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The end of Sarah Palin: An Obama-era-novelty. As O's tenure ends, so does career of Sarah Barracuda
The Week ^ | April 29, 2014 | Michael Brendan Dougherty

Posted on 04/29/2014 7:20:30 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

After this weekend, it's probably safe to say that Sarah Palin is done. Like Jesse Ventura or Ross Perot, she may show up every once in a while to hurl red meat or use stunt cameos to remind us a little of her awkward charms. But recent events seem to confirm that she is an Obama-era novelty politician — and not much else.

First she gave a speech to the NRA in which she joked that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists, offending people who otherwise make up her base. Next, Robert Costa reported on the ever-smaller crowds that have been greeting Palin in Iowa.

When Palin took the stage at the Hy-Vee Conference Center under a banner that read "Heels On, Gloves Off" on Sunday at an event for Senate candidate Joni Ernst, the ballroom was half-full, with a couple hundred attendees scattered in clumps. [Washington Post]

If the politically engaged seem bored with Obama, they have all but forgotten Sarah Barracuda, the manqué of anti-Obama populism. After years of halting appearances on Fox News, gaffes about Russia, and a parody by Tina Fey that nearly eclipsed the original, it may be hard to remember the whirlwind national introduction to Sarah Palin, which culminated in her galvanic speech to the Republican National Convention in 2008. Sarah Palin wasn't a joke back then — she was a live threat. In a few days, with the help of an ace stylist, an ace speechwriter, and sheer novelty, Sarah Palin almost transformed that election.

It later became a reason to knock Palin's vanity and ambition, but Lisa Kline's work as a stylist gave Palin a frontier glamor — that red leather jacket, the military-cut coats — that put starbursts in commentator's eyes. She was an idealized image of a hockey-mom governor from the endless Alaskan wild. Obama was new, but cool and aloof. Sarah seemed relatable and engaging.

Until the introduction of Sarah Palin, the 2008 election had been almost entirely framed as one of "change" vs. "experience." But speechwriter Matthew Scully must have discerned a kind of frontier populism in her accent, history, and politics, and wrote a convention speech that gave the election a completely different cast.

Here's how CNN summed up the speech:

She slammed Obama for "saying one thing in Scranton and another in San Francisco," argued that he had written two memoirs but never authored a major piece of legislation, and asked what he would do "when those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot," a reference to the stage where Obama gave his acceptance speech last week. [CNN]

My personal favorite line was this: "The American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of 'personal discovery.'" You could almost hear that punch landing.

Palin gave what many in the Republican base had been craving all along. It was no longer McCain's long résumé against Obama's promise of change — it was a more primal election of "us" versus "them." She humblebragged, "I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment.... I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion."

And there on that convention stage we saw a preview of the "summer of rage" over Obama's health-care reform and the Tea Party rebellion of 2010.

For Republicans in 2008, alas, it became apparent that the McGovern presidential coalition had waxed in the past 40 years, while the Nixon coalition had waned. And for Palin, it's basically been all downhill since the convention: Saturday Night Live, a disaster interview with Katie Couric, an election loss, a boring reality television show, a number of her endorsed candidates flaming out, a clash with Roger Ailes, and one too many appearances on Fox News in which she seemed on populist autopilot or totally anodyne.

My theory is that Palin will have trouble finding a niche in the post-Obama world. She was the right minoritarian foil for the White House. The president is a brainy, cool-tempered, wonkish Hawaiian; he is a bit like the man from nowhere. Palin was slashing, heated, and defiantly Alaskan.

As his administration comes up more and more lame, what role will Palin play? Maybe none at all. The Obama-Palin dynamic may go down as a Pacific Ocean holiday from the Clinton-Bush rivalry that is the natural embodiment of our two-party, two-family American political system.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: fail; hesafag; obama; palin; sarahpalin
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

He even looks like a sphincter


41 posted on 04/29/2014 7:42:54 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (Operating out of weakness? Imagine if he was working from a position of strength!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

??? I don’t understand his theory.

She endorsed Rand Paul, he doesn’t give her any credit for that.
Maybe he will be POTUS in three years.

Then the writer will be eating crow.

BAWHAHAHA


42 posted on 04/29/2014 7:43:59 PM PDT by sickoflibs (Obama : 'You can keep your doctor if you want. I never tell a lie ')
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To: Oberon

Yeah. I don’t expect her to run for anything either. She’s not the kind who would want to subject her husband and children to another trashing by the commie pig ‘RATS in Barry’s state controlled “media”. She’ll continue hurting the communists by remaining in the role of a bomb thrower.


43 posted on 04/29/2014 7:45:18 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Obama's smidgens are coming home to roost.)
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To: Army Air Corps; Sarah Barracuda; onyx; Abbeville Conservative; abigailsmybaby; afnamvet; ...
Ask and you Shall Receive Ping to Sarah's List!~

I was still debating whether or not ping this thread. But some of you already have some great comments.

