Sarah Palin's Presidential Ambitions

Will Sarah Palin run for President? That's one of the most intriguing questions in politics today.

Here's my definitive, unequivocal answer: yes and no.

Actually, that's my definitive, unequivocal answer to the question: "Does Sarah Palin want to be president?"

To understand Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions, it's important to understand two things:

1. Sarah Palin does not want the problems and headaches that come with being president of the United States. She doesn't want to have to make tough decisions. She doesn't like being held to a strict schedule. She doesn't have a lot of personal discipline.

2. Sarah Palin is really, really ambitious, and loves the fame, power, glory and, most of all, the attention that would come with being president.

Sarah Palin wants to be famous, and loves having lots of adoring fans. She would love nothing more than almost being president.

Consider how well the 2008 campaign worked out for her. She spent two months flying around the country on someone else's dime, rallying the troops, and establishing her brand. She didn't have to make a single difficult policy decision. The fact that McCain failed was largely laid at his feet. So Palin got lots of attention with very little responsibility. She would have loved being vice president. Vice presidents don't do much. Talk about a job with glory, attention and power, but very little responsibility.

Almost all politicians in a democracy - Democrat and Republican - understand that politics in a democracy is about enlightened self-interest. You have to be able to cooperate with people who disagree with you - at least occasionally - as well as compete with them. But that only applies if you want to accomplish something within the legislative system. Sarah Palin has zero interest in passing legislation. She therefore has zero interest in cooperating with people who disagree with her, and every intention of simply competing with them - or just criticizing them. She doesn't just have no interest in cooperating with Democrats who disagree with her. She also has no interest in cooperating with Republicans who disagree with her. This is unfortunate for most other establishment Washington Republican politicians, because it means that the day may come when acting in her own best self-interest means acting in a way that is contrary to the best interests of the party. Which she will do without hesitation.

The 2012 campaign presents her with a conundrum: she doesn't really want to win, but she wants all of the attention that she would get from a presidential campaign. Her ideal 2012 experience would be for her to campaign vigorously for president, and then lose in the primaries in a way that allows her to blame the Washington establishment for her failure. Her problem is that the person with the best chance of serving as her foil is Mitt Romney, who is a weak candidate.

But her solution is simplicity itself. All she has to do is be herself, because she will inspire her fans, continue to piss off Democrats of all stripes, and alienate independents and moderate Republicans. Traditional presidential campaign theory says that candidates must campaign in the primaries to win over the base, but be prepared to move to the center in the general election. But because Sarah Palin has no interest in winning the general election, she has no interest in preparing to move to the center. She can do whatever she wants to stir up her base, because that's all she wants to do. If she keeps her fans' fires of devotion going, but alienates enough centrist/mainstream/moderate Republicans that she doesn't get the nomination, she still comes out ahead. If she does ultimately get the nomination, she can continue to inspire her most loyal followers without worrying about convincing any moderates or Democrats to vote for her, because she ultimately doesn't really want to be elected president. We're talking about a woman who would love nothing more than to have yet more reasons to claim being a martyr.

Sarah Palin doesn't even really care whether or not the GOP wins the presidential election. She might even prefer Obama winning a second term, because it gives her a perfect foil. If Romney is elected, she can stay on the sidelines and be critical of him if she doesn't consider him conservative enough. But eventually most Republicans would get tired of her. But if Obama wins, she can keep presenting herself as channeling the base's frustrations.

What's wonderfully, deliciously ironic about this - at least from the perspective of a liberal Democrat - is that Sarah Palin is the perfect embodiment of conservative Republican capitalist ideology. She is motivated entirely by her own self-interest.

But it's also unfortunate for Sarah Palin, because, while none of those Washington Republicans are as good looking as her, many of them are smarter than her. And there are lots of them. And they have lots and lots and lots of money. Sarah Palin can keep this charade going unless, at some point, she makes a complete and utter fool of herself. At that point, the likes of Karl Rove might be able to diminish her influence on the party; they might be able to contain the damage she does in the future. But at that point, the damage to the GOP will have been done.

And Sarah Palin will have millions in the bank.

Oprah v. Sarah

So Sarah Palin, on her book tour, stopped by Oprah Winfrey's show the other day. I didn't watch it, partially because I was at work, but mostly because I really didn't think I could take watching Sarah Palin for an hour. But one of the loyal readers of this blog told me I should watch some of it on YouTube, so I did.

I only saw a few minutes, but I think that was enough. I like Oprah, I respect her, she's obviously very good at her job, but I can't say I'm a fan. That's mostly because I am not in the target demographic. Talk shows like hers have a purpose, but not for me.

