Sarah Palin and SNL

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sarah-palin-and-hillary-clinton-address-the-nation/n12287

            So for this Blog I chose to write about Sarah Palin’s SNL representation by Tina Fey. This was a running sketch by the writers of SNL and this particular one included Hilary Clinton played by Amy Poehler as well. Palin however was portrayed as an idiot who doesn’t understand what’s happening. One of the first things you might realize is when Palin states that she was so excited to be a part of the address and glad she got to do it with Clinton. Then directly following Clinton said she was told that she was doing it alone and didn’t know about Palin. This just resonates the idea that no one wants to work with Palin assumedly because she is “unintelligent.” Then around a minute in Clinton states that she believes diplomacy is the most important part of foreign policy to which Palin’s portrayal replies with “Well I can see Russia from my house” Ultimately this is poking fun that Palin is from Alaska. I remember when this happened and from what we discussed in class a lot of people actually believed that she said that she could see Russia from her house even though that was never said. It is just continuing to build this idea that she is unintelligent and doesn’t understand what foreign policy is and she believes just because she can see a foreign country means that she will know about that policy. She also said that they came over all the time and they just “shooed them back over” when actuality she never talked about this topic at all. Even though this is all in jest there would be some uneducated voters who don’t understand the difference between satire and actuality who would change this. So even though Palin was actually trying to come off as an educated and worthy VP candidate she was being portrayed as an unintelligent idiot.

            This had a lot of things to do with why people believe she isn’t smart… However Palin allowed things and jokes to be made about her when she winked 4-5 times in her debate to come across as easier to talk to. But this also allowed Saturday Night live to poke more fun at her and it fueled the fire. So I personally believe that this very falsely shaped the view of Palin in the public opinion. While most people understand that it is Satire it is still hard to fight satire with being serious and that is one of the problems that the McCain and Palin campaign had to deal with.

The Problems with Polling for Sarah

            Polling is a very tricky thing, NBC news did a story back before the 2008 election some of the problems with polling. They mention some poll participants /fans of rush Limbaugh saying they want to skew the polls by saying they would give their poll vote to Barak Obama but then on election day give their real vote to John McCain. Also another problem with polls in general is that if they are

done over the phone the majority of the public was not reached. This was right at the dawn of the cell phone era when people were ditching the landlines and switching to just cell phones. So there are many things wrong with polling but they still occur through the phone and online.

            Looking forward now to the 2016 election I have seen only a few that include the Candidate of Sarah Palin on them. In the GOP straw poll race Sarah Palin was listed as an option for people to choose. And then in the GOP poll conducted by Glenn Beck on his website Sarah Palin is listed as the 9^th best option ahead of some names such as, Rick Santorum, Jed Bush and Chris Christie. However upon the look over I had on this poll Ted Cruz was listed as the front-runner for the GOP Candidacy, who is not a national born citizen. Now granted I am having trouble finding the information on if he has some how found a loop hole in this to be able to still run in 2016 but as of now it appears to me that the front runner in this poll isn’t even a viable candidate.

            Now onto other polls I have had a hard time locating Sarah Palin on any of these. The Washington Times reported on a poll and Palin was not in the top 10 and wasn’t even mentioned in the article. Also on the Huff post Pollster Palin again was not in the list of 15. That pollster tracks 69 polls and compiles all of the information into one poll for ease of viewing. Some of these polls included are CNN, Fox, and ABC/Post. There are many other polls that also do not include Palin and if they have at one point it appears to me like she has dropped off as of late.

Because of this I feel that drop off I feel like she is not going to be able to make a strong push

in the polls or even in the primary election. I think the fact she is not taken seriously by a large portion of the United states is a big factor in her not making recent polls. I think for her to make a push she needs to not only announce as soon as possible that she is running but also make it known in debates and through other forms of communication that she is a serious contender. I personally worry that there is already to much damage done.

Analysis of "Why ‘Drill, baby, Drill’ was right”

So the piece of political communication I will be writing about will be Sarah Palin’s blog post “Why ‘Drill, baby, Drill’ was right” in which she both proves a point in how she was right with the idea to “drill our way into lower gas prices” and also how Obama is now boasting about it even though one of his platforms was against drilling in 2008.

