Posted on 08/17/2011 3:29:43 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
This week, Sarah Palin stoked a late, brief flurry of speculation that she might enter the 2012 presidential race. I wont try to predict the former Alaska governor's decision. But I will predict this: If Palin does enter the race, she won't be any kind of factor.
Over the past three years, Palin has systematically laid waste to the basis for a presidential campaign. By her own words and actions, she has discredited herself and alienated her one-time supporters.
But before Palin vanishes into her hard-earned obscurity, Republicans need an assessment and an accounting. Had John McCain won in 2008, we would have put an incompetent, deceitful, and vengeful person second in line to the presidency.
The people who promoted and celebrated the Palin pick have disavowed — or at least abandoned — their former enthusiasm. They no longer accuse those who objected to the pick of "elitism" or "snobbishness" or "misogyny." It's now considered very bad form among Republicans even to remember what the people said and wrote about Palin three years ago.
But before the episode is consigned to forgetfulness, there are some lessons to be learned of urgent value for 2012 and beyond.
More respect for brains as a qualification for the presidency.
Within days of the announcement of Palin as GOP running mate, it became obvious to everybody that she could not pronounce two coherent consecutive sentences on any aspect of national policy, foreign or domestic. A lot of effort went into arguing that this ignorance did not matter, or even that it represented a weird kind of plus factor.
Three years later, we no longer hear such excuses for Palin. But it remains true even now that Republicans do not take intelligence or expertise very seriously as qualifications for the presidency. Mitt Romney's smarts do him surprisingly little good; Rick Perry's non-smarts do him disturbingly little harm; and Michele Bachmann's out-beyond-the-Orion-belt substitutions for familiarity with life here on Earth only intensify the admiration of her fan base.
Quit treating consumption patterns as substitutes for character.
It's very important that politicians understand the everyday lives of Americans. It's important that politicians champion the ordinary person and not pay undue heed to the wishes of the rich and powerful. It's important that politicians be people of integrity, not hirelings of industry lobbies. These are issues of character, and character counts.
But the choice of cowboy boots over loafers — enjoyment of hunting rather than bicycling -- a preference for ketchup over mustard — these tell us precisely nothing about a candidate's character.
Yet it was precisely these kinds of irrelevant lifestyle choices that persuaded so many conservatives that Sarah Palin would be a fitting leader. She drops her "g"s! Her husband owns a fishing boat! She shoots moose! (Not really on that last point, but that's the story we were told at the time.)
Involve more women as party decision-makers.
The Republican party's nomination of its first female vice presidential candidate led to an utterly unexpected effect: a collapse of female support for the Republican party national ticket.
In the single month of October 2008, Sarah Palin's favorabilities among independent women dropped by more than 20 points. Within a year of Palin's appearance on the national scene, a plurality of female Republicans dismissed her as "unqualified" for the presidency. Male voters, by contrast, took much longer to reject Palin, and male Republicans still give her pretty decent favorability ratings.
Female voters normally favor female candidates. During the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton outpolled Barack Obama among women, especially older women. Sarah Palin had exactly the opposite effect. Why?
I think it's pretty obvious. In 2008, John McCain had a choice of three female Republican senators, two female Republican governors, and an array of Republican female CEOs, including Meg Whitman, who would gain the Republican nomination for governor of California in 2010.
Each of these possible running mates had her weaknesses, but any of them would have been more experienced, more knowledgeable, and more disciplined than Sarah Palin. But there was one clear advantage that Palin did possess over her more traditionally plausible rivals: her looks.
Had women participated in the selection process, one of them would have issued a warning: "Boys, I gotta tell you — whatever she's doing for you, she's not doing for me."
John Ziegler, producer and director of a documentary movie about Palin, had this to say about the women who rejected Palin:
"I think the fact that she was a very successful career woman, with five children, who still clearly loves her husband, who kills her own food and who looks amazing doing all of it, is a very threatening package for a lot of women. Unfortunately, Sarah Palin makes a lot of women feel badly about themselves."
What Ziegler said out loud, millions of American women discerned for themselves: Here was a woman candidate chosen by men who do not respect women. No surprise what happened next.
And unfortunately — it's still happening.
Same here. And she will announce!
What an idiot!
When he falls back to Earth he’s going to make a crater.
Did Frum not see the Palin-Biden debate? Palin strung many sentences together quite well. She did a great job against Bumblin’ Joe.
Palin also comes up with clever lines — Mama Grizzly, death panels. Whether you agree with her opinions or not, you cannot deny that Palin is an eloquent, passionate, powerful force in the national arena.
And we can all agree that Frum is an idiot.
“’...I think the fact that she was a very successful career woman, with five children, who still clearly loves her husband, who kills her own food and looks amazing doing all of it, is a very threatening package for a lot of women. Unfortunately, Sarah Palin makes a lot of women feel badly about themselves.’ Here was a woman candidate chosen by men who do not respect women.”
So what this pinheaded pustule is trying to say, is that choosing a successful and confident woman and placing the highest office in the land in her trust, is an example of chauvinistic man hate. Apparently the blind gerbil rattling around in his cobwebbed skull, thinks that if we truly loved and respected women, we would choose a divorced, ugly, incapable female failure to be th leader of the free world.
