The definitive Sarah Palin post
I haven’t said too much about Sarah Palin. Honestly, I’m not sure I have much to say that hasn’t already been said a thousand times. But here goes…
As a running mate, Palin makes perfect sense. Her theo-conservative cred gives the far right base something to cheer about. Everyone else thinks she is a horrible candidate and borders on a sick joke. That doesn’t matter. To the paranoid Evangelical vote, that only proves beyond a doubt that she is one of them.
So her presence is doing what it is meant to do. That her presence might be able to tweak a Hillary supporter or two is just a bonus. The “scandals” that surround her? That’s just Satan trying to take her down, don’t you know?
From any other point of view, she’s a horrible choice. Her continued insistance that sharing a border with Canada and Russia makes her an international relations expert is simply laughable. The claim that she gave her acceptance speech without a teleprompter is not just a lie, but such a blatant and easily proven lie that it falls in the field of rhetorical slapstick. She can’t handle the simplest of non-scripted questions without resorting to “key words and tricky phrases” in her answers – talking points devoid of context.
There was a moment of hope that she might be the next Ronald Reagan – a relative unknown (or at least someone who was generally ignored) who managed to turn the conservative debacle of the Goldwater defeat into a long-term building project. Her inability to manage the press has ended such talk. But, to be totally fair, she can sell a script. But the Gipper could rely on his off-the-cuff humor to soften his detractors. So far, there has been no hint of any such ability on her part.
So Palin has her one-shot of fame as being the McCain hat-tip to the religious right. I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned up on FOX News in January or so. From that perspective, her pick is actually better than Joe Biden’s. Biden deadens the call for change, brings nothing to the electoral equations, and did nothing to nail down any liberal votes. Plus he’s a rhetorical trainwreck looking for a track to jump.
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