Don't forget the endless Bed Time For Bonzo commercials either.
Posted on 12/13/2009 10:20:05 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Sarah Palin. Need I say more?
Buoyed by a ubiquitous autumn, she has cemented her status as a brand that excites and exasperates, titillates and polarizes. Sort of like Madonna.
Jackson Browne, the singer-songwriter, once penned the lyric, "I don't care about Madonna/ Or the next thing she might do." The Republicans don't have that luxury. In the early jockeying for the 2012 presidential race, everything Palin does is potentially consequential. Nobody else in the GOP can touch her skills as a performance artist who plucks the requisite populist chords. The big question is whether it would be wise or ruinous to nominate her.
This is a new kind of dilemma for the Republicans, who are hierarchal by nature. They typically choose nominees who have paid their dues. John McCain was hardly a consensus party figure, but he was next in line. Bob Dole in 1996 was next in line. The senior George Bush in 1988 was next in line. So was Ronald Reagan in 1980, given his close loss in the '76 primaries. The younger George Bush in 2000 was deemed next in line because of his party establishment connections and pedigree.
Palin is something else entirely; establishment Republicans haven't quite figured out how to deal with her. They respect her gift for connecting with what she calls "regular Americans," but there are millions of hostile "irregular" Americans roaming the land, enough to make her a landslide loser. And there's something a tad weird about her newfangled habit of posting simplicities on Facebook.
Still, who else in the wide-open Republican field can generate so much buzz? Who else inspires such visceral, inchoate devotion? Among her fans - the kind of folks who would flood the Iowa caucuses in the winter of 2012 - she is essentially critic-proof, much like a badly written best-selling pulp novel. The more she is attacked for lack of substance, the more they love her. The more she is successfully fact-checked by the "elite," the tighter the ties with those who feel similarly aggrieved.
She has said some ludicrous things lately, at least by conventional standards. On a conservative radio show, she bonded with the wing nuts on the phony issue about President Obama's place of birth, declaring that "it's a fair question" to wonder whether he was born on American soil. And in a guest newspaper column, she bonded with the global-warming-denial crowd, insisting that "we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes."
It's probably futile to point out that, during the '08 campaign, Palin said the opposite, that man does cause weather changes. As she explained it (English students, do not attempt to diagram this sentence): "You know there are, there are man's activities that can be contributed to the issues that we're dealing with now, these impacts." But all attempts to hold her accountable are routinely dismissed by her fan base as persecution.
She is impervious to the rules that bind her more conventional rivals, and Republicans do find that intriguing. For evidence, look no further than the Gallup poll. Last month, 58 percent of Republicans nationwide said that Palin was qualified to be president. And yet, in the same poll, 65 percent of Republicans said they would "seriously consider" supporting her for president.
Think about that one: A sizable share of Republicans might actually support a prospective nominee whom they recognize to be fundamentally deficient. Perhaps this is easily explained. Many conservatives are congenitally hostile to government, so perhaps it's a logical next step to "seriously consider" someone who is ill-suited to perform the onerous, complex tasks of governance.
Indeed, within the "tea party" movement, Palin is lauded not for her credentials but for who she is perceived to be. She is regular folks. She shares their resentments, gives voice to their grievances. In this sense, she is eerily reminiscent of Richard Nixon, the scrappy kid born of humble origins who made a career of politicizing resentments, inveighing against the elite Eastern establishment that sought (in his telling) to keep him down. Today, none of Palin's rivals can match her Nixonesque ties to the "tea party" voters who will be crucial to the GOP's prospects in 2012.
The Nixon simile, however, is imperfect. Unlike Palin, who quit her day job two years before completion, Nixon logged 14 years in Washington before he ever ran for president, and by the time he was finally elected, he was already fluent in the nuances of foreign policy. And as skilled as he was at wooing the aggrieved members of the Republican base, he won two national races by capturing the swing voters in the center.
Today, Republican leaders are reluctant to publicly voice their private concerns about Palin's low ceiling; in the aforementioned Gallup poll, only 28 percent of independents deem her qualified to govern. Her birther remarks certainly won't boost that number. Nor will her remarks on global warming. And I doubt that independents will be charmed by her father's recollection of why she quit the first of her four colleges, in Hawaii. He recently told the New Yorker that the Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: "They were a minority-type thing and it wasn't glamorous."
The typical GOP tactic these days is to treat Palin with infinite care, as one would a live grenade. When Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour - a former national chairman, Washington lobbyist, establishment fixture, and possible '12 hopeful - was recently asked on MSNBC whether he thought she was qualified to be president, he replied with the utmost caution: "Well, constitutionally, she sure is."
That was hardly a raving endorsement; rather, Barbour's remark reflected the party's unease about the tough task ahead, its crying need to tap into Palin's grassroots energy - without necessarily putting her in charge. This will be a long and delicate mission, all while waiting breathlessly for the next thing she might do.
*******
E-mail Dick Polman at dpolman@phillynews.com.
All true.
So was Ronald Reagan in 1980
Reagan did not inherit the nomination, he won it, period.
Dick Polman. Enough said.
“ubiquitous autumn” ?
“excites and exasperates”?
Are these people in the moron, idiot or Liberal category? They talk like patients in a high security mental facility.
Don't forget the endless Bed Time For Bonzo commercials either.
