UPDATE: Rather than a blow to a career, Sarah Palin's decision to resign underlines her self-awareness, writes The Daily Beast's John Batchelor. She is now unmatched for the 2012 primary.
The early excuse for the Republican circular firing squad of the holiday weekend is that Weekly Standard editor and party brainiac Bill Kristol claims that pugnacious McCain campaign enforcer Steve Schmidt has been caught gossiping to Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum about Sarah Palin's rambling and incoherent vice-presidential campaign last September and October. (Now that Palin has announced her resignation from Alaska's governorship, the late excuse for the fisticuffs will certainly be that the boys smelled a special mom baking an apple pie in the kitchen of the GOP and they got in line early with a plate and appetite.)
Purdum, writing with a polite disdain, does flatter Palin as "the sexiest and riskiest brand in the Republican Party," before he goes on to mention unnamed McCain campaign sources who tell stories of Palin's erratic behavior on the trail supposedly caused by her "post-partum depression." Kristol asserts as evidence that Schmidt was the source of this defamatory rumor that Kristol knows that Schmidt has recently emailed Palin out of the blue. "Perhaps Steve was nervous someone would finger him for the Purdum piece," Kristol proposes.
What Palin begins with an announcement from Wasilla is not only a campaign, it is an Iditarod of a crusade.
Firing back, Schmidt immediately emailed a reference to Bill Kristol's distant youth when he worked for the perennial GOP chump, Vice President Dan Quayle: "I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign."
Meanwhile, the sniping continues to deteriorate, with erstwhile McCain campaign advisers like Randy Scheunemann choosing sides with Kristol (Scheunemann hates Schmidt, who tried to force him out of the campaign as a leaker and confiscated his BlackBerry), while Schmidt reveals that he had the permission of McCain and Palin to ferret out who was leaking unkind details on Palin to the media. No comment yet from the senator and the governor on their genius of a Plumbers Unit. Another campaign aide, Nicole Wallace, and her husband, Mark Wallace, are mentioned as founts of poison on Palin. "This is all news to me," Nicole Wallace proclaims.
Is this normal after a losing presidential campaign? No. Nor is this a normal year for the Republicans. Kristol and Schmidt and their cronies all know that the Republican brand that they depend upon for a job and for money, lots of money, has been wrecked to the point of no return. They are veterans of a lost cause with one wild adventure to try before history moves on--and the adventurer's name is Sarah Palin.
Palin's sudden announcement that she will resign the Alaska governorship at the end of July, delivered alongside the fireworks of the 4th of July, underlines her self-awareness that she must respond to the pyrotechnics of her stature in the GOP--and must respond in an explosive fashion. Discarding the demands of an Alaska job that is at best part-time, undemanding, predictable, banal, means that she will now devote full-time to traveling the "lower 48" in order to speak, speak, speak. Wherever she goes, she is Alaska, moose-hunting, and Wasilla. As a candidate, she begins the nomination hunt with a formula that none of her rivals can match, not even Mitt Romney, not only because she gave up something in order to go for the White House but also because she reached this decision by being drafted.
What is going on right now in the Republican Party--even as the professionals scramble to react with grins and snorts to the news of Palin's Alaska resignation--are the early scenes of the 2012 campaign for the presidency with Sarah Palin as the once and future hero. Like Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth Regina, and, skipping four centuries of quarrelsome princes, Margaret Thatcher, the Republican Party has already decided that the governor of Alaska will rescue the GOP from its ruination. What Sarah Palin begins with an announcement from Wasilla is not only a campaign, it is an Iditarod of a crusade--first woman, first mom, and second moose-hunter into the White House.
If you scoff at Palin for president, you are likely insufficiently cynical to work on a national campaign. Eight months after the election, the governor is as natural and gifted a presidential candidate as anyone since Huey Long. The farther she stays away from Washington and the longer she pushes away those sharpies clamoring for her to raise PAC money, to prepare gray-bearded policy positions, network at the barbecues in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina (well, maybe not South Carolina right now), the more box-office irresistible she will be to Republican primary voters. What most recommends the Palin boom is that she is now, 40 months to the election, as celebrated by the GOP right wing as she is reviled by the Democratic left wing.
Sarah Palin is the change that every one has wanted. The Harvard bunch has done us in. The Harvard bunch has brought our country down. Obama is just so much more of the same ole.
