A liberal friend of mine thought it was preposterous that Sarah Palin could have a legitimate shot at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. And if it was true, he thought it was a suicidal move.<\/p>\n
He cited the fact that Palin was dragging McCain’s polling numbers down, her numerous Alaskan scandals, her constant flubs in interviews, and “speeches that could only impress a six-year old.”<\/p>\n
I disagree with him on her speechmaking ability – in my opinion, her Republican convention speech was electrifying. It was a truly impressive performance – even without taking into account that this was her first time on the national stage. Her appearance certainly electrified the conservative base – and inspired Democrats to donate to Obama in heretofore unprecedented numbers.<\/p>\n
Her issues interviewing I think can be fixed with some more time in the limelight and less “handling.” She was much better in the Charlie Gibson interview than in the Katie Couric one – even if her answers in both were similar content-wise – because she bs’ed with confidence to Gibson, even if everyone watching could tell.<\/p>\n
But her ability to tell such shameless falsehoods with conviction – or perhaps, her lack of interest to know that she is telling lies – has helped to make her a star in the Republican party. She can really give it to Obama – she’s tough – they say. McCain usually seems somewhat ashamed of himself when he goes overboard. This shameless quality will help her in interviews later – as she polishes her style and continues to develop her political personality.<\/p>\n
If she is seen as the person who brought McCain down – then that will hurt her. But if that sentiment can be pigeon-holed as merely what “the media” is saying – then the Right will be perfectly fine to right this off as more media bias against attractive Republican women.<\/p>\n
As for her numerous Alaskan scandals – they say only two things can end a political career – a dead girl or a live boy. I’m not sure how that aphorism gets de-genderized to fit Palin – but none of her scandals fit. Plus – given the context of Alaskan politics, Palin’s dipping into state funds has been modest.<\/p>\n
Which is why conservative strategist Patrick Ruffini is asking if Palin will be the Howard Dean<\/a> of the Republican Party in the next few years – the unofficial leader of unabashed conservatism who will lead the party out of the wilderness. Marc Ambinder, politics reporter for The Atlantic<\/em>, explains the many reasons Palin will be well-positioned come 2012<\/a> including this one – which is the strongest:<\/p>\n The Republicans are going to want someone willing to really go for Obama’s throat, and be able to do it with a smile.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Remember how hated Hillary Clinton was in 1994? In 1998 even? Yet, ten years later she was almost able to coast her way to inevitable victory – winning over, in the end, many of the same figures who had most hated her while she was First Lady.<\/p>\n Sarah Palin turns off liberals – and scares them. She invigorates Republicans. Independents loved her inititially, and then turned against her as she proved to be inept and shallow. But a few years will give her enough time to develop some gravitas.<\/p>\n I’m certainly not rooting for Palin – but it would be wise not to underestimate her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A liberal friend of mine thought it was preposterous that Sarah Palin could have a legitimate shot at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. And if it was true, he thought it was a suicidal move. He cited the fact that Palin was dragging McCain’s polling numbers down, her numerous Alaskan scandals, her constant flubs in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22,45,4],"tags":[141,145,178,899,663,226],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-2008","category-mccain","category-politics","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-howard-dean","tag-marc-ambinder","tag-patrick-ruffini","tag-sarah-palin","tag-the-atlantic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-kL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1288,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}