Here’s an excerpt from an email sent to Obama supporters at 1:39 AM this morning written by David Plouffe, Campaign Manager, Obama for America:

“I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians. They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign. But worst of all — and this deserves to be noted — they insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process.”

(Losing sleep David?)

What?! They lied? They attack ordinary people? (By the way, how do you insult an idea?) They denied ordinary people have a role in our poltical process?!

Yup. Can’t you hear dem boots a marchin’, coming to silence all the ordinary folks…

Actually David, average people found their voice last night.

They found a champion in an average person who has accomplished extraordinary things, without goverment subsidies, without left-wing foundations, without political machines and without entrenched interests — Sarah Palin, a small town American with a big heart and a
record of real accomplishments perfectly complimenting those of John McCain.

This is the real change ticket, the authentic reform agenda: McCain/Palin.

David, if you are trying to refashion the debate, trying to deny the wild popularity of McCain/Palin, you might as well try making water run up hill. Your gun is out of bullets David. Hope fades. You are losing the Change argument, you are failing to tie McCain to Bush, the inexperience argument launched in your direction got renewed traction last night, and on the issues, well, you have a big problem there too.

The economy. You mean the economy that slowed substantially because of liberal government policies in the lending markets, liberal energy policies denying us development of domestic sources for 30 years, and liberal policies causing a 40% increase in spending along with tax increases?

Let’s not forget to talk about the war on terrorism and our defeat in Iraq, you know, the war for oil.

Conservatives and average Americans have been villified by the Left for decades. Finally, as one conventioneer rightly said, we have stopped bringing knives to a gun fight.

David, you guys perfected the politics of personal destruction, and now you are getting an aggressive, effective, good humor response. Don’t whine when you lose the debate. Don’t sneer and resort to losing tactics — demonizing the opposition, crying foul, calling people liars, ridiculing our countrymen.

Encouraging rage in your constituency is a poor substitute for genuine inspiration, the province of the Republicans.

You Dems never learn.

If you’re going to hammer the opposition, do it with a smile and a laugh, do it with humor and class and good will. People love that. They will gravitate to you.

But when you hammer your opposition with a grimace, and a sneer, with arrogant personal attacks, displaying your contempt and hatred, it pushes voters away.

You’ll deny it, but you guys savaged Palin for five days.

Last night, she nailed you and your pals in the media, and she did it with such rhetorical flourish, you’ve come unglued. We get it: it is traumatic getting hit by a train just when you thought you had this thing in the bag.

We must have been watching different events on TV last night David. You saw negative attack squads and cyncial, lying politicians.

I saw a bunch of ordinary Americans celebrating traditional American values. I saw the beginning of a conservative renaissance in this country. I saw a huge crowd of very positive, enthusiastic and hopeful people engaging in debate with razor sharp wit and good humor, people avoiding personal attacks (unlike others we know), giving credit where due, but in good offensive terms, playing by the rules and fighting in a time and place, “of their own choosing.” I saw an intelligent and tremendously effective counter-assault, and the vast majority of people agree.

Sarah was brilliant: charming, intelligent, tough, yet feminine. I didn’t expect her to raise the dead but she sure as hell gave sight to the blind. From now on, Obama will have trouble gathering a few loaves and fishes. She was clear, authentic, enthusiastic and articulate on topics ranging from domestic and energy policy, to foreign policy and the economy and taxation. Most importantly, she connects with people and inspires them a la Reagan. She did a wonderful job contrasting McCain and Obama as well.

One of her best upper cuts came when she said:

“The American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of ‘personal discovery.’ This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn’t just need an organizer.”

You know full well she not only energizes evangelicals, she persuaded a ton of women and independent voters last night. When evangelicals get off their butts and actually vote, Republicans win, every time, and now, joined by substantial numbers of Hillary
supporters and independents, you can understand why we see a raging wild fire of despair in bleeding hearts across the land.

Rudy simply destroyed Obama on the experience and judgment issues, not to mention national security and foreign policy. Rudy pointed out Obama has

“never run a city. He’s never run a state. He’s never run a business. He’s never run a military unit. He’s never had to lead people in crisis. He is the least experienced candidate for president of the United States in at least the last 100 years. Not a personal attack, a statement of fact. Barack Obama has never led anything, nothing, nada. Nada, nothing.”

Huckabee was gracious, both in lauding the McCain/Palin ticket, highlighting their qualifications, and in politely asserting Obama is not up to the task.

Mitt nailed it on the economy, and Linda delivered rousing endorsements, another executive class act, another uppity woman who dares contradict Leftist definitions of womanhood.

Mitt, Mike, Linda, Rudy and Sarah enjoyed a rollicking time last night, and if the reviews are accurate, Republicans have taken the field and will likely hold it. All the speakers elevated McCain in serious and distinctive and credible ways.

If you think the majority of Americans perceived last night’s events according to your vision, I think your state of denial has now morphed into delusion, a very flimsy foundation from which to build a new campaign strategy, because without one, you are burned toast baby.

McCain is a true American hero with a real record of service and reform. He possesses outstanding, incomparable credentials to be President. There is absolutely no question about this. The questions about Obama’s readiness are many, legitimate and relevant. It is not negative, cynical or dishonest to raise these questions.

Palin radiates executive confidence. Biden seems like your grumpy old uncle, somebody to avoid because you know if he corners you, he’ll talk your ear off, with a vengeance.

Protest if you will, but there is no comparison between community organizing and serving as governor, no comparison between self-promotion and selfless servanthood, no comparison between a hero and a orator with good intentions, none, nada, zero.

No wonder you are losing sleep.