Part of that purpose is to have the conversation that many people are having, but on a national scale, and with a great deal of preparation. What exactly is the purpose of this whole book tour by a failed vice-presidential candidate? Is she running for president? Does she just want to make some money?

Probably both. She's clearly making money, and she's quite probably running for president. Why go on Oprah? She endorsed Obama last year. She has a huge constituency, sure, but she is also very much a card-carrying member of the "media elite."

Watching Sarah Palin on Oprah's show, even for a couple of minutes, I realized something about the ex-governor of Alaska. At one point, Oprah looked highly skeptical, like she was looking at a dead slug. Oprah is, we can assume, not a big fan of Palin. But that's a key part of the appeal for Palin and her base. I could see the slightest hint of fear in Sarah Palin's eyes. She might never admit it, but she's very insecure. She's terrified of Oprah, for the same reason that she's terrified of those "media elites" - they're smarter than her, and much more well-informed than her. They are much more intellectually curious. That's why Charlie Gibson was able to sandbag her with what should have been a simple question - what do you think of the Bush Doctrine? It's why Katie Couric was able to expose her as an intellectual lightweight by asking the even simpler question, What newspapers do you read?

But the fact that Sarah Palin is afraid of someone like Oprah ironically gives her all the more motivation to be on her show. Sarah Palin is incredibly competitive, and the greater the challenge, the more she wants it. You have to respect that. You don't have to like it, but you have to respect someone who takes on that kind of challenge, who is willing to overcome her own personal insecurities and fears on a national stage. Constantly.

This is a big part of her appeal to her base: she's willing to confront people who look down on her. Just the fact that she is willing to do so gives her a certain degree of credibility. It's a self-reinforcing phenomenon. She writes a book because she and her publisher know there will be a market for it. It's already a "New York Times bestseller," which means that someone like Oprah has to take her seriously, at least to some extent. So her base gives her a certain respectability, which she uses to convince Oprah to invite her onto her talk show. Once she's on stage with Oprah, she doesn't have to do much. All she has to do is hold her own. She doesn't have to prove that she's got the solution to global warming or the Israeli-Palestinian problem. All she has to do is maintain her dignity. She has to be enthusiastic, charming, and fearless. She doesn't have to be the smartest person in the room; she has to not be an idiot. She just has to prove that she is worthy of Oprah's attention. Again, a self-reinforcing phenom: her base will show up in enough numbers to demonstrate what they already believe about her: that she deserves not just their attention, but the attention of the entire country.

I don't have a problem with Sarah Palin's lifestyle, although I'm not a fan of the idea of shooting wolves from airplanes. If she wants to eat caribou meat that Todd shot for her, more power to them. But I expect my leaders to be capable of asking difficult questions, not just of their advisors and their opponents, but of themselves. Sarah Palin is very sure of herself. So is Barack Obama; his calmness in the face of challenges and crises is a big part of his appeal for me. But Obama's confidence comes from asking questions, searching for answers, and finding them. In that respect, I think his confidence is earned. I have respect for Sarah Palin's ability to charge ahead, and I think she deserves some of her confidence. But not enough to be president.

Sarah Palin + William Shatner = Poetry

Just, wow:

Ross Douthat Insults the Working Class

Ross Douthat takes on the thankless and somewhat odd job of sort-of defending Sarah Palin after her completely bizarre announcement that she will be resigning as governor of Alaska. I'm glad the New York Times believes in ideological diversity, because his argument almost sort of makes sense, but only in the funhouse that is the conservative punditry's attempts to come to terms with Sarah Palin. I'm glad he made this argument on the pages of the New York Times, because that means that many people will have an opportunity to refute it. He opens with a simple five-word sentence: "She should have said no." Meaning that she should have said no to John McCain, because then her life, both inside and outside of politics, would still be somewhat normal.

He then proceeds - let me repeat, on the pages of the New York Times - to attack liberal elites for denigrating her because of her working class roots. Taking the fight to the enemy, that's what he's doing. Sort of. He writes well, and might actually believe this argument. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a terrible argument.

I have a five-word response: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Both of them were from the working class. Neither of them were elites, until they worked their way into the social and economic stratosphere. But they both worked for it. I disagreed with Reagan on just about everything, but he did work for his success. I've also realized, long after his presidency, that he wasn't as stupid as I thot he was. I saw a video of him in the mid-1960's attacking communism, and I couldn't believe how articulate and profound he sounded. Bill Clinton was from farther down the social ladder than even Palin - he was white trash. But he went to elite universities, Georgetown, Yale Law, and Oxford, because he's smart, ambitious, competent, hard-working, and curious about the world.