Batchelor's article gives Palin way too much credit for being intelligent and astute. America knows Palin from her run as VP. Her ignorance and hatefulness came out loud and clear during the election. She brought out the worst in the Republican base (bigots, racists, hate-mongers). The only people who are clamoring for Palin for run are the anti-abortionists and those who want a Theocracy in America. Our Constitution, Thank God, declares a separation of church and state. Palin is going nowhere. She can run all she wants, but still going nowhere.
I think Palin is stepping out and going about town. Good for her! This is a natural course for a party that is out of idea, out of talent, and out of time and Palin, a not so talent politician with super size ego (after being pampered by the party right wing) steps in. I say go girl, go as far as you can go but don't come home crying if you did not get the presidency. Governorship of Alaska probably is the highest office for you but no hurt for trying, you have nothing to loose. But I just don't like the resigning press conference in which you have to trout out your 4 kids again. You use them every chance you can but when other's make a joke you tossed "pedophilia" accusation on them. That is not fair, you use your kids, including Trigg as a political (rhetoric) tool, that open them up to political ridicules by comedians, so don't pretend you are angry when they mentioned the kids, you make it possible. I personally will not vote for you but you, like any other citizen of this country, can try. I wish you luck, but PLEASE don't complain when you cannot stand the heat in the kitchen. At that time, I don't want to see you resign from the presidency because your kids vote that you should leave the office. The voters voted for you, not your kids.
Palin has self awareness?
Who knew?
Batch puts up a nice, positive republican spin on palin's actions and fortunes
better yet from my seat in the theater
the lack of her positive actions leading to negative reactions
every time she appears
the only thing positive in her appearances come from
the evangelical far right and the pro-war, narrow, biased, thoughtless, reactionary, immigrant hating, gun loving, sons a bitches we all love to send to war when they're 18
a very narrow base of support
palin elicits a mudslide of negative press except to the aforementioned base
she does have her positive press though
Limbaugh radio and Fixed News with nod to Batch
the sudden and abrupt announcement to quit the governorship
is in direct relation to the vanity fair piece
palin has to keep her face in the mix and not disappear ugly
so
quit the governorship
my money on palin
radio or tv show
no white house
she doesn't have the support to come close
now it's about getting the green
betcha...
Since we are all speculating, did anyone consider she could be pregnant? It is just a question.
That would be the only good reason for quitting, after taking an oath for office, in my opinion.
She has a family to support - who's going to pay the bills? Somethin's up.
She will raise plenty of money from the right wing side of the Republican party (33-35% of the US population). TIME magazine speculate the reason she quit is because she wants to try out her 1)fund raising capability 2)talk show possibility 3)a book to write. These will all lead to lucrative pay off, much better than the boring Alaska governorship.
A person who quits before her term is up, will probably quit again when the going gets tough.
Blood politics is typical of the whole climate related to successful women in my opinion, and I don't think in this case it was really one sided.
Nothing in my past years gave me a "What country am I living in" feeling than did the Leftist orgy of lies against her that first weekend after she was announced VP candidate.
Whatever that "leftist orgy of lies" (very very rich coming from the Swift boating right that not only did in a Vietnam vet Kerry but McCain in his run against Bush!) - anyway I digress, whatever that "leftist orgy of lies" was (?) absolutely paled into understated insignificance as Palin proved she had the gift for stupidity, inanity and absurdity throughout the presidential campaign and beyond!
Palin did cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent
She demanded that books be banned from the Wasilla library.
She was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party
Palin endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president
Palin has pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools
Shes anti-semitic.
She believes that the Iraq War was directed by God
That her most recent child was really her daughter's daughter
She tried to fire her brother in law
Cut funding for unwed mothers
She implemented abstinence only sex ed
She had an affair with business partner
She eliminated AK's WIC program
She made rape victims pay for their own rape kits
She institutued windfall profits on oil companies
BP was the sole sponsor of her inaugural
She thinks dinosaurs walked the earth with man
She cut Special Olympics budget
This is great...
she can now go out into the whole of the US and campaign for Republican congressman and help raise money for them and the GOP and build connections and relationships which would give her the choice to run in either 2012 or 2016....
perfect move that doesn't follow all the baloney advice from the so called genius pundits that gave Republicans a stupid candidate like McCain
And she'll be forever tagged
As the half-term Governor.
