I had already written Sarah Palin out of my mind when thinking about the Republican primaries. Should I start reconsidering? I have a hard time taking taking that silly woman seriously. She quit her job as governor because she hated the job. What makes her think she’d like a job that’s 10,000 times more difficult? If she runs, she’s going to do a half-ass job of it. She isn’t going to live in Iowa for six months eating chicken dinners with all 99 country executives. She isn’t going to sit down and do two, three, or four interviews with every small paper in the state. All her opponents are going to those things, but Sarah won’t. Donald Trump was never going to do all those things either. If Sarah runs it will be because a failure to run will slowly erode her stature and interest for the American people. When was the last time anyone asked what Dan Quayle thought about anything? John Edwards is about to be indicted, not given a talk show or a lucrative book deal. If she runs it will be because she needs to run to keep the money rolling in. She likes to get paid for doing basically nothing.
Yet, if she’s on the ballot, she’s going to shuffle the deck a bit. You could probably say goodbye to her Mini-Me, Michele Bachmann. She could probably snag third place in Iowa, assuming she hadn’t hopelessly alienated the caucusers there. That might help winnow the field a bit faster than would otherwise be the case.
I’d say that I hope she does it, but I really don’t. I’m tired of her act. It wears on me. I’d like to say goodbye to her and put the starbursts all in the past. Let her go join Qualye, Kemp, Edwards, and Lieberman in some hall of irrelevant shame.
No.
This has been another episode of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.
Of course she is going to run. I’ve been saying this the whole time.
The issue is that you are looking at her candidacy logically. There is a significant portion of the Republican electoral base (maybe even a supermajority) who do not think logically, they think emotionally. And Palin is a strong figure in that respect. Furthermore, this personality trait overlaps strongly with the fundamentalist religious base, who have the additional personality trait of not being rational in their beliefs – if you give them empirical evidence of the opposite of something they believe, they will only believe that thing more strongly (there was a study done on this a couple years ago, and I wish I could remember where I read it because it was eye openingly MONEY).
So basically you have this crazy lady who connects with her base on an emotional level, and when you point out her flaws and inherent inability to govern (or even exist on a moderately sentient plane), it just makes them support her even more. If this does not sound like a viable Republican candidate, I do not know what does.
So you think she actually has a chance to win? Even though the party bosses would and are doing their best to shiv her? What about what Booman said about her not going to the chicken dinners?
A chance to win what? Iowa? Nomination? American Idol? Presidency?
Who are these “party bosses” you speak of? In Republican politics, the Party is the boss, and if you don’t think when push comes to shove they’ll line up behind Sarah Palin just like they’ve lined up behind every other idiot the Republicans have thrown at us if she’s their best bet…I mean, geez.
As for the chicken dinners, how far removed are we from the most prolific brush clearer in history? Running a shitty baseball team was too much work for him yet he ended up being a two term President. Never underestimate the power of handlers, the media, or the gullibility of the American people.
A chance to win the nomination. As for the GOP party elites, I think you are way underestimating their power. If they threw their full force against a candidate, even Palin, that candidate would have a very hard time getting the nom. No matter how much the base desires it.
I do think she has a chance to win, for the same reasons I (briefly) mentioned in the comment I linked above. My opinion on that hasn’t changed.
I’m not saying that they couldn’t take her out. I’m just saying that if they don’t have anyone they think has a better chance against Obama, they won’t bother. They’d still rather have Palin as President and try to control her than have Obama win a 2nd term. Not to mention that people who support Palin do so fanatically, so she could have a serious coattail effect.
to be irrelevant. I don’t think she will ultimately run as a Republican, because she would have to debate with Gingrich and Romney, and would look stupid. But she will run as an independent. That way she keeps the camera for another year.