Here's another two-word answer for Mr. Douthat's claim that Americans judged Sarah Palin poorly because of her social class: Abraham Lincoln.

Americans love an underdog who climbs up from poverty to success. Michelle Obama's father was a municipal employee in Chicago.

All of my grandparents started out in life as members of the working class. But they ended up solidly middle class - both of my grandparents became professionals who owned their own businesses and sent all of their kids to college. And they were thrilled when I went to an elite liberal arts college in the East. I had plans once to earn a Ph.d., and my fundamentalist grandmother's response was "We'll finally have one."

Sarah Palin's failure as a candidate, as governor, and as a politician in general had nothing to do with either her gender or her class. There are lots of very successful women politicians in this country, and many very successful politicians from the working class.

Sarah Palin failed in so many respects because she's incompetent, lazy, and irresponsible, not to mention a pathetic wimp and delusional and pathological liar. She's a whining idiot who is incapable of either admitting her mistakes or taking responsibility for her failures. None of those traits mark her either as a typical member of her gender or her class. To imply otherwise is to insult women and people who make an honest living with their hands.

My grandparents started out as members of the working class (one of my grandfathers was a coal miner at 16), and, like Sarah Palin, were conservative Republicans and devout Christians. Unlike Sarah Palin, however, they were also smart, honest, competent people who didn't complain about their lot in life, took responsibility for their decisions and actions, and finished the jobs that they took on.

Sarah Palin in 2012: Nail In The Coffin

Some people are arguing - and I am not going to bother linking to them - that Sarah Palin's resignation is a brilliant move in her strategy to run for president, because now she has more time.

These people are forgetting one thing: Barring unforeseen circumstances, she will be running against Barack Obama. During the 2008 campaign, Obama's biggest obstacle was his lack of experience. Just about every candidate in the Democratic field had more experience than he did. John McCain certainly did. Sarah Palin, however, did not, and does not. This is one of the (many) reasons McCain's choice of her as his running mate was such a bad move; it weakened one of his best arguments against Obama: that he, McCain, was more experienced. Democrats and Republicans traded charges of who was more or less experienced - Obama or Palin? What counts more, being a United States senator, or a governor? Does being mayor of a small town count as "executive" experience? Is that somehow more important than the "legislative" experience Obama had?

But in 2012, all that will be moot. There were many people who had serious doubts about Obama in 2008 because of this lack of experience. In 2012, not so much. Obama was always a great candidate - inspiring speaker, great story, very charismatic. In 2012, he will have the experience to match.

But Palin will only have a little more than two years as Governor of Alaska. Her last notable decision in that position will be to quit.

Thinking of it in these terms, I think I have a little bit more of a clue as to why she quit. Right now, she hasn't failed at anything. Other than being governor, that is. She's still very popular with the Republican base. If she really wants to be president, she should run for reelection in 2010, to address the experience issue. Being a one-term governor would still mean questions about her experience - two terms puts that to rest. But Being governor in 2012 will interfere with her ability to campaign, considering how far away Alaska is from, say, New Hampshire.

More importantly, being governor in 2012 and running for president will also interfere with her ability to make money. She won't be able to go on quite as many highly lucrative speaking engagements, etc., etc.

So suppose she doesn't run for reelection in 2010, but does decide to run for president. She'll be spending almost all of her time doing that: raising money, meeting people, etc. Fundraising for her presidential bid will interfere with her fundraising for Todd and the kids.

But there is one little six-letter word which really captures the great impediment to her ability to make money: losing.

If she runs for president in 2012 and is the Republican nominee, she will get creamed by Obama. Unless he completely screws up, and it looks like he won't, he'll win in a cakewalk. He's already done it, he'll have all the advantages of incumbency, and most demographic trends are going his way. He owns the African-American vote, the young vote, and Hispanics are ever-more alienated from the GOP.

But she probably won't even make it to the point of being the nominee. Remember Rudy Giuliani? Haven't seen him on a talk show recently. Whether or not she is governor in 2012, she might very well get whacked in the first primary.

I think she quit because she knows she has to strike while the iron is hot. Part of her appeal, let's be honest, is the fact that she's beautiful. But she's 45, and she's not getting any younger. I think she's bored and frustrated with being governor of Alaska, and she knows that if she runs in 2012, she may very become even more of a laughingstock than she is now.

She'll always have fans. But right now, she has the most she will ever have. The vast majority of them do not live in Alaska, but would love to vote for her, and are willing to do so with their wallets and purses. She's doing exactly what conservatives advocate as a basic tenet of capitalism - acting in her own best self-interest. What I find odd is that there are still people who think she will somehow act in their best self-interest, too. You don't have to fool all the people all the time to make some good money.