You're dreaming Phillip.
Sarah was here,
And now she's gone,
She leaves a lot,
to ponder on.
She hates her gig,
She loves her Trig,
Hey, who is Sarah
trying to kid?
She will resign?
There's nothing finer,
(Please take a hint
in South Carolina!)
Something's up,
you'd best believe,
What else does she have
up her sleeve?
A scandal coming?
Indictment soon?
A pundit's job?
What made her fume?
Perhaps the truth will be x-rated?
For sure her exit is belated!
One thing the author misses is that the part of the country that loves her (the right wing of the repub party) is a tiny 20-30% compared with the part that wonders if she might be retarded and certainly doesn't want her anywhere near the nuclear football. Near the end of the campaign she was around 60% unfavorable and what has she done since then to turn it around?
Now on top of all her other flaws she's a quitter, leaving the gov mansion before even her first term is up. Her family is a train wreck and her policies are non sensical. How anyone could describe Todd Palin as having "rock Star good looks" instead of being more or less "trailer hillbilly" is beyond me. John has clearly never seen any rockstars, or has only seen the kind that play at whole in the wall country western bars in Louisiana.
I have to have confidence that America isn't stupid enough to elect a want to be beauty queen to the presidency, comparing her intellect to Reagan is profoundly unfair to Reagan, who I am no fan of.
Sarah Palin has announced she will resign her governoship. WTF?
I find it interesting that those who have no respect for Palin spend so much time trying to discredit her.
Women have a different take in politics and all of them take shots that most men would not. Those who have love for Hillary Clinton should know that by now.
When we're done with the slander and name callilng, lets take a fair look at the records of all politicians, and the results they participate in, good and bad. At the end of the day, results matter.
I'm more concerned with the total disregard for the Constitution in our Congress and the bloated budgets of the Senators and Congressmens personal departments than I am about Alaska. In the big picture, Washington DC is where we have to worry, and big states like New York and California. A closer look at those two states, how they have been run, who is spending the money, and asking the question, why have they gone down the toilet? "Feel good" politics doesn't pay the bills, and if we don't have representation that can make the tough calls on our behalf, then those "employees" should be fired.
Personally, I would fire all 535 elected employees and start over, they have all misused their positions and put us where we are now. Remember, Presidents create budgets, but Congress passes them and spends the money!!!
She appeals to the anti-authoritarian crowd? Who are you kidding? Her cult-like followers are as authoritarian as you can get! They want a theocracy, they think we're fighting a religious war in Iraq and at home, all hail Palin, and they regularly warn anyone who dares to speak against her. If they're anti-authoritarian, why do they tolerate no dissent? You are as dishonest as they are.
Please, please, please let it be Palin in 2012!
Palin Vs. Obama could be the biggest Democratic landslide ever.
Even the red states would not put that knucklehead in the White House.
At this point, the argument is no longer about the essential Sarah Palin.
It matters not what she is, or is not.
She is a convenient target/excuse.
Could we talk about something else now?
Please?
"as celebrated by the GOP right wing as she is reviled by the Democratic left wing" doesn't mean anything. What matters is how she plays to independent voters, and the truth of that is that she does not play very well with them. The GOP is probably hoping to fool some people next time around by nominating a woman, but it doesn't change anything. Palin is a stereotypical loose-with-the-truth Republican, and America knows it.
Forgot to add the good news in Batchelor's article, summed up in this quote: "Palin does not need to prove anything at all about wise government, because she appeals directly to the anti-authoritarian crowd that has been with us since Shay's Rebellion in 1787".
Mercifully her base of "anti-authoritarian" "real Americans" is sufficiently small that it cannot place someone in the White House. She may want "Joe Six Pack" represented in a high federal office (http://townhall.com/MediaPlayer/AudioPlayer.aspx?ContentGuid=9c930bbd-2571 -4987-bd47-d1862ba390eb), but mercifully the majority of our society aspires to have the president be higher in the food chain.
Sarah will never..... I repeat, never.... live down those Katie Couric interviews. They are wallpaper on the rest of her career.
Her inane ramblings today were a fond throwback to Katie Couric's tough hard hitting interview (lol).
