The Palin Problem

[Trajan]

Source: Newsweek

The Palin Problem

If McCain loses, the GOP will have a head vs. heart decision to make about the party's veep pick.

Jonathan Darman

NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Nov 3, 2008

John McCain's defeat will be a lonely one. The old soldier has always taken pride in proving no one owns him—not his party, not its leaders and, for damn sure, not the ideological purity police of the right. So if the polls prove right, and McCain loses to Barack Obama next Tuesday, no one but him will own his defeat. Already, from every corner of the conservative coalition, the same refrain is rising: nasty, obstinate old fool, he should have listened to me.

Will Sarah Palin join that chorus? The answer, if Palin has big ambitions (and every piece of her life story suggests she does), is almost certainly yes. Even now she is dropping hints of unhappiness with her running mate's way of doing things—saying, if she had her way, the McCain campaign would skip the robo-calls, go after Obama's association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and continue to pour resources into Michigan. It's easy to imagine her amped-up post-election critique: they dressed me in their fancy clothes, they fed me to their elite media friends, they even made me bow and scrape to "Saturday Night Live," but they still couldn't change me. I'm still Sarah from Wasilla and I'm ready to take Real America back.

Democrats, having witnessed Palin's wobbly 2008 performance (31 percent of registered voters in the new NEWSWEEK poll say Palin makes them less likely to vote for McCain), will no doubt relish the prospect of Palin lingering on the national stage. They should be careful what they wish for. For all her problems now, Palin has the biography, the ideological sympathies and the charisma to be what the Republican Party lacks: a populist, far-right politician with intense celebrity appeal.

This has less to do with Palin than with the one group most essential to the Republican Party's long-term survival: America's white working class. In brighter days, Karl Rove and his disciples dreamed of a conservative majority that cut deep into traditional Democratic demographic groups like Hispanics and culturally conservative African-Americans. Those fantasy targets are gone. African-Americans will almost certainly remain solidly Democratic in the Obama era, as will Hispanics given the realities of immigration politics in the GOP. A public fight concerning Roe v. Wade (an Obama first term might see three Supreme Court vacancies) will preclude major GOP gains with affluent coastal moderates. The one remaining target is low-education white voters, Reagan Democrats, the last group to join Obama's coalition, and thus the first group Republicans should try to snatch away.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/id/165656

[Champion Jack]

1. "intense celebrity appeal"? gonorrhea has more appeal then Mooselini

[pnwmom]

3. To you. But the ex-Bushies and other fundies love her. n/t

[pnwmom]

2. I agree. Despite this loss, Palin will be a real political threat in the future. n/t

[cosmicone]

4. Talks of Palin's rise are premature...

She has to survive Alaska first where she may get impeached and tarred-n-feathered for good.

Also, it is unlikely she could ever attract centrist voters with her rabid pit bull approach.

[Trajan]

6. I'm with you ....

Palin is SO extreme, she would be easy to pick apart from a moderate perspective ...

I think she will sink into oblivion ....

[Mooney]

5. I'm going to go out on a limb here.

I'm going to say that everyone who's said that "Democrats should be careful what they wish for" with respect to Sarah Palin is COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT. The woman has been a fucking train wreck for the McCain campaign, and if he loses in the way and to the degree that I believe he's going to lose, it will be because he put her on the ticket.

I hope that she remains a symbol of the Republican party for the next 500 years and relegates it to a punchline for all eternity.

[depakid]

7. After this fiasco, I'll be surprised if Palin's elected to anything again

What an embarrassment she's become to the state of Alaska.

[Chimichurri]

8. Yes, republicans! Please keep trotting out this incurious, overreaching

unenlightened has-been. I do hope they bet it all on her. These pundits said the same thing about Karl Rove after he "left" the White House and every time his fingerprints are on something it ends up a catastrophic failure.

What she embodies is as out of date as mini backpacks. And Sarah's intellectual curiosity is just like those mini backpacks, too small to actually hold anything substantial.

You betcha, I do hope they keep their promise and saunter her out every chance they get.

[JoFerret]

9. She will have her own show

within three months or less.

[Trajan]

10. I dont think so ....

She doesnt seem to have much to say, outside of political campaign malarkey ....

I know Rachel Ray .. I have watched Rachel Ray cook delicious dinners in 30 minutes or less ...

Sarah Palin ? .... You are NO Rachel Ray ....