Another Shot of Weirdness From Sarah Palin

Well, that's weird. Just in time to make everyone's Fourth of July really interesting, Sarah Palin resigns as governor of Alaska. Her resignation speech, at least what I've read of it so far, is just bizarre. Here's a taste;

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow".

Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow".

"[O]nly dead fish 'go with the flow.'" OK, first of all, somewhere Taoists and Buddhists are screaming, but I suppose Sarah Palin isn't worried about losing that constituency. But what is this nonsense about keeping your head down and plodding along being a "worthless, easy path?" Huh? I was under the impression that meeting your commitments was a fundamental part of "being responsible."

Speculation is flying as to why she's doing this. So she can spend more time campaigning for president? Maybe, but quitting your job as governor is not a great way to demonstrate effective leadership. I think there might be a clue in one line in her speech:

Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight.

She's referring to all of the ethics investigations that she is going through. That's a chunk of change. I think that might be part of it; she needs to make more money in the private sector to be able to pay all of these legal bills. But doesn't she have some kind of legal defense fund?

The speech is just riddled with the kind of boilerplate nonsense that is too stale to even pass off as cliched. But I love this euphemism:

In the words of General MacArthur said, "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."

Then there are lines that just befuddle:

I cannot stand here as your Governor and allow millions upon millions of our dollars go to waste just so I can hold the title of Governor.

Millions of dollars will go to waste if you hold the title of governor? She's found a way to sound noble and proud about the fact that she is quitting her job well before it's done. How does this woman stay sane?

Josh Marshall and his crew are having a field day with this. I'm having fun just reading the headlines of their posts. My favorite so far is "Surreality Only Beginning."

Andrew Sullivan, who has made chronicling her lies (he's up to #30) a mainstay of his blog, had this comment, which sums it up pretty well:

I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all.

Sully also gets some style points for quoting Wittgenstein. The quote is in German, which I don't know at all, but there is really one line from Wittgenstein that is a famous quote, and is somehow appropo for today: "Beyond that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent."

Oh, no. There's a lot we can say about this. And will.

Daily Kos has a great poll about why she's quitting. The number #1 answer, with 70%, is "There's another shoe left to drop." There is something else going on here. Maybe it's another good sex scandal!!! Let's not think about that. It's tacky. Funny and potentially very entertaining, but tacky. Also possibly sexist.

I think the person who may come out of this the best is David Letterman. I don't know this, but my guess is that he has felt somewhat chastised by his unfortunate encounter with her when he made that crack about her daughter. Not anymore! Now that she is, once again, proving herself to be a soap opera all by herself.

I think the best quote to sum all this up is from Hunter S. Thompson:

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Quote of the day

"Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and GOP "It" girl, can warm up the Republican base like a hot toddy in a duck blind."

-Kathleen Parker, in the WaPo. Parker goes on to explain that the good governor of Alaska seems to be coming up a little short in the competency department, not being able to answer her mail competently, among other things. Somehow not surprising.

Sarah Palin vs. Mitt Romney

This is too bizarre for words. My words, anyways; read the post at DailyKos to figure out what this is all about.

What the hell, I'll take a stab at making some kind of sense of this:

(long pause)

You have got to be kidding me.

Matt Damon and Sarah Palin

I was surfing through YouTube and came across a short clip of Matt Damon ripping on Sarah Palin. I remembered it vaguely, so I clicked on it. And what do you know, up popped an ad! A political ad! Not really surprising, really, because ad placement on Websites these days is all about synchronicity - you're watching a video about Sarah Palin, you must be interested in politics! I'm not really sure the good Governor of Alaska really appreciates this kind of synchronicity, tho:


Notice the title of the video: "Matt Damon Rips Sarah Palin." And right next to it is an ad - to support Sarah Palin! Whoops. That's a screenshot of exactly what was on my screen. And here's the video, although I can't guarantee that you'll get the same ad that I did:




If you're wondering what Matt Damon's credentials are for ripping on Sarah Palin, keep this in mind: he went to Harvard. He dropped out before graduating to pursue his film career, but he did, in fact, go to Harvard. I happen to know this because a friend of mine was a TA there, and had him in his class. Damon dropped out while he was in the class. My friend still has a paper that he wrote but never bothered to pick up, because he left right after he wrote it (I assume he still has it - haven't talked to him in a while). So we can be reasonably confident that he is, in fact, smarter than Sarah Palin.

Like I always say, irony is 9/10th of the law.

Levi Johnston, victim?

