More evidence in support of my theory that Sarah Palin doesn’t have what it takes to make a serious run at the presidency.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I dunno, BooMan, she can make a lot of money pretending to be running for president; I’m pretty sure that’s her primary motivation. But, she also probably says to Todd, “If it be God’s Will, it will just happen, ya’know,” and thinks she doesn’t need to do the usual campaign stuff. She’s got that whole magical-thinking faith-thing buzzing thru her brain and swelling up her ego.
I think you are more right. If she is going to run, she sure ain’t gonna do it the normal way. Hell, the TradMed eats out of her hand. And look at The First Dude’s comments(attributed to him by The Quittah). Why does she have to glad-handed with the party elite? She can go right around them(and I bet Bill Kristol and his gang are telling her exactly that). Not to mention, it plays on her whole anti-elite thing.
not like you’re the only one who can claim that theory.
Even campaigning is hard work. Reagan campaigned for 5 or 6 solid years before 1980. Lots of people have noticed that the former half-term governor avoids work at all cost.
That is a good article.
The “Palin in Iowa, decides to run” line is actually pretty good. But yeah the rest of it does show that she couldn’t do the traditional route. I guess the only convincing argument I’ve heard regarding her actually winning the nomination is if she somehow skipped the entire process, and seized the nomination in the old-school way at the GOP convention. That’s really the only way I could see it happening.
Wouldn’t make a good rock star either. The sense of entitlement is palpable.
Teabaggers don’t need logic. My boss is a Teabagger. He was at the mall for the hate fest. Yesterday, he showed us all a video purporting to be the stoning of a young woman who refused to marry an older man. He claimed that this was Sharia Law and Obama wants Sharia Law. I asked him why he thought that Obama wants Sharia Law and he said “because he said so”. Conversation went like this:
Me: When did he say this? Can you cite me a reference? A magazine or newspaper or internet link?
Boss: That was Sharia Law. Weren’t you disgusted?
Me: Of course. (Actually I’ve seen worse in person) But what does that have to do with Obama?
Boss: Obama wants Sharia Law. He said so.
Me: When? Where? I hate to defend him. I think he sold out to Wall Street. But I find him supporting Sharia Law hard to believe.
Boss: That was Sharia Law? Didn’t you see that? Do you want that?
Me: What does that have to do with Obama?
Da Capo, in an endless loop.
He thinks Sarah Palin would be a wonderful President.
Like I said, logic doesn’t matter.
Lean hard on him, and he’ll admit Palin’s irrelevant — basically thinks he belongs to the Awesomeist Team Evah! and it really doesn’t matter who the leader of it is, because everyone else is the sux0rs.
In other words, he’s a member of that mob stoning that woman, who just hasn’t been handed a stone yet.
Tribalism….on the plains of East Africa, 100,000 years ago — a good idea. A life-saving idea. Today, not so much.
Stoning the Imams, but basically the same thing. Yes, he has a strong streak of tribalism. His tribe is white male suburbanites.
What dumbfounds me is that people really truly believe that she could be President. In spite of all proof that she does not possess the mental ability nor the knowledge nor the work ethic to be our President, people still say she would be good at it. I talk to ordinary Middle American women every day where I work and they think Palin can do no wrong.
And even with the facts: her disastrous interviews pre-election in 2008, with the crib notes written in her hand, with the mish-mash speeches we have all seen, they defend her to the end. “She’s been waylaid by the Liberal Media, she speaks off the cuff and from her heart, she was misquoted or taken out of context”. Those who love her will vote for her no matter what. It infuriates me no end.
I think she’s having a tough time making a decision. Her massive ego is telling her that she could win, and the tiny, puny voice of reason (I think she has a shred of one) is telling her it might be pretty hard to do, but I think she’s really considering a run for the Presidency. Like some other commenters have said, she could be ginning up the crowd and sucking in as much cash in the name of running, but will coyly back out after wrecking the race for the GOP favorites.
It’s a no brainer. Pres doesn’t make enough money. If she runs, she loses and there’s not as much money in that as standing on the sidelines raking in the cash.
Since she’s all about money, she’ll never risk it.
BUT, has anyone noticed that O’Connell’s outfits look suspiciously like Palin’s infamous score from RNC? For a girl who claimed under $6,000 income last year, her outfits are decidedly not bargain basementers.
And then there’s the question of Cheney. For us not have heard a peep from him since his surgery, and almost nothing from Liz, Cheney has got to be living off borrowed time. I don’t miss having to watch his lips curl as he snarks.
I think Palin’s running the Pat Buchanan playbook.
