If you didn't watch Sarah Palin's speech at the National Tea Party Convention on Saturday night, you should definitely give it a gander. It was in some respects an unprecedented opportunity for her: a prepared text (obviously her best format), but not one scripted by a campaign (unlike her 2008 Republican Convention address), and guaranteed major media attention. As a private citizen, she was in a position to say pretty much whatever she wanted. Yes, the venue was a bit tricky, because of the widespread criticism of the Tea Party Convention itself, but not remotely as perilous as her resignation speech as governor of Alaska.
She used her own Saturday Night Live opportunity to perform four tasks: general cheerleading for the Tea Party Movement (while making it clear the immediate venue and the controversial for-profit organization that sponsored it was a small piece of that Movement); a quick tour d'horizon of global hot spots to begin addressing one of her most glaring weaknesses, a lack of foreign policy chops; an assortment of crowd-pleasing snarky attacks on the Obama administration, not very original but pretty well-delivered; and an extremely conventional recitation of time-honored conservative themes, punctuated by ritual invocations of the Holy Name of Ronald Reagan.
Anyone who thinks the Tea Party Movement is vastly at odds with the dominant conservative wing of the Republican Party should observe that this speech could have been delivered at a Lincoln Day dinner pretty much anywhere in the country, and would have received the same rapturous audience reaction.
Indeed, the speech is a good illustration of why Palin creates such dramatically different perceptions among different groups of politically active people. To most progressives, every other line in the speech was something of a howler, thanks to the exceptionally unselfconscious way in which she glides over self-contradictions. She genuflected at the altar of constitutional supremacy even as she mocked the president as a law professor. She called for a radical attack on budget deficits while she demanded more tax cuts, often in the same sentence. She repeatedly assaulted the lack of transparency in Democratic policy formulation, but failed to offer any policy prescriptions other than minor (and frankly, stupid) conservative pet rocks like interstate health insurance sales or her own well-rehearsed pet rock of expanding fossil-fuel exploration. She redundantly assailed Wall Street bailouts that she endorsed when they were actually happening. And with every breath, she posed as just another citizen-activist fighting against political elites and media persecution, even though she was a professional politician lifted from obscurity by Washington-based Republican political professionals and then made a national celebrity by constant media attention.
But to conservative ideologues, Palin is simply expounding Revealed Truth, in the uncomplicated manner attributed to the sainted Reagan, and her red meat attacks on Democrats, her allusions to persecution by "elites," and her pose of independence from the GOP establishment, are all projections of their own feelings, cultivated over many years.
And that's why having watched Palin's act in Nashville, I disagree more strongly than ever with those who assert she can't possibly launch a viable campaign for the presidency in 2012. No, I don't think she will be elected president, but yes, I think it's possible she could win the Republican nomination.
To assess this question, you have to appreciate the psychology of movement conservatives at this particular moment of political history. Most of them have believed all along that there is a "hidden majority" of conservatives in America that can only be crystallized by the most rigorous conservative candidates and messages. After 1964, at least, conservatives have attributed every single Republican presidential defeat to a combination of RINO machinations, "moderate" policy prescriptions, and an unwillingness to exploit the opposition's vulnerability by any means necessary--all mistakes imposed by Republican "elites" who contemptuously betray conservative interest groups and causes. These are the kind of people who started showing up at McCain rallies in the autumn of 2008 to upbraid their candidate for failing to talk about Jeremiah Wright and ACORN, and who empathized viscerally with Palin's public frustration about the campaign's unwillingness to "take the gloves off" (a frustration she alluded to in her Nashville speech).
I don't think most progressives fully appreciate how vindicated conservative activists feel right now. Since the 2008 elections, their party has executed the most remarkable turn away from the political center any losing party has probably ever undertaken. RINOs have been intimidated and silenced; Republican Members of Congress have been whipped into highly disciplined submission; policy positions on issues ranging from health care to climate change to foreign policy that were highly respectable in GOP circles just a few years ago are now "socialist" anathema. And in consolidation of earlier conservative victories within the GOP, legalized abortion is now almost universally considered murder; "moral relativism," including homosexuality, is regarded as an abomination inflicted on a suffering "real American" population by decadent elites in Sodom and Gomorrah enclaves on the coasts; and any suggestion that Islamic jihadism is less than an Cold War-level existential threat is treated as "hate-America" semi-treason.
And lo and behold, even as Republicans finally take hard-core conservative advice, their electoral prospects are blossoming. A Tea Party ally has won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat! Even liberal media villains expect a big Republican victory in 2010! With every day, more American are beginning to blame Obama and the Democrats for the economic crisis, and Republican discipline in the Senate ensures he can't do much about it. And moreover, the most vibrant popular political movement in the country, the Tea Party Movement, is pushing Republicans (and perhaps the country) even further to the right, aiding materially not only in the savaging of Obama, but in the ongoing purge of RINOs and "moderate" squishes.
This is the context within which any assessment of Sarah Palin's immediate political future needs to be conducted. It's a context in which vast and largely sympathetic media coverage is devoted to an amateurish, financially-questionable convention in Nashville where people like Tom Tancredo and Roy Moore really don't stand out. It's a context where Sarah Palin is firmly in the mainstream.
So why wouldn't this sudden mega-celebrity, who believes her career is the object of divine favor, and who is surrounded constantly with adulation made even more intense by any mockery of her misteps, run for president? Why not take a chance on completely eclipsing Mike Huckabee and utterly destroying Tim Pawlenty in the Right-to-Life dominated caucuses in Iowa, a state where a new Des Moines Register poll shows one-third of all voters supporting the Tea Party Movement?