I've been following the war of words between Levi Johnston and the Palin clan with some voyeuristic interest, but I haven't posted on it, because Talented Earthquake Productions is not a tabloid, thank you very much. Not that others covering this are tabloids - Andrew Sullivan is still on the case, and he's a class act.

But I have to say something, because I am starting to feel something I never thot I would feel.

I am starting to feel sorry for Levi Johnston.

Sarah Palin has been attacking him relentlessly. The guy is a 19-year old kid. He's not the most responsible 19-year-old around, not by a long shot, and I rather seriously doubt we would be friends if I were his age and living in his neighborhood.

But he also is just an average guy who's 19 and got in some trouble with his girlfriend. He sounds like he's been mostly honest about what's went down. Sort of hard not to be honest, since we all know what happened between him and Bristol. He's mostly saying the right things about being a father - he needs to grow up fast, etc.

It might not have been the smartest idea to go on the Tyra Banks show. Not sure I see the logic there, except to generate some publicity for himself.

So he's playing the game, and Sarah Palin is playing the game. Except that he's not much of a game player. He's 19! He's a kid from Alaska who knocked up the governor's daughter. Which, let's be honest, was not the brightest move, either.

But boy does Sarah Palin look like a mean one. This is the father of her grandchild. You would think she would either shut up, or issue some incredibly bland statement. "We regret that Levi Johnston has gone on talk show XYZ, but we believe that a father's presence in the life of a child is important, and we are confident that Levi will be a good father for Tripp." Something utterly innocuous that everyone would ignore.

One question that this episode raises is: how much did Sarah Palin know about what these two kids were doing? From what Levi has said, it sounds like they were sexually active on a fairly regular basis. This pregnancy didn't come about because of a one-time thing. They were in high school. Bristol was living at home. Which means that Sarah Palin either knew about it and ignored it, or she didn't know about it, which means she's a fairly clueless parent. Johnston has said that she probably did know, because "moms are pretty smart." Either way, it doesn't say great things about her as a mother. Unless, of course, Sarah Palin thinks that letting her daughter have sex on a regular basis with her boyfriend is being a good parent. Really kind of doubt that's the case.

I hope Levi Johnston figures out how to be a good father. And I hope Sarah Palin is a good grandmother. But I am going to die laughing if she runs for another office and starts talking about "family values."

Tina Fey and an unusual flag on the cover of Vanity Fair

Tina Fey was on the cover of Vanity Fair's January 2009 issue. The photo is by Annie Leibovitz, who also shot the pictures inside, and the interview is by Maureen Dowd. Three of my favorite women! Of course I had to buy it.

Tina is holding an American flag in her left hand, an Uncle Sam hat in her right, and is wearing red, white and blue. Very patriotic.



If you look closely at the flag, you might notice something a little unusual. All of the stars on both the left and right are perfectly aligned. That's only possible if there are the same number of stars in each row. It looks like there are six rows. It's impossible to count the number of stars in each row, because it's waving, but I would be willing to bet that there are eight stars in each row. Six rows, eight stars each row, is 48 stars.

But, of course, there are 50 states. On today's flag, there are nine total rows - 5 rows of 6 (30) and 4 rows of 5 (20).

That's not a mistake. It would take a fair amount of work to find a 48-state flag in good enough shape to shoot for the cover of Vanity Fair. That's a conscious decision on Annie Leibovitz's part (and Tina Fey's and Vanity Fair's). So, why? Why shoot a cover with a flag that hasn't been in use since July 3, 1959?

Because that leaves out two states: Alaska and Hawaii. Stars are added for each state on the 4th of July after their admittance to the Union. Alaska was the 49th state, admitted January 3, 1959. Any idea on why Tina Fey, Vanity Fair, and Annie Leibovitz would want to leave out Alaska? Hmmm? Maybe because that's the state that Sarah Palin is governor of? Coincidence?

Hell no. That's a great visual joke. I'm not going to explain it, because that would, of course, kill the joke. I'm just going to enjoy it.

Unfortunately, it also leaves out Hawaii, where Obama was born, but if they had wanted to make a statement about Obama, they would have used a 49-star flag. Which they didn't. Because Tina Fey, Annie Leibovitz, and Vanity Fair love Barack Obama. Like me.

2008 - The best, and the worst

This morning, I was reading washingtonpost.com and happened to notice the date: 1/1/09/. Just seeing those numbers, I felt a mild sense of relief. 2008 is gone, it's history, it's all in the past. Whew. What a year.