I’m reading this and immediately this old song starts playing on my brain radio… Don’t know how to embed a YouTube so here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8StG4fFWHqg
The lyrics, which I remembered for pertinence, came to me in the following order:
“…Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…”
“Well you started out with nothing,
And you’re proud that you’re a self made man,…”
“I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair,…”
The song was originally about being a boozed/drugged-up pop star but once I found this video it took on a whole new resonance. Look at ’em eating rubber chicken and the fat man stuffing his face with ribbons of pasta, the tarted up drag queen eating grapes. If I were a Republican voter in Iowa, this is how I might feel. They just got nothin’, no stable, rational alternative candidate is being offered, only buffoons.
My postal worker told me she wants another Reagan. I, of course, told her, “He was nothing but a B-grade actor!”
But,” she said, “I want us to feel like a united country again.” She’s deluded about “us” being white and Christian, poor girl.
When Huckabee dropped out, I thought of her and felt her loss of the kind of smarmy faker she was yearning for…
Trump made some money from his run, didn’t he? Speaking fees or whatever? Sarah wants some of that action, too; money is her honey.
It’s SUCH A FRIGGIN’ CIRCUS! It makes my head spin. I FEEL drugged out watching this show and scared of “falling out of my chair” because one of these loony-tunes remotely could do it. Why should Palin do the hard work of being a serious candidate when she can whip up a media circus and be an UN-serious candidate who makes me gag every day?! AND the idiot 26% would vote for her!
Geez, I’m getting a contact high from that video… or maybe I’m recovering from a stomach flu.
Simple way to raise Palin’s non-performance. Just keep asking who Palin would select as her VP running mate; that’s the person you would really be voting for if she got elected.
Worst case is that it’s a maneuver to elect an unelectable candidate who can do the job but has little popular appeal for his or her policies and/or character.
I had some conservative people working for me in 2000 and they voted for Cheney, not Bush.
BTW, county executives, not country. Reducing the number of counties in Iowa has been a perennial exercise.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the nomination is hers if she wants it. The GOP base has the emotional maturity of a bratty teenager and will line up behind her just because she’s so “rogue.” Further, their support for her is deep; if she gets denied the nomination at a brokered convention, those people will leave the party for good.
This could be the watershed moment we’ve been waiting for, when the ignorant kooks who used to stay out of the electoral process altogether finally get served enough alienation to drive them back out again. Of such things are major realignments constructed.
Actually I personally think that the reason for the AZ move is because her daughter is living nearby and getting out from under her mother’s thumb and Palin can’t stand it.
As far as the gossip that the Times reports, that’s all it is – gossip. They so badly want her to run for president because goddamn do stories about her sell eyeballs.
I don’t think Palin is going to run – she’s going to continue to come as close to looking like she’s going to run without having to actually file anything with the government for as long as she can and will eventually, with a heavy heart, have a speech where she pulls a Mitch Daniels and says that she doesn’t want to subject her family to the evil horrible media this year. She’ll probably throw in some language to make sure everyone can see that she’s “keeping her options open” for “when her kids are older” so that she can pretend to run in 2016 if the option is available.
yup. She’ll run if only to be on our teevee EVERY SINGLE DAY AND NIGHT for 18 months. She loves loves LOVES the attention. She will raise a whole lotta $. And this will become the biggest circus we’ve seen in 25 years. She may even get the nomination.
However–she will not beat Obama. She will go down in flames. She does not have the stamina to run a presidential campaign. She’s lazy and of course she’d have to quit her FAUX News gig.
Can anyone imagine a debate with her and Obama? He would blow her out of the water.
She might lose every single state. I can’t imagine a single state which she would do well in.
It will be interesting to see the IO and NH early indicators.
I don’t know why, but I found this little news flash hilarious. Is there comic irony here or am I just too prejudiced against the Wacky Wasilla lady.
She should probably join the Which Way USA Club before she hits the road.
Sarah will do whatever makes the most money for Sarah.
I don’t see how that will include running for president.
“Taking about” running for president yes, running no.
Because if for other reason actually running would mean actually losing, and that wouldn’t be good for the brand.
No nothing, former hockey mom/now celebrity grandam, professional rouge gadfly? Sure. There is money in that and this tour will only goose her speaking fees and negotiating position with Fox.