Watch this video of Senator Obama and Governor Palin.
Is this sexism?
No. At least not at first . . .
It does show Obama’s continued struggle with campaign inexperience.
He does not know how to handle a speech that gets away from him. He tends (see Denver) to speak to the audience in front of him and not to the millions more watching on television. Obama listens to himself (see his “uh” habit), his local audience, but not the television audience.
This is a big temptation for any public speaker. The pros know how to let the crowd at the rally wait while speaking calmly for the television audience. Reagan was the master of this as was Bill Clinton. Palin also has television message discipline . . . so far.
Senator Obama, who has never run against a serious non-Democratic opponent, does not have message discipline. He has never faced a foe who did not buy into his general view of reality.
Senator Clinton could not play up certain gaffes, because the world of Democratic primary voters did not view them as gaffes.
What happened to Senator Obama in this clip?
Anyone who speaks a lot knows.
When you give a talk, the crowd becomes part of that talk. They can subtly change the meaning of what you are saying. An experienced speaker knows this and gets ahead of it. I have often experienced saying something I did not mean to be a “slam” and finding my audience roared . . . taking it in a different way than I intended.
Of course, if you are a local nobody (as I am) you might go ahead with your unintentional “genius” and play it up. If you are a candidate for national office, you must immediately monitor the unexpected reaction and ask what it portends for your campaign.
That is what the pros do.
Listen to the audio. The crowd took Obama to be speaking of Palin . . . and made it about Palin by their reaction. They thought he meant Palin as did some in the press. Senator Obama either did not notice (too locked into his own thoughts) or like many speakers felt good about the big local reaction. He went with the crowd flow . . . and an innocent remark turned toxic.
The problem is that Obama allowed it to remain toxic. Obama is not aware of the invisible audience watching on video. He locks in on his interlocutor (see his interview with O’Reilly) and the crowd present. This is a strong skill in little league politics, but can be a fatal weakness in national politics.
That is not good campaigning, but it is not the worst crime in the world. It is, however, how gaffes are made (see poor Ford on captive nations in 1976 for an example). You did not mean to say something, but you were betrayed by a bad formulation of words or by the audience. If you want to be president, then you MUST monitor your every word.
Obama does not seem able to do so and that is big trouble going into the debates.
* What of the other candidates?
Biden and McCain are both “blurters.”
They are likely to suddenly say some off the wall thing. They stay on script and then suddenly “blurt” . . . and a gaffe comes out. McCain speaks less and is so crotchety when he “blurts” that many people write it off to his Grandpa Simpson side. Biden cannot stop talking so blurts hourly. This feeds into his image as an uncontrolled mouth searching for something to say.
So far Palin has been very, very disciplined. She is getting attacked for “robotic focus” but should take this as a compliment and stay robotic on political issues.
Reagan knew (and Palin should know) that when talking about private life, sports, and non-political issues an appealing personality will not be charged with a gaffe. In a political event (as Reagan learned with some costly gaffes), even a joke can go awry.