You remind me why we keep Sarah's List!~

FReepers Rock!


44 posted on 04/29/2014 7:46:01 PM PDT by KC_Lion (Build the America you want to live in at your address, and keep looking up.- Sarah Palin)
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To: Yollopoliuhqui

Post-it note messages at gas stations, grocery shelves, locker rooms and etc. work well, too.


45 posted on 04/29/2014 7:46:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I will raise $2M for Cruz and/or Palin's next run, what will you do?)
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To: G Larry; KC_Lion; 2ndDivisionVet
WHO the hell was “offended” by the waterboarding joke?

Not I nor a single member of my just-concluded Tuesday night Bible study and prayer group meeting at a very Conservative church of Christ congregation where most of us, including the preacher, bring our guns even to Sunday services. To a man, Governor Sarah Palin is loved and we all want her to become the next president. She'll restore the Biblical values that made this Republic great!

As for waterboarding, even if it is torture, so what? American's enemies must be dealt with brutally so that they live in perpetual fear of a mighty nation's righteous wrath. I for one didn't bat an eye over the whole faux outrage involving Abu Ghraib. Since Governor Palin was for Newt Gingrich back in 2012, I'm reminded of his great line during the debates about how to deal with America's enemies:

KILL THEM!

Go Sarah go!


46 posted on 04/29/2014 7:46:15 PM PDT by re_nortex (DP - that's what I like about Texas)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"As O's tenure ends"

...and hopefully his prison term begins.
47 posted on 04/29/2014 7:49:03 PM PDT by clearcarbon
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Dang. Now it's got me wanting to watch "Unstoppable."

My favorite train movie ever, watching that locomotive blast through derailers like they were dust.

48 posted on 04/29/2014 7:49:29 PM PDT by Finny (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. -- Psalm 119:105)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“First she gave a speech ... offending people who otherwise make up her base.”

A member of the media trying to determine when Tea Party folks and Christian conservatives should be offended? What a load of garbage. I haven’t seen anyone other than liberals offended by it, and they would have been offended no matter what she said. Garbage.


49 posted on 04/29/2014 7:49:38 PM PDT by cdcdawg (Be seeing you...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The president is a brainy, cool-tempered, wonkish Hawaiian

Worst. President. Ever.

50 posted on 04/29/2014 7:49:53 PM PDT by Tonytitan
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The end of Sarah Palin: An Obama-era-novelty. As O’s tenure ends, so does career of Sarah Barracuda

(Title)

After this weekend, it’s probably safe to say that Sarah Palin is done. …

(First sentence)
Oh great; the title/body disconnect again. C’mon, libs; honesty really is the best policy.
51 posted on 04/29/2014 7:50:04 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“The president is a brainy, cool-tempered, wonkish Hawaiian; he is a bit like the man from nowhere.
_________________________________________________________

No, Mr. dough for a brain. The illegal POTUS is not a brainy, cool tempered man from Hawaii. He is, however, most likely an illegal immigrant Marxist from Kenya.


52 posted on 04/29/2014 7:50:15 PM PDT by AlexW
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To: Norm Lenhart

I think it was family-related.

I believe she decided to pass last time around, at the last moment.

Things will have either changed by next time around, or she will have decided not to run.

Either way, we won’t know for at least another year I think.


53 posted on 04/29/2014 7:50:27 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2013)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“Rent-free, as they say.”

BTTT


54 posted on 04/29/2014 7:50:48 PM PDT by sayfer bullets (“I didn’t leave the [---] party, the [---] party left me.” - Ronald Reagan)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Hahah... He’d LOVE to believe his own bilge, wouldn’t he...


55 posted on 04/29/2014 7:52:13 PM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; All

I’m not a Sarah Palin fan, but even I’ve got to call BS on this article.

her comment “Waterboarding is how we Baptize terrorists” offended her base? Yeah, right, heck, that one comment actually made me like her.

Still think she’s got as much hope of being President as a snowballs chance in Hell, but after that comment, I’d vote for her.


56 posted on 04/29/2014 7:53:05 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: clearcarbon

Or his first term as General Secretary of the United Nations.


57 posted on 04/29/2014 7:53:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I will raise $2M for Cruz and/or Palin's next run, what will you do?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

No, it’s ‘off the rails’ for this one.


58 posted on 04/29/2014 7:53:33 PM PDT by txhurl
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To: Cringing Negativism Network

Could be. May well been part of a few things. But I think the subject from my post was a part as well.


59 posted on 04/29/2014 7:54:06 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart (How's that 'lesser evil' workin' out for ya?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Actually good publicity for Palin - as always Liberals overplay their hands (even though they have no idea why). The base is excited!


60 posted on 04/29/2014 7:54:23 PM PDT by Deagle (ues)
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