To steal from Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Sometimes the best and the worst were embodied by the same person. John McCain represented the best of straight white American male traditions - the honorable war hero who speaks his mind. But then he was also the worst of straight white American male traditions - the man willing to do almost anything to advance his own career, the freewheeling ne'er-do-well who lives by his own rules, ignoring the concerns of others, a man at once burdened by a great personal heritage, and yet who feels entitled by virtue of that same heritage. The man committed for years to a noble cause, but one who makes the most important decision of his career - his choice of vice-president - on the careless and reckless basis of gut instinct.

Sarah Palin contained multitudes of contradictions. The first woman VP candidate for the GOP, a working mom, a fresh face from outside the political establishment, she broke new ground in lots of ways. But she was also one who - you betcha - had many of the same disastrous qualities of those within that establishment. A petty, vindictive, mean-spiritied liar, with an ego inflated way out of proportion to her accomplishments. It takes extraordinary hubris to decide to run for national office, but Palin's sense of her personal potential was way out of whack even by the ridiculous standards of American politics. A woman who invented her own terminology for being down-to-earth - the "hockey mom" - broke new ground for being a diva.

Tina Fey started out the year doing well - star and producer of her own TV sitcom, accomplished writer, star of a movie with her good friend Amy Poehler, Baby Mama. And then, with only a few minutes of TV time over a couple of months, she went from rising star to cultural icon. No good roles for women? Hold on, sister; women created great new roles for other women.

One of those women who created new roles for women was, of course, Hillary Clinton. She went on a roller coaster few other people - men or women - have ever experienced. On Jan. 1, 2008, she was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Two days later, on January 3, came the Iowa caucuses, won by Barack Obama. Hillary placed third, behind John Edwards. Then she won New Hampshire, but never really gained momentum. She endured her share of vitriol and abuse - some of it, I admit, from me - but then gave the speech of her life when she conceded to Obama. For a few months they were opponents, but never enemies. Now they are allies. All in one year.

Remember all the Republican nominees? Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, the Thompsons, Tommy and Fred? Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee? Some of them had parts that were attractive to large swaths of the American population, but none had the complete package. If a mad scientist had been able somehow to combine Huckabee's folksy charm and common sense, Mitt Romney's money and basic competence, and John McCain's war hero status (and his late, lamented independence from the right wing), they might have had a chance to win this year. Except, of course, the one thing no Republican could have changed was the legacy of George W. Bush.

I'm not going to explore the contradictions of Bush. That would require a book, not part of a blog post.

On the grand scale, we elected our first African-American president, decades before almost anyone thot it would be possible. It turns out that old white guys aren't the dominant, all powerful demographic in this country anymore. And about those white guys: they inflicted incredible damage on themselves, as the contradictions of conservative ideology came crashing down around them. It turns out that "smaller government" and "less regulation" also means "freedom without accountability," which can also turn into "greed without restraint." Which is a recipe for corruption.

I am very much looking forward to 2009.

Quote of the year

It was late August. I was on my way home from the DNC in Denver. Since I was traveling, I hadn't been paying attention to the news. I caught a picture of Sarah Palin on CNN, and thot to myself "Did John McCain really choose her as his VP?", but didn't have time to watch it and confirm. Then, as I was walking into my apartment, my brother Ted called me. I had been staying with him in Denver. Right off the bat, he asked me this question:

"Who the hell is Sarah Palin?"

Of course, we all now know the answer to that question. But the confusion and anger generated by that choice of McCain's is, I think, perfectly captured in my brother's question. Which is why it is, for me, the quote of the year.

Sarah Palin, poet?

Julian Gough, a writer at the British magazine Prospect, has a somewhat unusual proposal: Barack Obama should appoint Sarah Palin poet laureate.

Here's an example of her poetry:

And the relevance to me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people succumbing
To the dictators
And the corruption
Of some collapsed governments
On the Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska’s.

(formatting by Andrew Sullivan)

And perhaps her most famous quote turns out to be a haiku!

What’s the difference
Between a hockey mom and
A pit bull? Lipstick

Hough's justification for considering Palin a poet:

A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake.

What's funny about this is not just what it says about Sarah Palin, but what it says about contemporary poetry. Read that first bit, imagining a breathy, halting, melodramatic voice, and it almost works. The line breaks establish the pacing that seems to define poetry today.

Perhaps Yeats was anticipating Sarah Palin when he wrote that famous description of the outcome of Easter 1916:

All changed, changed utterly.
A terrible beauty is born.

Rereading it, with my appreciation for irony quite sharp these days, I found these lines immediately after those above:

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.

Sarah Palin as Maud Gonne? She is certainly a muse to many.

One day early, here is something I am thankful for: that I have the freedom to have fun with this idea.

