Sarah Palin in 2012? Some are chuckling, but they might want to rethink their take on the first woman on a GOP presidential ticket.
Conservative pundit David Brooks laughed out loud at the suggestion, calling her a "joke". Others point to 2008 wannabes Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as more qualified and doing better in polls than Palin when people talk about GOP Presidential hopefuls. Of course, most thought that quitting her day job as Alaska Governor was the death knell for her political career, but I think this is just the beginning of Palin's national political career. After all, she was just on Oprah!
Seriously, as I have to remind some who've accused me of being a closet Republican, I'm no political fan of Palin. But when people dismiss her out of hand, I keep thinking one thing -- remember the last politician we scoffed at as not even close to being competent enough for the White House?
Yup -- George W. Bush. And then we said, "Oh, well, at least he'll only be a one-termer like his father." We were 0 for 2 on that front.
It turns out that the "smart" Bush wasn't the one people related to -- as a nation, we preferred the baseball-loving, brush-clearing, recovering-beer-swilling-guy. More people liked Bush because even though he has two Ivy League degrees, they saw the "common" man in him, and that made them connect with him in a Dr. Phil sort of way.
People also related to Barack Obama in spite of his Harvard degree because he, too, had a good dose of the "everyman" in his life story -- son of a single mom from middle America who struggled with his identity and didn't have things just handed to him on a platter.
But voters wouldn't find a working class story appealing with Palin, right? Think again. There are plenty of voters who find her accessible and according to a recent Rasmussen poll, a majority of Republicans like her and think she shares their values. You can "betcha" Palin will use that angle for all it's worth. According to an excerpt in the New York Times from her book, Going Rogue:
We know what it's like to be on a tight budget and wonder how we're going to pay for our health care, let alone college tuition. ... We know what it's like to work union jobs, to be blue-collar, white-collar, to have our kids in public schools. We felt our very normalcy, our status as ordinary Americans, could be a much-needed fresh breeze blowing into Washington, D.C.
Don't laugh too hard! Democrats aren't doing such a bang up job at the moment -- they're dragging their feet on Paycheck Fairness, throwing reproductive health under the bus and we still aren't further on paid sick days even though we're all spreading the swine flu to each other like wildfire.
Palin is a wily one so I'm not counting her out for 2012, but I wonder if she's got something else on her agenda. I'm betting that being President is a little too much real work for her and that she's angling for something else.
My official prediction is that Palin wants Michael Steele's job as head of the Republican National Committee. Even though Steele has taken his share of jabbing and isn't the most effective one, the position of RNC Chair can be an extremely powerful position -- maybe even more powerful than President when it comes to selecting candidates for races around the country. Plus, you don't have to worry about all those pesky voters, campaign debates and whistle-stop tours! One of the most important roles of a party chair is to be fundraiser-in-chief and that's something that Palin has proven she excels at.
As much as many would like to dismiss her from the national stage (myself included), Palin isn't going quietly. Whether you like her or not, one has to acknowledge the power in that. Whether she runs for President in 2012 or sets her sights on some other political plum, she'll definitely have plenty of pocket change to look for a pied-a-terre in the lower 48 where she can set up base camp.
What do you think? Are Palin's 15 minutes up or is she the new secret weapon to lure women back to the Grand Old Party?
Joanne Bamberger is a political anaylst and writer in Washington, D.C. and the founder of PunditMom blog, a site about the intersection of motherhood and politics. Her work appears in the just released, Kirtsy Takes a Bow: A Celebration of Women's Online Favorites and she is at work on a book about political motherhood (Bright Sky Press, Fall 2010).
Follow Joanne Bamberger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PunditMom
Sarah Palin Newsweek Cover Controversy
Sarah Palin was not on Oprah's Tuesday show after all
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
i'm truly sorry you think women are that petty, it must have a huge impact on your self-esteem.
i'm truly sorry you think women are that petty.
We didn't have prominent 24/7 News / Huffpo / Twitter Etc. To SlapChop him into little pieces.
Many people assumed that he would have his father's formidable council and would essentially serve his father's Lost Second Term..
And if you look at tapes of him while campaign for Governor in Texas he sounds very sharp then.
2) Bush is a member of a very powerful family that has its hands in many sectors of the global means of production (including the illegal sector). He had all kinds of help getting to the presidency that an ordinary person would never have. Palin is as vacuous as Bush but she doesn't have the institutional support and family ties behind her. Bush pretended to be a right-wing populist but he was completely and totally for big crony capitalism. He HAS cronies who are capitalist. Sarah really doesn't. (Of course, they wouldn't hesitate to use her if they thought it would work.)
Without them she never would have been elected governor of Alaska.
The guy in the White House was elected on the same deal - not many political friends, but he's very handsome and charismatic. Imagine two peas in a pod - Palin and Obama.
In addition, the two Bush terms put a lot of people wise. Once bitten, twice shy. No to mention the Palin we see now makes Bush look like a super genius. I think he was a really terrible President, but I never feared an epic, meltdown level, failure like I would if she were in office.
I think Palin, on either slot of the ticket, would carry the blood red states, and get annihilated everywhere else. As far as going for the RNC job, she seems kind of job averse to me.
talking points. They did a lot of sanitizing last year but had to do it in a hurry and lots of people
saved info that later got scrubbed. Now it is posted all over the alaska political blogs. And it's
not going to go away.
P.T. Barnum
We love to hear about her, and her latest adverntures. Even the HuffPo, a "liberal" outlet, gives her more space than her newsworthiness warrants!
But we love to here about her for different reasons: She is the darling of the 25percenters, the ones that think Sadam caused 9/11, believe that we'll never run out of oil because god is still making it, and that if we can only elect Cheney president... Yes, 25%! Too many? You betcha!
The rest of us, we love SP, too! Admit it, come on! She is the person you love to hate; she's the school bully who though charming, will stab you in the back; the coworker who screws up and blames someone else, who will take credit for work that went well but she had nothing to do with; she is the woman who preaches values while her own family is dysfunctional; she is the opportunist that will say whatever comes into her head to bamboozle the listener (usually unsuccessfully, and therefore the fun); she is the everyday ignoramus wannabe who thrown into the limelight gets grabby with the baubles and then denies it because she is one of the "little people"; she is a know-nothing who with a wink and a smile hopes to wing it through the issues and who craves the big time which makes you want to watch and hope that she crashes and burns, but slowly please, it is sooooo delicious!
I think a lot intelligent women, both democrat and Republican would agree.
My wife is now an independent, as am I (I was a democrat); we change because we were sick and tired of the politics of both parties.
The prospective election of Sarah Palin has nothing to do with sensibility. Simply put, all Sarah needs is enough million m0r0ns to turn out for the voting booths on election day and we've had it.
Bottom line: Never underestimate the stoopidity of the American people.