“It’s probably futile to point out that, during the ‘08 campaign, Palin said the opposite, that man does cause weather changes. As she explained it (English students, do not attempt to diagram this sentence): “You know there are, there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, these impacts.” But all attempts to hold her accountable are routinely dismissed by her fan base as persecution.”
The sentence fits Barack better: “It’s probably futile to point out that, during the ‘08 campaign, Obama said the opposite, that his would be an administration of transparency. As he explained it (English students, do not attempt to diagram this sentence): “You know, uh, there are, there are things that - uh - activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, these impacts.” But all attempts to hold him accountable are routinely dismissed by his fan base as persecution.”
Puzzled Without a Clue. That should be the GOP’s official theme phrase.
Yes, Dick, you do. And this wasn’t it.
Here’s another one:
Palin is not qualified for public office
http://www.rgj.com/article/20091213/COL06/912130339/1003/CARSON/Cory-Farley-Palin-is-not-qualified-for-public-office
I know this sounds repetitive as I am in Palin-friendly online territory here, but I can’t help but be continually irked by “conservatives” who underestimate her...I mean we all know why liberals don’t like her—but even the worst critics from that side are smart enough to know it’s because Palin is a threat.
Do people STILL not see the obvious from the campaign last year? That she was being mishandled by the McCain campaign? that Katie Couric was being annoying and that the interview was edited with an agenda and was WAY OVERBLOWN? *I am still boggled as to why people feel one has pass through Katie Couric to be a good president.* Don’t people remember that Palin was able to hold her own in a debate against a multi-term senator like Biden? (and she was in no ways showing the best she can do there either.)
WHy was it SO difficult for people to USE the internet and actually DO research on Palin? People, even now, (including her supporters) do not know about her record in Alaska, or how to defend her experience, nor how to counter the numerous rumors and lies that still permeate people’s consciousness: that she bans books, that she was too dumb to finish college, that she’s racist, that Alaska is a piece of dirt?! (Don’t they see that someone from Alaska might actually know a bit about polar bears and climate change and energy firsthand?) etc...Lies. Lies. Lies.
And of course Barack Obama did not go through ANY of the vetting or interrogation the way Palin has. And why did he do well in Katie Couric-type interviews? WELL maybe because whie Palin was WORKING AS GOVERNOR and DOING HER JOB, Obama spent his entire 2 years REHEARSING for the presidential campaign! (not to mention his interviewers worshipped him!)
To this day, you can tell Obama’s having a hard time adjusting to actually HAVING the job rather than vying for it and intellectualizing about it.If he were actually being a LEADER and not in campaign mode, this country would stop focusing on 2012. (I feel like I hear more about 2012 than 2010.)
Anyhow back to Palin: while going on Conan is fine and even necessary, I hope she makes a habit of writing her op-eds, doing interviews about serious policy matters. (She should go on Fox News Sunday for example to discuss energy policy.)-— and writing detailed and challenging facebook notes exposing the current administration for what it really is.
Okay I’m done venting.
“successfully fact check” = Liberally smear, insinuate, malign, libel, slander, denigrate, ridicule, and outright LIE about her.
” but there are millions of hostile “irregular” Americans roaming the land, enough to make her a landslide loser.” .................................... Yeah, we know, they want Romney and Huck to run, that’s their winning ticket! (For the left’s “Landslide”) Keep it up Sarah; “I love the sound of exploding heads in the morning!” ;^)
Describing Romney as George Hamilton without the fun ... PERFECT!!!
The Kenyan guy needs to go home to Africa
Take the weirdos with him
SARAH, YOU MAGNIFICENT WENCH. I READ YOUR BOOK!!!!!! (tip of the hat to all you George C. Scott/Patton fans).
Sarah went after the power structure in her town, and then as Governor, the corrupt power ( Republican ) good O’l boy at the State.
The Federal Republicans in and around Washington are nervous that she, unbeholden to them, and with a record of going after sweethearts and their lovers at the government trough, might get elected.
GOP/RNC big boys for big government, big favors, big money and let the non big pay the taxes....forever. ( yeah, yeah I know, every now and the they like Saddam at a school opening, trow the peasants a bone. Whoop-de-do. )
There are, Dick?
The incumbent "president" has a negative nineteen in the Rasmussen approval index, which for him is becoming "regular". Mainly because he is a socialist.
This is a conservative country, Dick.
Palin, great, yes, fine. But remember that Palin grew up in and LIVES in a world far more masculine than most women. I am the same way, and it's why I identify with her so well. But that doesn't blind me to the fact -- if anything, it makes me MORE mindful of the fact -- that women reason, behave, think, and respond very differently than men, and women like Palin (and me! -- i.e., women whose eary influences were heavily dominated by the male side of things) are the exception only because our most profound influences were men rather than women; we are still women at heart and subject to all the strengths and weaknesses of being female. Women are VERY different from men. It is hard-wired.
More isn't necessarily better, and seeking "more" women in the potential presidential ticket is sabotage.
PALIN/BACHMANN 2012!
One can dream!
Dick Polman’s been a knee-jerk liberal Democrat columnist for the Stinky for decades. He fits right in there.
This is just the same old boring drek from that guy.
LOL.
You betcha, he’s an idiot and a wee-weed-up idiot to boot.
She’s untouchable now. She withstood the worst and bested them all and they know it.
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