Imagine the most mentally challenged, psychologically unstable, female troll who doesn’t have the personal ambition to unsqueeze from the la-z-boy to pull the remote from her buttcrack...THAT’S the person this gibbering baboon thinks should be in commander in chief and resolve conflicts in Afghanistan and Obama’s middle east brush wars, should convince Pakistan to toe the line, should reconnect with our abused allies in England and Israel, deal with North Korea and the expanding Chinese influence in the world, as well as solve our economic crisis and our national divisions. Because EVERYBODY knows the real problem facing human beings on planet Earth is that American women are so freaking insecure, a woman who isn’t an ugly f***ed up failure is the real clear and present danger to our country. Really? REALLY...?!?
This guy apparently thinks women are fragile psychotics that have to have blinders on in case another woman with a prettier outfit strays into their vision or else they’ll go into a terminal tailspin. Better not let any women hear about other women’s personal success, or the less successful will all go postal and revolt. Any single, divorced women, or lesbians out there? Do you fear collapsing into a gibbering psychotic state because a woman is in a happy relationship with a man?
Exactly WHO has the disrespectful attitude towards women here? AND if SP were a successful, happily married male candidate that heterosexual women found easy on the eyes, all these references would be considered INSANE.
This guy thinks women nationwide if not globally are themselves insanely jealous, psychotically fragile, marginally functional citizens that have to be fed reality with a baby spoon. I’m waiting to hear that women all over the country are lining up to do a serial JACKSLAP on this misogynistic un-man.
Beats me!
Of course, they said Palin should have gotten in earlier.
I try not to put Palinoia Poop in news or even bloggers or GOP club. But I think we need to see what the Bushies, Dems, Romneybots and others are up to concerning Gov. Palin.
But I think we need to see what the Bushies, Dems, Romneybots and others are up to concerning Gov. Palin.
Yup. We gotta know. If you were a PDSer drooling slime and trying to incite flame wars it would be different but you aren’t. Just the opposite in fact. Your posts of these articles are meant to inform, not to be used as a smear.
Good on ya IMO ;)
I have no problem with the delay, but I don’t want to see her wait so long that thousands of would-be volunteers will have already committed to others. I don’t have anyone else to go to, but others may be willing to settle for a lesser light. Bob
You are 100% right. It’s important to know what Sarah’s enemies are strategizing. Bob
The more she is told she shouldn’t run or can’t win, the more determined she will be to prove them wrong.
Frum is a Romney backer.
Good grief .. did anybody check to see if he left a mess on the floor ..??
The “elite” are still terrified she’ll run.
Exactly!! That’s what I thought too.
Plus, the “brains” comment was way too rude.
There was a theory posted here on FR yesterday that perhaps Sarah wants to lay low for the next few weeks to give the press time to uh, “fully vet” Perry.
I’m Canadian and we have been trying to disown Frum as a true Conservative for years.... he gives Conservative Canadians a bad name. But I guess he has huge narcississm problems and even though its obvious the guy is out of touch with reality, he keeps making a fool of himself. The only thing I can figure is that someone told him how great he was because he did something with some speech that Bush made years ago and ever since he thinks he is world famous and people should listen to him because he helped write a speech long ago. Am I wrong, but aren’t speech writers a dime a dozen?
Please, can you arrange to take this dolt and transport him to some US territory somewhere in another hemisphere please?
Really? That’s pretty myopic (if you are serious).
First, it’s not that I don’t think brains matter. I understand they do...as part of the complete package, not as the sole criterion. And having brains simply does not equal being expensively educated, or educated at prestigious schools, or having advanced degrees, or all of the above. (State’s Exhibit A: the incumbent. State rests.) And even if raw intelligence were the only thing that mattered, we’d probably be going with, let’s say, Gingrich or Keyes, not Romney. Sorry, guys, I don’t look at the rest of the Republican field other than Sarah Palin and see intellects so towering and subtle that she shouldn’t even bother to run, certainly not among the candidates who are likely to make it out of, or at least deep into, the primaries. I certainly don’t look at her and see somebody who can’t put together two coherent sentences of political opinion on her own.
Second, I don’t think Sarah Palin is a conservative of strong character because she hunts and fishes and talks folksy and all that jazz, although it’s nice. I think she’s a conservative because she talks the talk and walks the walk. I think she’s got strong character because she kept doing it and kept her head up through an onslaught on her and her family, from both the left and the right, that I’m not sure I could have put up with, and that her prospective competitors (with all due respect) haven’t even begun to deal with.
Third...look. What I just said applies equally or more so here. It’s nice that Sarah Palin is smokin’ hot. It’s nice that Vogue did an profile on her and she looked like she belonged there (which was especially cool considering she was pregnant with Trig at the time). But there are any number of smokin’ hot women whom I would never, ever support for public office. If she’s not a good conservative, and particularly if she doesn’t have the strength of character I’ve seen over the last few years, I don’t care how hot she is, believe me, we’re not even having this discussion. Dave, I’m not supporting Sarah Palin because I think she’s the dumbest (or the smartest, for that matter), or the folksiest, or even the prettiest. I’m supporting her because I think she’s the best prospect in the field. Period. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be supporting her. I think she has, at minimum, earned the same right to prove it in the field, on her own time and on her own terms, as any other candidate in this field has. Anybody who disagrees with that, man, woman or other, is not somebody whose opinion I respect. Good day, Dave.
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