Gov. Palin delivers in Tulsa

Note to future bookers who are scheduling an event featuring Sarah Palin: make sure she speaks last. For a few reasons I’ll get into momentarily, once Gov. Palin left the stage in Tulsa, about a third of the crowd left with her, even though the event was only half complete. Those who left missed some great moments, the post-Palin highlight being Gretchen Wilson singing Heart’s “Barracuda” to Palin, who apparently was just off-stage.

“I think Gretchen sings Heart better than Heart sings Heart,” one of the women I was with, a Heart fan, commented.

Before getting into the goods, some snapshot observations. First, the crowd spanned the spectrum regarding age – there were as many teens and young twenty-somethings as there were oldsters, a slew of veterans young and old, and yes, most were white. FYI – Oklahoma’s population is 83 percent white, which would explain this as well as why almost all the two dozen peaceful protesters outside the arena were also almost completely white in hue. This doesn’t matter to me, but it does to a lot of people which is why I mention it. Finally, many like to point out that Gov. Palin is much more popular with men than with women – I’d say there were more women in the crowd, and of my party of five, I was the only XY.

We each paid $114 to see Gov. Palin and Glenn Beck speak, and to watch John Rich and Gretchen Wilson perform for the opening leg of the Taking Our Country Back tour, and it was worth every penny. More than three hours in length, the event hit all the major themes naturally expected of fans of Palin and Beck, and Beck was even kind enough to bring his blackboard along. I’m not a Beck fan, but his speech was riveting, humorous, outraged, and although I take exception to his grouping Friederich Nietzsche with Karl Marx, I thought it was a sound and, at times, moving presentation.

Want to know the most curious part about Gov. Palin’s speech? Except for a couple pieces of paper, she employed no teleprompter, no notes on her hand while delivering a 45-minute speech. Not exactly an easy thing to do, even for a politician. Her speech was for the most part smooth, and it hit on most of the topics the audience expected.

The first rule of public speaking is knowing the audience, and Gov. Palin – who talked a great deal about energy, about military service, and about protecting our freedoms – knew her audience. She was applauded throughout, received a long standing ovation at the beginning and the end, and was interrupted constantly by applause. Oklahoma is a huge military state and energy is a large part of our economy – no Obama-style gaffes about the price of arugula. Surprisingly, Gov. Palin invoked Oklahoma’s state motto, Labor Conquers All Things (labor omnia vincit). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Sarah Palin could move to Oklahoma, run for Governor and win in a landslide.

Oklahoma is Palin Country (and quite in love with Beck and country music, of course), as Palin-friendly as can be found, so while Tulsa seems like an odd place to kick off such a tour, it’s actually quite a good fit. For Palin’s part, the only real news was her revealing she’ll be posting on Facebook this week regarding how Pres. Obama is already well underway in breaking his State of the Union pledge to reconsider our nation’s policy on domestic oil exploration.

As she finished speaking, Rich came out and asked the governor to stay for a tribute of the 91 Oklahoma servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (and that it matters too much, but they were all men, most quite young), to which she of course agreed. She was joined on-stage by her daughter Piper, and the most moving (and unexpected) portion of the program began. Backed by a bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace” and a performance of Mariah Carey’s “Hero” the names of each Oklahoma serviceman killed in Iraq and Afghanistan was listed one-by-one. I’m not sentimental by nature, but it was stirring. From my part of the state, two soldiers came from Ardmore, one from Overbook (South Ardmore), one from Madill and one from Kingston. For the last soldier named, his family was brought on-stage and greeted by Rich and Gov. Palin.

A few friends asked me if I didn’t think that tickets were too expensive (our rear section floor seats were $100 face value, with $14 per ticket in fees and taxes added on, while the best seats in the house were $125, the bulk of the seating was well under $100). The only empty seats in the Tulsa Convention Center were the cheapest of the cheap seats. In other words, had there been more “good” seats, there would have been more people. As to whether I thought it was too expensive – nope, not a bit. I didn’t think twice about it once a friend invited me, and apparently no one else in attendance did either. Depending on how good the seats were, I’d pay up to $250 to see Gov. Palin speak, and I’m not wealthy or even upper-middle-class. I saw that Oklahoma media reported there were approximately 5,000 people – my rough estimate was 5,000-6,000. Approximately 90 percent of available seating was filled.

I like what Rich is trying to do with this tour – personally, I think it’s a wonderful idea and my friends and I had a blast. Here are a few things they’ll have to tweak to keep performers joining the event, though. Having Gov. Palin speak in the middle of the event meant that a good chunk of the crowd left as soon as her speech and the fallen soldiers tribute finished. What Rich and Wilson were left with was a stream of people (and the media) leaving halfway through. Rich and Wilson are extremely popular in Oklahoma, so for them I’d think it a bit disheartening to see so many people leaving.

Furthermore, both play country music that is driven by electric guitar, something that does not work very well in the middle of a Saturday afternoon at an event not serving beer. So, you have screaming guitars being played to a seated, measured crowd. My two-cents – very hard to mix 90 minutes of political speaking and 90 minutes of rambunctious country music. Would I attend another one with no change in the format, speakers or performers? Absolutely.

Overall, it was a wonderful afternoon. If you’re a fan of Palin or Beck or a member of the Tea Party movement in general, I couldn’t recommend a better afternoon. After all was said and done, we wound up at Dirty’s Tavern in downtown Tulsa, where Oklahoma State Senator and GOP gubernatorial candidate Randy Brogdon’s campaign was having a party. Brogdon’s campaign was the only Conservative campaign handing out information at the event, and while having never heard of him before Saturday, he came over to our table of five, answered our questions, and most likely won five more votes for his primary.

Note to Conservative politicians and hopefuls in Conservative states: when Sarah Palin comes to town, you can pick up a lot of support just by showing up and doing a bit of retail politicking.