That's all a long way off, and a lot could change. 2010 may not after all represent the great gittin' up morning that conservatives expect. At some point, conservative activists may finally get tired of Palin's maddening lack of specificity, or tumble to the fact that Democratic horror of Palin does not actually represent fear of her general-election appeal. Maybe she really doesn't want anything other than her current level of fame or her very manageable political work-load. And perhaps her fans will find a new, or old, champion (her Fox colleague Glenn Beck, for example, seems to think Rick Santorum is The Bomb).
But it's far past time to stop pretending that Palin is just a joke. If her performance in Nashville was taken seriously by the kind of people who tend to dominate the Republican nominating process--and it was--then she's got a political future that she can only enhance by continuing to pose as the personification of grassroots conservative activism, "you betchas" and all.
This item is crossposted from The Democratic Strategist.
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Here's a much better line:we do not need a no brainer beauty queen and quitter to be our spokesperson whose scripts are written by another and yet aspires for the top job and quits when ethics complain pile high up to the roof of the WH.
Go to comedy central Sarah if you need a career for laughs. Leave the presidency to those who have the bold guts to keep the reins running even when the polling points are lowest and meanest remarks fly all over.
Bottom line: we've got three years before the next presidential election and too much work to do to clean up after the eight year W frat party. That means we got time to work towards limiting the damage Citizens United did in the Supreme Court, getting this country out of the gutter economically, and encouraging the opposition to self-destruct without taking the rest of the country with them. Do I think Palin currently has an in with the nominating process folks? Absolutely. But that's a different animal than winning an election. To the folks who I suspect are going to howl at me how American democracy is dead, two questions: did you do anything to stop it? Are you doing anything to make it better?
Pretending she's a joke means not believing she's really a joke.
She's a joke. A howling joke. A preposterous joke. A destructive joke for America.
The problem is not with the people who consider her a joke. The problem is with the people who are pretending she is credible and a viable candidate for anything.
She is exactly what Red State Americans deserve.
I thought things would get so bad under BushCo that she could not happen...
but we have not yet faced the crucible...
BushCo did not succeed in making life in the US bad enough...
lord knows they tried, but greed got in the way...
still, the crucible is only delayed...
Too bad so many of us will suffer for the actions and intent of the few.
Such is life.
The scary thing is that with the Citizens United Supreme dufus Court ruling recently, it is now very possible that some one, even as incapable of doing the job as Sarah, can get into the most powerful position on earth. It just depends on if big money thinks they can use her or not to their benefit.
It is disheartening to me, even ironic, that we talk so much about the freedom of speech and democracy in America but it appears that only the French know how to make their government take notice of their needs and wants. Their quality of life is much superior to ours and their government actually takes heed of their citizen's concerns because it is actually afraid of their people and any impending protests!
Why do they sit idly by and watch the Republican male politicians cynically use and promote this woman who is clearly unqualified and defiantly unprepared?
Can't they see that she is the personification of many of the stereotypes applied to socially aspiring women?
Do they not realize that she is slowly squandering and undermining the hard fought positions that women have attained in politics over the past three decades?
I just don't understand why republican women who have paid their dues and worked hard to get to the top don't resent this women and her silly winks and fake folksy charm.
That's if he hasn't grown tired of the office by then, of course.
For one, nobody can ever take away from him that he was the first African-American president of our country. Secondly, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Thirdly, he's already an accomplished writer...he can name his game after this and lead a much less stressful life.
Although, something tells me that he would miss the strategizing and really having an impact on real world problems. Yet, looking at President Clinton, I think the possibilities outside of the White House for him are endless.
Fact is, any possible corporate funding thanks to the Supremes notwithstanding, the GOP is in a lose-lose situation with Palin right now. If they nominate her and she runs as their candidate (Scott Brown would make more sense, but, much like Congressman Cao of Louisiana, he would likely fail any purity test that the Repubs set in front of him), it would take an act of Divine Intervention to get her elected once she's outside her comfort zone. If, as you describe, she loses and forms a third party challenge, the resulting division will count as another nail in the coffin of the one-time party of Lincoln.
Sarah Palin--a problem too big to go away, no matter how much spin comes from the party that turned her loose.
and you think sarah will just quietly step aside and disappear at that moment so someone else can have the office she campaigned for?
anything's possible, but i think you misunderestimate her (as bush would say).
she does not strike me as the type to quietly stand by and get shivved by her secret political enemies.
The scariest part about her is that she doesn't get her own joke.
People supporting her surely must be joking.
If however she somehow becomes president then the world will view the US as a joke.
We need transparency in Washington, but the not kind that comes from having nothing between the ears. She simply does NOT have the knowledge base required to be a world leader (imagine her writing notes on her hand when negotiating with other leaders).
Enough is enough, if we really want to take back our country from the special interest groups & corrupt politicians then we need to start making good choices in the officials we elect. Who cares what party they come from, as long as they are honest, intelligent, knowledgeable, hardworking, dedicating to doing what is best for the country and not what is best to further their career - vote for them!
The one thing that might save the rest of the country from a Palin nomination is the long run up to the primary in Iowa. In 2011, with the national media following her even closer than they did for the few weeks in 2008, and with the sparkly, shiny stuff dulling in the Iowa sunshine, and reporters no longer enthralled with her folksy, twangy sing-song, and it becoming impossible to hear the phrase "commonsense conservative solutions" as THE answer with no details, just sound bites -- "drill, Sarah, drill" -- hungry people, even of the Republican persuasion, will want something more substantive than the snowy, white cotton candy she serves up.
When asked what she stands for, ultimately the answer will boil down to two words: white power.