portland for a Tea Party, made the four hour round trip to Eugene Friday to see in person the first woman to be the vice presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Taft says she glad she went, and she hopes Gov. Palin comes back to Oregon. Here are some excerpts from her after action report:

An anemic band of mostly professional protesters lined the streets and got plenty TV time with their street theater and signs reading, among other things, "Palin=Sedition," "Hate Free Zone" (with signs around it reading hateful things they thought about Palin-- [here], and the usual anti-fur-corporations-america-republican-success-prosperity protester dressed up in a boa carrying their typical sign reading, "billionaires for Sarah" or some such thing (I think she's the chick I've seen in Portland). The usual. Later we found out from Palin that daughter Bristol talked to several of the protesters and, among other things, thanked them for their lovely reception in Eugene. Classy. She took pictures on her camera phone, Palin informed us.

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Then Palin came on... Her delivery was friendly and affable. It's everything the left hates about her ('if only we could get her cranky we'd win!').

I didn't take notes through the whole speech but there were a few things I jotted down. She said she felt sorry for the Tea Party members who are surprised by the left's hatred toward them. She's grown a thick skin and can dispense with the left's vitriol at the end of the day, but she felt that some Tea Party members might not be used to this treatment. She mentioned she was sick of the media's lies about Tea Party members. The soul of the movement, she said, was the goodness of the people and the truth of its message. Palin even quoted Eugene's first son, Steve Prefontaine, about gutting out a win in November ("A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more".) She urged the hooting Tea Party folks in the audience to keep at it. She called the movement a Great Awakening whose first test will be in November but admonished the movement not to become a third party.

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Palin told the crowd that Washington doesn't "give a hoot" about the bottom line of America's finances. She declared Washington is addicted to OPIUM. And then explained it: OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.

She linked freedom with prosperity, prosperity with liberty.

She showed us what she'd written on her "poor man's version of a telepromptr"--her hand. The word "muttonhead," was scribbled on it. The word had been used in a joke by one of the previous speakers and she wanted to remember it. Once again Palin has used a jab from her critics (here) to jab right back and turn it to her advantage. It's why people love her.

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Palin is denigrated because she's a good looking woman of faith who stands firm in her convictions and doesn't let anyone or anything get in her way to preach it.
Good. For. Her.

I was glad to see it in person last night.

Oh, and I got to meet her, hug her, shake hands with her AND Todd.

Gold.

Read the full post at Victoria Taft's blog here.

- JP