            The first thing that you would notice in this is the fact that it is definitely written by Palin. There is a tone that you can almost hear Palin (or Tina Fey if that’s the train of thought you subscribe to) speaking the words. Another reason I believe that it was written by Palin is there are times when there are errors. These errors are not in the writing but in the way that it is formatted. In the second paragraph there is a return in between “the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas” and “produced its billionth barrel of oil.” While these are very small errors they are something that I notice and distract me quite a bit. However this might just be the journalist in me. 

            In this Blog she then goes onto site the state of the union by Obama this year where she praised the people who have made us “free from the grip of foreign oil as we’ve been in almost 30 years.” But she brings up that in Miami three years ago he said, “We can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.” So this gives her a feel of being on the attacking side. This is just the start of the blog though.

            She then goes on, as any proud Alaskan would, to say how the Alaskans have been saying that drilling for our natural gasses is the only thing to lower gasoline prices and they have been dealing with the frustrations. She believes the biggest frustrations for the Alaskans are dealing with people in DC and trying not to “Piss away” another oil boom if it is to happen. She does sound very natural but at the same time I feel to an older conservative this would come across as a negative, but personally I think as a younger person that this style is something I like.

            She also describes the energy sector as “the star athlete” and those in DC “scrambling on the sidelines, unaware of how to react” which can really come across as demeaning and almost insulting.

            I think if she were to make a presidential run she would need to keep the same if not just similar message but learn how to express these points in a more professional and respectful way. While she does make a good point about how her policy for the energy sector and the oil industry was right it just came off a bit un-nerving to me.

http://www.sarahpac.com/why-drill-baby-drill-was-right/

Sarah Palin's Social media uses and internet presence

        Sarah Palin appears to be actually one of the more involved politicians on social media and online in general. Sarah Palin does have a website which I have talked about before . The website has actually changed since last week so included in this post I have put a short clip of what the page looks like now . Instead of just a picture of Capital Hill as a “Cover photo” she has now added a bald eagle, and bear catching salmon, her holding a baby, you know everything that screams America that rolls through at the top. But also on this page she has links to all sorts of things, including videos and articles she likes. But one of these area’s however is actually a rolling feed from her twitter and then links to her on Twitter, Facebook, and even Pinterest. She in fact has a Pinterest account with titles such as “The people I fight for” where she post things about American heroes, also “Mama Grizzly and her cubs” under this section it’s titled meet the Palin's. I feel this is a unique take for a politician and it makes her a lot more accessible I feel, which is an image she has always had.

        However her social media has also gotten her in trouble. According to NYDailynews.com she also can be somewhat oblivious about what she posts and this could get her in some trouble. On the first of the year this year she posted a picture on Facebook that had her son, Trig, stepping on the back of the family dog in order to reach the sink and help with dishes. Her message of this post was to say that he is using what he has available to overcome an obstacle.
        Trig is diagnosed with down syndrome but he was determined to help with the dishes that day. But this ended up blowing up in her face with comments such as, “Poor dog. And how exactly is the dog supposed to get up, with a seventy or more pound kid on his spine?” This is something she should work on in the future elections.

        Palin also has her own online TV station called sarahpalinchannel.com in which she post what appear to be a daily episode for her followers to watch. There are several sub-titles on this page including America, and Obama. This is just another way she has boosted her online presence even more.

        So she is not only active on the the traditional social media sites, Facebook and Twitter, but she has also used Pinterest to reach a more broad audience and has even created her own channel rather than using a Youtube video she now can post what ever she wants on her own page. I think however moving forward into the next election she will need to be more carful about what she post on these because her image is already being damaged with things she has said in person she doesn’t need to harm it even more with things she writes on social media. And as for any question about Viral videos of Sarah Palin there are way to many to write about in this blog but my personal favorites are Tina Fey’s impersonation done on Saturday Night live. Thanks for reading so here’s a video of one of the SNL sketches.