I saw a Larry King interview with Judge Judy. When asked what she thought of Palin, she hesitated a moment and, apparently trying to polite, said, "Well, she was not very well informed."
I think you are right, Sparklers; those Couric interviews will never go away. I think Palin can be forgiven in some ways (not being able to name a Supreme Court case, for example) but some are just too ridiculous: Palin could not name a single magazine that she reads.
...and asking her what mags she reads is "gotcha!" journalism. absurd.
"Eight months after the election, the governor is as natural and gifted a presidential candidate as anyone since Huey Long."
How eerie is this comparison to a populist Democrat who aspired to the presidency, but was stopped at the pass by someone much brighter than he: F.D.R.
Both Long and Palin taxed oil as a source of revenue and the spirit of his "Share the Wealth" program resembles the (socialist?) dividend Alaskans get annually from oil revenues. Unlike, Palin, all of the LA roads Long built went "somewhere."
Sorry, John. I think the darkest revelation about Palin from the Vanity Fair article was that she does not tell the truth, and has no problem in fudging/exaggerating any story if it is to her advantage. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, were that way, too.
She is fascinating, that's right. The same way a car accident is.
Didn't Stephen Colbert say something once (aside from coining the word "truthiness") that reality has a well known liberal bias?
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid these conservative commentators are. Fame and notoriety are not the path to electoral office, especially the presidency. In 2008 Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson all ran for president and lost while a little-known first term Senator won.
2012 is light years away in politics. One can only hope, from a Democratic point of view, that Sarah Palin is still the Republican's presumptive nominee at that time, for a number of reasons. First, she is wholely unqualified and has been rejected by the American populace already, and second, she is so inherently negative and thin-skinned that she will cut down and attack any potential primary challenger so relentlessly that if she loses, the survivor will be so damaged that they will be unelectable.
Exactly! I especially like your point about her thin skinned and incredibly petty nature. She can't resist rising to the bait and boy, if she tries to run, she will be baited and dirtied ruthlessly by the Republican field before slamming into the incumbent.
Not just for this reason, I pray that the country has pulled out of the nose dive fundamentally stronger - with a far reaching environmental policy that will keep on being a catalyst for the economy besides reducing/starting to reverse the US reliance on carbon based energy; a health care policy that though not perfect is profoundly fairer, cheaper and more inclusive than the teetering disaster that is heath care today; a sounder financial system with better oversight etc...
The problem for Sarah Palin going forward is that no matter how many articles are written by people like Mr. Batchelor (a republican/libertarian/conservative independent/whatever) most of the American public (THANK GOD) are wise to the fact that she is a total idiot. All of this talk about her being this "natural political talent" is all hype. She has absolutely no substance to her at all. She's all style and looks. Period. She appeals to women who would never vote for liberal any way (unless it was HRC) and she appeals to GOP men who weren't going to vote for a Democrat anyway. Palin will never win over liberals in the same way that Obama was able to excite young people, indies and moderate conservatives. The Republican party's best (and ONLY) hope is former Sen. Chuck Hagel. And they are too dimwitted, close minded, bitter, bigoted and dopey to pick him because he did the right thing (when it was unpopular to do so) in going against many of Bush's insane extremist decisions where foreign policy is concerned. Take it from a mixed race (black and white) 'brotha'...
....Sen. Hagel is the WHITE Barack Obama.
And after a second term of President Obama (who I couldn't be happier with right now - he's doing everything a true indie/centrist like me could want) I'll be pleased to support Chuck Hagel and his campaign 150% if he chooses to run just as proudly as I did for Obama. But Obama will DEFINITELY have my vote in 2012....No question about that. He's doing a fantastic job. He is doing everything he said he would when he ran. Obama is doing such a terrific job in fact that he has even caused me to begin respecting Hillary a little more. That's a feat!
call her good, call her bad. call her smart, call her stupid. doesn't matter, through the public's fascination with her she's been raised to the level of a legit political player and i for one sincerely doubt she has what it takes to get there. we have given it to her. all you have to do is check the posts on anything palin. nothing else comes close.
nycwerewolf: good points about how Palin would only get the votes who are solid Republican votes anyway. They just might be a little more eager to vote her, but the same votes nonetheless.