One factor that the clueless mainstream media overlooked in dissing John McCain’s choice of running mate — he wasn’t doing well with the gun vote, and there are eighty million gun owners in the United States. Now all that has changed.

Michael Bane sums it up quite nicely:

The Recast Race

It’s a new horse race, and we in the gun culture are now in it up to our necks.

Two things happened last week to recast the Presidential election in a new, and for all of us clearer, light. The first is obviously John McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his VP choice. Not to pat myself on the back, but I have said publicly for months that Palin would be a superb choice not just for her conservative/libertarian credentials, but because McCain needed desperately to shore up the gun vote. Put simply, no modern Republican has ever been elected to the Presidency without our vote…think George H.W. Bush. We stayed home and we got Bill Clinton….

…there is a difference between grudging support and a willingness to get out and beat the bushes for votes. …it was clear that a large majority of the gun vote remained in the “grudging” cagtegory.

The choice of Sarah Palin certainly shocked and electrifed me and seems to have had the same effect on the whole of the gun vote. In one swipe McCain has gone from grudging to ga-ga; the troops are rallying and we will march toward November….

The second point that has been somewhat overshadowed by the Palin frenzy is Barack Obama specifically bringing up “assault weapons” in his coronation speech in Denver Thursday evening….

With that simple statement Obama blew up two years of Democratic Party glad-handing on gun issues, their insistance throughout the primary campaign that either guns were not on the table or that Dems had “seen the light”….

Coupled with the choice of Joe Biden, another “F” NRA rating and one of the architects of the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban, Obama’s acceptance statement, made to the cheering, now-in-total control Far Left wing of the Democratic Party, tells us exactly what’s on the Democratic agenda for January 2009….

The left wing of the Democratic Party has dreamed of door-to-door confiscations of guns since Nelson T. “Pete” Shields outlned the gun control agenda in 1976 in the New Yorker Magazine:
“Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal.” We are one vote away from Pete Shields’ nightmarish dream becoming a reality….

But we have the opportunity, the one chance, to derail the gun-grabbers’ agenda, to end the fight before it begins, on Tuesday, November 4. Once again, it’s time for us to stand.

The National Journal agrees:

Palin May Be NRA’s Best Ammo
Lifetime Member And Avid Hunter Palin Will Help Rally Gun Owners

By now, millions of Americans have seen photos of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin testing weapons while visiting members of the Alaska National Guard in Kuwait.

But it wouldn’t be surprising if millions more in battleground states get to see similar pictures soon — plus appearances by Palin herself — in states where gun rights are a big issue, courtesy of the National Rifle Association’s fat $40 million budget for this year’s elections and parallel plans by the McCain campaign to deploy Palin where gun owners are numerous.

When John McCain plucked Palin, a lifetime NRA member and an enthusiastic hunter, from relative obscurity to be his No. 2, the NRA found new ammunition for its already expensive drive to bar Barack Obama from the White House….

Even before Palin was tapped, the NRA had planned a hefty get-out-the-vote drive in about a dozen states, particularly such Midwestern swing states as Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Similarly, the McCain campaign is also keen on deploying Palin in these and other states where gun rights and hunting resonate with voters, according to a senior McCain aide. The McCain campaign looks forward to sending Palin to battleground states “in the heartland, where 2nd Amendment rights are particularly treasured”….

Check out this website — GunBaNObama.

Obama voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sports shooting. (United States Senate, vote no. 217, S. 397, July 29, 2005)

Obama voted to uphold local gun bans and the criminal prosecution of people who use firearms in self-defense. (Illinois Senate, SB 2165, vote 20, March 25, 2004)

In his only two votes on confirming Supreme Court nominees, Obama voted against two of the five justices (Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito) who later affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

Our freedom loving country as we know it now hangs in the balance. By choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, McCain has given us a clear choice.

Tail wag: Black Powder Bill

Sarah Palin gave an outstanding speech at the Republican National Convention. Listening to the television commentators and reading the mainstream media following the event, one would have thought we listened to a different speech. They were grasping at straws to find fault, or hoping that since she had “a long way to go” she would slip up later on in the campaign.

In the United Kingdom, the press doesn’t “have a horse in this race.” So it is intereting to see the unabashed approval in their coverage. One might also note that their sexism, if they had any, was ameliorated by the highly successful incumbency of Margaret Thatcher. From The Sun we get a completely different perspective:

Palin strikes back at critics

A WEEK ago nobody had ever heard of her. Today she is the most talked-about woman in the world. And with good reason.

Sarah Palin’s sensational performance at the Republican Party Convention may turn out to be the tipping point of this rollercoaster American election.

Obama fans hoping she would fluff her big night were in for a nasty shock.

This speech has turned the election upside down. It was simply stunning.

Democrats and their Lefty media backers had been sneering that she was a small town nobody, a hick from the Alaskan sticks put into a job way beyond an inexperienced woman.

Believe me, you will not be hearing that again.

Palin turned out to be an electrifying mix of intelligence, passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking.

Full of self-assurance and aggression, she popped Barack’s balloon big-time.

From the moment she walked on stage in this cavernous bear pit, bandbox smart in cream jacket, trim black skirt and black heels, she proved that John McCain knew exactly what he was doing when he picked her as running mate….

Enjoy!

The 2008 election has been one surprise after another. Who would have believed a week ago that Gov. Sarah Pallin would be the new star in town?

Someone wrote some great lines and she delivered them beautifully:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.

I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

She nailed Obama! Try this one:

But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform – not even in the state senate.

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word “victory” except when he’s talking about his own campaign.

Great job! This lady is one heck of a candidate!

P.S. What was Obama’s response? His staff said that Palin was talking like Bush! I get the feeling that the Obama people are still running against Bush. They should get ready to run against McCain-Palin!