Ooops

I don't know Martin Eisenstadt. I'd never heard of him until I read this article in the NY Times. I had no idea that he was the source of the rumor that Sarah Palin thot Africa was a continent (although, to be perfectly fair, I'm still not absolutely sure that he was the source of that rumor).


And I will never meet Martin Eisenstadt. At least not the Martin Eisenstadt of the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. Of this I can be sure. Absolutely, 100% positive of that. How can I be so certain?


Because he doesn't exist. Apparently Martin Eisenstadt was a hoax, a long-term con job and joke, complete with YouTube videos. Brilliant. So I guess I was wrong when I wrote that you couldn't make up the rumor about Sarah Palin and Africa. Apparently not only can you make it up, someone did. However, I have not the slightest shred of sympathy for Sarah Palin as the victim of a rumor exaggerating her ignorance of geography. If she hadn't made a fool of herself on national television multiple times, no one would have taken such a rumor seriously for half a second. The fact that there were serious questions about her level of intellectual engagement on policy topics opened up the narrative for someone to float that rumor and get away with it. So, no sympathy.

I don't know Martin Eisenstadt. But damn would I love to meet him.

One comment on Palin's clothes

I noticed this sentence in a story about Sarah Palin:

Republican National Committee lawyers are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was bought for Palin, what was returned and what has become of the rest.

You would think that Republicans would take a little more care to maintain whatever shreds of appearing competent they have left. These people can't keep track of Sarah Palin's clothes, and they want to run the country? Is anyone in charge over there?

Sarah Palin's stupidest mistake

Sarah Palin continues to make headlines post-election. Rumors swirl about whether or not she thot that Africa was a country or a continent. I'm agnostic on that one, because we'll never know, but I file it under "You Can't Make This Stuff Up." If I were a McCain staffer looking for ways to trash Sarah Palin, I wouldn't make that rumor up, because it's so absurd that many people don't believe it. So I suspect that there is a kernel of truth in that anecdote.

But Sarah Palin's stupidest idea did not involve basic questions of geography, or anything she said in either the Charlie Gibson or the Katie Couric interview.

Sarah Palin believed - and presumably still believes - that she is qualified to be vice president of the United States, and that she is therefore qualified to be president of the United States. That's a real humdinger, but that's not the stupidest thing she believed, or believes.

The stupidest thing Sarah Palin either believed, or believes, is that the American people would also think that she was qualified to be vice president, and therefore president, of the United States. Sarah Palin actually thot that the American people would look at a resume whose primary line item was mayor of a small town in Alaska, and think, "Oh, sure, she's qualified to have her finger on the button. No problem, we're sure she can handle any international crisis!"

When I was a little boy, I remember getting my hair cut at a barbershop in our hometown of Indialantic, Florida. One of the barbers was also a real estate agent. And the mayor. He could do all three jobs because none of them were terribly demanding. And, presumably, none of them paid much. So the mayor of this small town had enough spare time to sell real estate and cut hair. Indialantic is smaller than Wasilla, but not by much (it has almost 3,000 people).

One big difference between the little town I grew up in and anywhere in Alaska is that we were in the shadow of the Kennedy Space Center, so most people knew at least someone who was literally a rocket scientist. The local newspaper had a notice every day about when the next rocket was going to launch. So we had a close personal connection to one of the most ambitious projects in the history of mankind. I don't think there's quite the same sense of scale in Wasilla. It's possible that being mayor of that small town really is a big deal in Alaska, because there isn't anything else going on around there that is a "big deal" as it would be defined in, say, New York, where they negotiate massive investment banking deals, or Detroit, where they build cars.

Or the smaller city of Bentonville, Arkansas, where some people run the largest retail company in the world.

So maybe Sarah Palin never met any investment bankers or GM or Walmart executives, so she didn't have much of a clue what's involved in running a massive, complex organization with revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

And maybe she didn't realize that there are lots of Americans who have jobs that are more complicated than being mayor of a small town, and there are many Americans who know people who have jobs that are more complicated than being mayor of a small town, and all of those people looked at her a little funny when she said that she was ready to be vice president of the most powerful country in the world.

I think this is what Donald Rumsfeld would describe as a "known unknown," i.e. if she didn't know how people outside of Alaska would feel about a small town mayor jumping from there to governor to VP pretty quick, maybe she should have considered it. Or listened when people started telling her that. That would have been a smart move.

But regardless of what she knew or what she should have known, the fact that Sarah Palin thot that the American people would consider her qualified to be "one heartbeat away" from being president of the US of A is just incredibly, godawful stupid.

Does Sarah Palin have a future?