I would be interested to see some polling data on how minorities view her in general--not compared to Obama--just general attitude toward her. I seriously doubt her ratings would be high.
I think her willingness to immeadiately respond to her attackers is exactly what the Clinton/ Carville team did. Gov. Palin's campaign handlers wanted her to do what Michael Dukakus did. Ignore the attacks, hoping no one would notice them. I kind of like how she hits back.
You kind of like how she hits back?? To compare Palin and her team with Clinton / Carville is truly laughable! Palin lacks the simple intelligence let alone command of the English language and ability to string a sentence together on the fly! Look at her press conference this afternoon - truly incoherent rambling nonsense. The thought of her as president is absolutely dreadful dreadful dreadful.
Elizabeth, Catherine, Maggie and now... Palin.
That's precisely the problem with GOPers: they think Palin is a political woman of substance, intelligence, vision. Good luck with that thought!
Definitely, being a MILF is her only positive and this attribute is suppressed by her disgusting narcissism. Substance, intelligence and vision are truely missing.
Well said, well said! But what can you expect from a party where it is an advantage to be so ignorant of science as to disbelieve in evolution?
I am amazed at how little those on the Left AND the Right understand about those of us who respect Sarah Palin. Before you immediately pigeonhole me as a Bible-lovin' illiterate, let me complicate the picture just a little. I am a Phi Beta Kappa atheist who did political science graduate work at Stanford University. AND, I am thrilled with Sarah Palin's authenticity, passion for the Constitution and belief in using the resources we have in this country to move us forward. I am smart, I am well-educated and I appreciate integrity. Kind of screws with your prejudices, doesn't it?
It's amazing the commentary ignoramus'
In my mind's eye I try to see Todd Palin as a "trailer park hillbilly" remembering that he has an airplane on a lake with a fine home in his idea of what may be paradise on Earth. For some reason, I just can't visualize this successful young man in that way. I can imagine very clearly that some of these people who can't produce an original thought or get past groundhog syndrome are both envious and self flagellators at the same time in the manner of Smeagol/ Gollum. Always going on and on... it's that simple, isn't it?
The Palins live the American Dream and suddenly Mrs. Palin, who should have been Vice President, and her family seems perfectly willing to take the heat to preserve and further the Dream for others. We'll see how it goes.
Personally, my admiration of her hasn't waned while my disgust at her antagonists has made my support for them and their product become more and more justifiable. I suspect, it is this way for many people.
Writing in concrete is tricky... timing is everything.
Just came back from Alaska. The difference between Alaskans and we northeasters and the pompous elite crowd that mock them are that they can actually survive on their own!!!!! Need a plane fixed -- they can fix it, need a boat fixed-- they can fix it, need to eat -- they will hunt, fish or gather it, need to live without plumbing -- they can do it!!!! And many of them are college graduates, too. These are wiry survivors, happy to live in a beautiful state -- even though the winters are long and brutal. They revel in their independence. They have something that many of us with all our conveniences have long forgotten. That's why the lefties hate them.
I posit the following remarks on the increasingly questionable assumption that there will still be such a thing as ‘free and open elections’ in the U.S. the next go-around. Despite Spencer’s many jabs in my direction - which appear based on the swings still rhythmically moving back and forth on the playgrounds where he lives - it is not something on which I myself would bet the farm at this point. I remember seeing happy children playing on swings in Leni Riefenstahl videos.
Nevertheless, I would agree that the next U.S. president will not be determined by support from either party. The past distinction between Republican and Democrat no longer exists. Both are hated and considered as corrupt, immoral and traitorous. Active support from either party will be the 'kiss of death' for any candidate running for office (just like Bush was the 'kiss of death' for Republicans in the last election). In the meantime, Democrats have succeeded in making up the difference.
The narrative next time around will be that the press too, along with all party brands, will stand discredited. Any viable candidate will have to find a way to tap into the mood of the electorate directly. The distinction will no longer be ‘right’ or ‘left’; Republican or Democrat. The defining issue will be 'large' vs. 'small' (government).
The press will bloody Palin and anybody else who comes forward and talks about what makes sense to the people. The difference will be that by disparaging them, (mainstream) media will actually be giving them a lift. The American people will have awoken fully. They will have decided either to fight or submit. I’m betting they’ll be in a pi**’