The Palin Puzzle
July 8, 2009
The Palin PuzzleBy Michael S. Smith II, SCHotline Contributing Editor
On July 6, I enjoyed a nice lunch with an old friend and mentor of sorts. My friend, who shall remain nameless, is a Charleston transplant — or “comeyah” if you must — of D.C. origins. He was very involved with the Reagan, Bush and other Bush administrations’ efforts, both in formal and informal capacities. He is also the author of one of the most significant pieces of legislation which outlines the tenets of one of the most significant U.S. foreign-economic policies for the Western Hemisphere — that bill shall remain nameless, too.
Despite his decampment from D.C. several years ago, my friend’s relationships with the most insider of insider conservatives from within the Beltway have remained intact. Time and time again, events prove my friend has more than just a prescient feel for the pulse of the Republican Party’s heartbeats. Given such, I was delighted by his brief inclination to address the news of Sarah Palin’s decision to resign her post as governor in order to, ostensibly, pursue a Reaganesque stump tour about the Lower 48.
While our conversation was mostly limited to conjecture, here is a summary:
To begin, Gov. Palin has been bombarded by a maelstrom of muck of all imaginable form since John McCain added her to his ticket last year. She was not prepared for the fallout that would ensue.
(Mention of the appointment stirred my memories of a question directed to John McCain during the pre-event event part of his last major fundraising appearance in South Carolina in 2008. A member of the crowd of 50 or so of us who gathered for the private reception Sen. Graham hosted for John McCain asked something along the line of, “Can you tell us who your vice presidential pick might resemble?” The honored guest bullied his host a bit as he replied: “Anybody but Lindsey Graham.” How true those words ring in retrospect.)
If wearing Sarah Palin’s shoes, boots or whatever (just don’t get too carried away with your imagination!), most in their right minds would seriously consider resignation a worthwhile option. However, most aspiring to ascend to a higher office would quickly clear that option from the table — at least if they’re planning to run for that office in the immediate future.
My friend, waxing typical academic wonkishness, asserted: The resignation makes sense if Palin is planning to move south in order to pursue a master’s or doctorate degree in foreign affairs or some other area of study that will strengthen her ability to position substantive comments on bigger issues that matter to our country. Still, we agreed that’s as unlikely an If as a Palin appearance on David Letterman’s show since Letterman called her daughter a quiff.
So what’s driving Sarah’s latest move? Probably the same sorts of things that diverted John McCain’s attention away from the economy last year, not to mention the same sorts of things that prompted Gov. Sanford to divulge the details of his tryst in Argentina in the utterly bizarre manner he did two weeks ago — bad advice from too many clueless “political consultants.”
Simply put, it may be that Palin has surrounded herself with too many yes-(wo)men. If this is true, the lenses of her political glasses may be becoming so blurred by the steaming piles of sycophantcy surrounding her that the ship of Palin-post-governor-of-Alaska has been rendered rudderless. In other words, the same sort of group-thinkish approaches to determining “next steps” that proved so poisonous for the Bush-Cheney foreign policy establishment’s endeavors appear, from a distance, to be sabotaging Palin’s political future.
“Can she become president in 2012?”
“No,” my friend replied, adding: “She won’t even win the primary.”
According to him, when it comes to having what it takes to debate with someone like Barack Obama, the Empress of “Victory 2008″ would quickly discover she has “no clothes,” figuratively speaking that is. The only way she’d stand a chance of making the White House her family’s future home in 2012 would be for tragic events to position Joe Biden as her competitor — and that’s if, by some miracle, Palin can pull off a primary win.
One’s ability to back-door their way past the others who lined up for the Veepstakes last year is hardly something that will position that person as a serious candidate for the presidency three years from now.
If she’s as calculating and rational as we presume she may be, Sarah Palin will not position herself as a big-ticket item for at least another six and a half years.
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When she accepted the VP nomination, she knew she needed to bring her professional game up to another level, she never did. She knew that her family would get attacked as did Hilary and Chelsea before her (by even her twin maverick brother McCain in 1998), let face it she knew her family affairs would come out. But now she plays the victim card again, a card she played after those comical first extended interviews that we all enjoyed and SNL immortalized. But for the icing on the cake, she quits, because she does not want to be a lame duck governor, because the lawsuits keep coming, because it was the media’s fault, because seeing Russia from her house finally got to her, because its not fair that Alaskan’s paid her salary while she was running for the VP position, take your pick. So what does she tells us? Dear Mr. President, when things get tough, quit. Dear military men and women, if you are not having fun, quit. Dear son or daughter, if things are not going your way, quit. Sure, I agree when she first was introduced and gave a descent speech, sure the polls went up, but after the extended interviews, they went where they ended, down. She showed her true character, I real hope the book deal, Radio/ TV shows and the lecture circuits make up for what her party has lost by her actions. She may go down in history as the quitter that twittered.
I tried to explain all this to y’all a long time ago. All I heard back was a bunch of syncophants calling me heretic. I’m still pulling for Sarah, you betcha, too, she’d get laughed off the stage in debate with Barry!
No one called you a heretic–just a loser. Nothing about that has changed.
Palmetto,
All you can come back with is some lame, baseless attack on sullyman? Aren’t you going to stand up for the “Empress?” Or do you have to wait to see what the good senators position is?
Not my job to stand up for Palin, just to correct the record on Loserman. I am however interested to know why you think that there is no basis for his pledge name.
Can anyone real tell me that you were impressed by her exit speech? You can’t real believe that she is the only person that can win in 2012. You know, if she can’t take a joke, don’t get in the game, its politics, they all get kicked around. Let me paint you a picture, in my opinion, for the last eight years where the mantra was no regulation and no oversight and spread to all federal agencies and the justice department was filled by unqualified religious types and the dullard (ex-drunk) religious president started two wars of choice with extreme tax dollar spending, is anyone surprised with our current economic situation because of those choices. Sure “W” sucker the religious right to vote for him and that’s why he placed unqualified people in positions of responsibility and they failed (almost a “plan to fail”), do you forget Katrina, where the Director of FEMA Michael D. Brown, was relieved of his duties because of incompetence? Or can you forget disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, AKA Jeff Gannon, the male escort, why was a male escort getting into the Whitehouse, hmmm? I know it was Barney Frank’s fault, he controls the county and republicans had their hands tied (even though 7 of the last 8 years they had the majority and the presidency to do something (fact or fiction?), but not the will to act). Oh, by the way I read that God blog, very funny, it reminds me of those TV evangelists who claim the talk to God and want so and so foreign country leader to be killed or such and such a us state to be punished by God for a court ruling that intelligent design is just another word for religion. We had enough of religious dullards in our government. If you believe that the USA has strayed from God then go out to your communities and preach to your neighbors, the sick, the shut ins, the poor and invite them to take part in your church, build a community. But I know that’s hard work we want a government official to do that for us, well they tried that and look where it left us, in the gutter, but our country does not quit and we will rise again. Do you remember how Ronald Reagan got us out of a recession? By spending and we will do the same. But she is just another “W” in heels and she is stringing the religious right along, she will sell you her books, her radio/TV shows and speaking engagements. Lastly, I do not want you to believe what I believe, so please keep writing, feel free, I am starting to enjoy this.
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