Palin's New Target: San Francisco

By Suzanne Smalley  

Sarah Palin knows the way to the hearts of conservative Ohioans. In Lakewood, an affluent bedroom community 10 minutes from downtown Cleveland, Palin on Monday married two of her favorite attacks into one anti-Obama soliloquy that framed the Illinois senator as a creature of San Francisco--a city as hated by Republican voters for its congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, as it is for being an overall bastion of liberalism. The crowd responded to Palin's enthusiastic attacks and promise of victory, at one point interrupting her to chant over and over, "We will win!"

Palin reminded the crowd of several hundred that San Francisco was the venue for Obama's remarks this spring that rural Americans cling to guns and religion because they are bitter. What a coincidence, then, that Obama was also in the City by the Bay when he disclosed that under a cap and trade plan he supports, polluters who disregard carbon emissions could "bankrupt" the coal industry. (Incidentally, John McCain also supports cap and trade, a program that would charge polluters for carbon emissions, giving companies financial incentives to reduce pollution). "There must be something about San Francisco," Palin said. "It's like a truth serum where when he's there he seems to be more candid. Remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the Klingons, all of us, I guess, you know holding onto religion and guns."

The linking of Obama's January remarks about the coal industry with his comments about bitter rural Americans at a San Francisco fundraiser this spring, represents a departure for Palin, whose speeches tend to be extremely repetitive. After Palin's new attack on Obama's comments about the coal industry back in January provided a much-needed jolt on Sunday, joking about San Francisco became the topic du jour on the press plane Monday. (Though Obama's comments about coal have been publicly available on the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle for more than nine months, they have only made their way onto conservative blogs in the part 48 hours, raising questions about the competence of McCain's opposition research department, among other things).

Palin has long featured San Francisco congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a favorite conservative target, in her stump speech. Rep. Barney Frank, one of the very few openly gay members in Congress, is also a favorite (even though he lives on the other side of the country, in Massachussetts), and mentions of both of them almost always generate boos. Monday was no different as Palin sought to emphasize what she sees as the dangers of one-party rule. "Barney Frank," Palin told the crowd in Lakewood, "according to him, the leadership, what's gonna happen, the first thing on the chopping block, one of the first things to go, will be one quarter of your U.S. defense budget. … Please let us not entrust all the powers of your federal government to the one-party rule of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid."

Palin has frequently assailed congressional Democrats for being soft on defense, but today in Jefferson City, Mo., she escalated her rhetoric, asking of Democrats in Congress: “Do they think that terrorists have all of a sudden become the good guys and changed their minds? No, the terrorists still seek to destroy America and her allies and all that it is that we stand for: freedom, tolerance, equality. The terrorists have not changed their minds.”

The only group on the receiving end of more bashing than San Francisco liberals was the media. As the press filed through the crowd in Jefferson City--the second stop in a six-city sprint that will take Palin to the swing states of Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado in less than 12 hours Monday--the taunting started with people telling reporters to try and be fair for a change. Minutes later, country singer Hank Williams took the stage and crooned, "Left-wing American media, always a close knit family," before going on to compliment Palin. The lyric that got the most laughs--and the biggest reaction from Palin had particular resonance given the attention that has been paid to Palin's pregnant teenage daughter. "If you mess with her cubs, she's gonna take off the gloves. That's an American female tradition!"