Make a splash (NH primary, Buchanan’s Houston speech in ’92)
Form/hijack a third party, for its fund-raising machinery, and the legitimacy it gives you in the public sphere (Perot’s Reform Party, the Teahadis), without the responsibility of doing actual politics.
Go on television. A lot.
Coin money.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Did Buchanan win in 1856?
James B. was chosen by the Dems specifically because he was out of the country during the whole Kansas Nebraska ruckus, as minister to England so of course he won. He had no current paper trail on territorial sovereignty, Topeka constitution, etc. A consultant’s dream.
Proof that political consultants aren’t new or rare. Sometimes (c.f. Martin Van Buren, the ante-bellum Newt Gingrich) we actually put one in the White House….
Someone has definitely taken O’Connell under their wing – wasn’t thinking about the outfits, just the talking points. it’s all about stirring up the crowds against washington. then Koch brothers or whoever will cash in.
I definitely need a day off – (hoping for Nov)
The Value Voter have weighed in. It’s Pence/Palin in 2012.
The only upside to that is it would get that idiot out of Indiana.
Keep dreamin’!! Do you really think Palin would be VP again? She’s only gonna be the top dog if she runs. She’s not going to accept second fiddle.
BooMan, I don’t think there is any question that Palin is not going to run a traditional campaign in 2012, with the tedious slogging through IA and NH. And that’s all this article really speaks to.
That’s a very different question than whether she’ll run at all. If she were confining herself to traditional paths to power, we wouldn’t even be discussing a half-term governor from one of the nation’s least populous states.
I agree with you. Her base doesn’t think she needs to demonstrate the ability to govern or follow the traditional campaign path (with those pesky debates and gotcha interview questions like “what do you like to read?”) – they see her inability and ignorance as a plus, making her one of them.
Whether a sufficient number of people to deliver the nomination are ready for so great a departure from established ritual, never mind any substantive or policy issues, is a very open question.
How long did it take, Stephen Douglas in 1860 aside, before presidential candidates even campaigned? Or before they appeared at the convention to make an acceptance speech.
Small-c conservatism’s a potent force, and the GOP market, especially its apparatchiki — skews old and rich — it’s not a novelty-seeking demo.
The imperium is in deep trouble when a self serving and smooth talking con artist from one of our smallest states, population wise, who couldn’t even finish a term there as governor, is given serious consideration as a candidate for the White House. It’s like a certain part of America is just going nuts.
Since when is nihilism a legitimate program for political office? Palin represents political evolution in reverse. If she should ever win the presidency and have her finger on the nuclear button, then all bets are off as to the future well being of the USA to say nothing of planet Earth.
All the candidates running against government are obviously eager to get their big noisy traps right down into the Washington trough. So that in itself tells us what they’re about: play the frustrated, disaffected, confused or even the nasties for their vote and rake in the cash. If Ms. Palin makes enough noise about herself the mainstream repugnants might just decide to shut her up by offering her the prospect of a Senate seat. She would make the absolutely perfect senator from Alaska. She’d fit into that august ‘body’ to a T.
If the Tea Partiers insist on Palin the Establishment Republicans wouldn’t have any choice except to pretend that it’s normal, create their own reality, and give their support with the belief that they’d really be running things — another W.
they probably don’t care who it is as long as figurehead shows up at times and doesn’t have any ideas – just like gwb up to a point. Sarah Palin would love that gig.
the same way she teases the guys into thinking she’s hot to trot.
My take on her is that she is an opportunist and lazy. She doesn’t like to have to deal with real stuff like actually governing so I can’t see her really really desiring the presidency. On the other hand, she and Rush now own the righty tighties. They have both figured out how to keep them all happy with their manufactured crap. And have you noticed how much Christine O’Donnell looks and acts just like Palin? And she is a professional candidate as well. She knows the value of just running and pulling in all that love and money.
Alaskan Jow Miller, GOP Senate Candidate, ‘successful’ businessman, former judge is serious about people fending for themselves. He admits, in this FOXNEWS interview, that he has left his parents near destitute, collecting social security alone as their primary income. You’d think that he’d help them. You’d think he’d stand on his principals and replace that SS check with his own cash, proving we don’t need government.
http://rackjite.com/archives/5542-Video-Alaska-Extremist-Republcian-Joe-Miller-on-Fox-News-Sunday.ht
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He’s another Libertarian tool; a Utopian hypocrite running to represent the MOST SOCIALIST state we have, claiming what is good for Alasaska is good for America. I guess every state should get 40% of it’s budget from the feds and the rest from taxation of energy companies. Sounds like a good model.