by Meg White
The punditry over the Fourth of July weekend was intensely focused on the announcement that Republican 
Gov. Sarah Palin will not only not be running for reelection, but that she is resigning with a year and a half to go in her first term as Alaska's momma-bear-in-chief.
Every political analyst willing to say what they really think has called this move disastrous and confusing coming from a woman who has made it abundantly clear that she wants to be the nation's first female president.
News reports cite Palin's loss of support from conservative kingmakers across the spectrum as a result of the resignation.
But they're wrong. Not that strategists are supporting Palin's recent decision. Psychopaths such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh aside, most on the right are calling this political suicide.
It's more that Palin never had the "support" of Karl Rove, Mike Huckabee, George Will and others who are denouncing her now. Conservative strategists had always been willing to use Palin to bring in her particular brand of voter to the booth, but only as long as she didn't turn off the rest of the voting-age population.
Even GOPUSA President Bob Eberle (whose reaction to the news was basically, "What is she thinking?!") was before probably more of an opportunistic cheerleader than a real Palin lover. After all, his organization's goal of "promoting the grassroots conservative philosophy" is only aided by Palin while she can attract more voters to the Republican fold. Presently, she is treading water at best.
This seemingly recent change of heart does not mean these people are cold-hearted liars. They're strategists and fundraisers; they act from PAC pocketbook balances and polling numbers, not the heart. But the reason the media is so enraptured with what conservatives have to say about the Palin resignation is that their words have a direct bearing upon Palin's ability to follow a "higher calling," as she put it.
Meanwhile, Palin is quick to warn against those nasty critics, "spinning" their "false info," and urge her supporters to "hang in there" via her handy TwitterBerry and various other social networking avenues that are becoming more and more popular with her base.
And it works. As David Corn points out on CQ Politics, Palin's true believers are still with her.
The hardcore Palin supporters (the only kind she has nowadays) seem to be the same type you saw in the disturbing rallies at which Palin appeared as Sen. John McCain's running mate. They're religious "hockey moms" who see Palin's rapid ascent to power as both a palatable brand of feminism and as proof that they too can have prestige without all that hard work that gives you those nasty wrinkles.
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1 comment:
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.
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