Back in early February former vice president hopeful Sarah Palin was a key speaker at a rally for our current governor, Rick Perry. Austin American Statesman columnist Ken Herman attended this exciting, important part of our political process and shared his experience in his opinion piece: Palin-Perry rally has it all: music, confetti, censorship.
Who am I trying to kid? I don't typically find political party rallies particularly important, especially when you have clowns like Perry involved. When you add Sarah Palin into the mix you have a recipe for folly at which I am only too happy to point and laugh.
So too, is our daring reporter, Ken Herman. His column was a smorgasbord of examples highlighting why this event was more like a three ring circus than a political rally, lightly battered and deep fried in enough respectability to keep it in the paper. Chicken-fried republican anyone?
I'm not here just to poke fun at the republicans (even though Herman's column makes it eeeeeeeeeeeeeasy!), I'm here to talk about what Ken wrote. Who was he talking to when he wrote it? What was he trying to say with his column? How sound were his arguments? How well did he support them, if at all? Let's take a look!
Who was Herman's target audience when he wrote the piece? He writes for a news paper in Austin, Texas; a decidedly liberal city, so I'm willing to bet that had a lot to do with the tone of the column. He wrote to people like me, who wouldn't typically look at a story about a republican rally, people who aren't as happy about the current regime in power.
What was the author trying to say with his column? He was trying to say that this rally was a ridiculous circus of pomp and stupidity, which he conveyed with a little grace and some thinly veiled insults. The only redeeming message shared in this article came, at my total and complete shock, from Sarah Palin. In either a moment of clarity (doubtful) or from a great speech writer (much more likely) Palin said that "contested primaries aren't civil war. They're democracy at work, and that's beautiful", a fact that good ol' Rick Perry doesn't seem to understand.
How sound was Herman's argument? Did he support it? As much as I'd love to say the piece was a slam dunk, I can't. This was an article with a slant, and while it says a lot of the things I want to hear, this sort of event isn't a thing with only one perspective. While Herman had some great quotes, which painted the participants of the rally as some of the dimmer light bulbs in the box, it was rather one sided. Even if I find most of the examples and statements wrong and closed-minded, there are people out there who could refute them as right and clever. (Well... maybe not clever, I mean come on - we're talking about a republican rally.)
At the end of the day, did this article make any difference to me? Did I learn anything grand and amazing? Did reading it matter? Overall: not really. The column said things I would expect to hear from a republican rally and I got some chuckles along the way (which always makes me happy). At the end of the day, though, I enjoyed reading it and that's really all that matters.
Cheers!
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