Adam B at Daily Kos has a good post warning Dems not to be complacent about Sarah Palin. His example is Richard Nixon, who ran for governor of California in 1962, after being VP under Eisenhower, lost, and then gave a famous press conference claiming that he wasn't running for office ever again. Adam also notes that Roosevelt was the losing VP candidate in 1920, but came back to win in '32.

I don't buy it. I think the better analogy is with Dan Quayle, whose reputation never recovered from the initial impression that he was an intellectual lightweight. Quayle was coming right after Reagan, who also had a reputation as being a few fries short of a Happy Meal. But the difference between Quayle and Palin is that Reagan was a successful president (even if I didn't want to admit it at the time), so the American electorate, while not impressed with Quayle, wasn't worried about it enough to vote against George H. W. Bush.

Even if she doesn't run until 2016, Palin is running in the shadow of George W. Bush. We have paid a catastrophic price for his lack of intelligence and intellectual curiosity. We now know that being smart is important for being president. Assuming that Obama does a good job over two terms, those qualities will be even more important. Which will present an even more powerful contrast with Palin.

Many Republicans, particularly moderate ones, were appalled at the choice of Sarah Palin. Nixon lost in 1960 and 1962, but when he made his comeback, he had already been vice president for two terms.

Sarah Palin is already governor of Alaska. Assuming she serves two terms, she will be able to claim that she has been governor of a state, and that gives her experience. Perhaps. But she already has the burden of the Charles Gibson and Katie Couric interviews to live down. She would have to do something damn impressive as governor to overcome the impression most Americans have of her as not really being all that with it on policy. Even if she becomes a senator, she'll still have that baggage.

The biggest impediment to Sarah Palin's political future, however, is not questions about how smart she is, or her experience. It's her political beliefs. She is on the far right of the Republican party, which is why the far right adores her. This is a woman who is opposed to all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. That is too extreme for most Americans.

The other highly polarizing woman in national politics is, of course, Hillary. But even her most vocal critics are willing to admit that she works hard, is brilliant, and has an extraordinary command of policy and detail. Hillary went to Yale Law School. Sarah Palin has a degree in sports journalism from the University of Idaho.

Sarah Palin clearly has an interesting future in the Republican party, and we have not heard the last from her (assuming that she wins reelection as governor). But as for her potential to be president, I don't think she has a prayer.

GOP circular firing squad: Palin in the middle

Looks like the knives are out for Sarah Palin. The blame game in the GOP starts now. John McCain, in his very gracious speech, accepted responsibility for failing his supporters. It was the right and honorable thing to do. But he can accept that responsibility without much in the way of consequences; I doubt he'll run for Senate again, let alone anything else.

But what about everyone else still in the game? Sarah Palin is sort of the frontrunner for 2012, just by virtue of the fact that she has a base of support within the party. Despite her gaffes, there are many other factors to blame for McCain's demise; his own erratic campaigning, the toxicity of Bush, the market meltdown, etc. Her fans are going to blame everyone but her.

The professionals within the GOP, however, know what a disaster Palin was as a candidate. They know how thoroughly she has alienated moderates. By "professionals," I mean the operatives, the people who run the damn thing; the press people, the GOTV experts, the strategists, the pollsters. Most of them do, at least. And they want to get her out of the party and out of the running for 2012 as fast and as thoroughly as possible. Which is why we are going to see more reports like this one, laying as much blame as possible at the feet of Caribou Barbie:

Two senior women speak out about Sarah Palin

I just discovered a new blog, written by Margaret and Helen, two elderly women who have been best friends for sixty years.

They do not like Sarah Palin. Really do not like Sarah Palin. This is the title of one particularly strong post:

"Sarah Palin is a Bitch. . . there I said it."

So tell us what you REALLY think. . .

Look. I am going to say what everyone at CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC is thinking but is afraid to say. Governor Palin is a stupid, conniving bitch. And it’s not because she is a strong woman - I like strong women… worship them… It’s actually the opposite. She is a weak, pathetic woman who thinks big hair, winking, baby talk and self deprecation is somehow becoming of a woman who wants to lead the free world. My god, where is Margaret Thatcher when you need her!

It's stuff like this that gives me a lot of hope. There are many, many people who are thinking this. Come November 5, it's going to be a lot easier to say it. One thing about Sarah Palin: I couldn't swear by this, but I don't think she's ever lost an election. It ain't pretty. Bill Clinton lost his second race for Governor; he'd be the first to tell you it was a humbling experience that ultimately made him a better politician. I think one of Hillary's big problems this year was that she personally had never had that experience. Sometimes failure is the best teacher. Sarah Palin is about to learn a real good lesson. The question is whether or not she's actually going to learn it.

hat tip: Andrew Sullivan