I was rooting for McCain to pick Palin for veep back in 2008, and have been a lont-time supporter of the Guv. She’s incredibly talented and the Dems were right in seeing her as a threat to demolish.
I do think it is unfortunate that she didn’t go at least in a serious wonk direction and build up her credentials by, for example, joining a think tank to cover international energy policies and politics. That would have been perfect, getting international cred while playing up the bookish side of her persona.
She has been a great help, obviously, in boosting tea party candidates—even though most of them have flipped to the Establishment once in office.
But I think she’s hurt her own chances to reach the big office by playing into almost a caricature of the pro-gun, working Joe, Christian conservative world. Her credentials there were fine already—what she needed to do was reassure Coastal and culturally upscale voters of her credibility and understanding of their concerns.
The reality shows that Sarah, Todd, and Bristol have done have just been tacky. Popular with her base, I presume, but not the sort of thing to break the SNL parody image that she’s been branded with—instead they’ve just played into it.
Bristol actually doesn’t have her mom’s natural charisma, which is part of why her reality show was a flop. Her natural looks were about average, though she’s have a fair amount of work done. And, I just think it was a bad idea to have a teenage single mother, despite her own famous mother, as an abstinence spokesperson.
All this running tabloid stuff around Bristol, though it’s made her a few dollars, has probably been very costly as far as her mother’s future political prospects are concerned—and I think that is unfortunate.
What has been tacky about the shows that the family has done?
I thought that they were nature shows about Alaska, and that Bristol’s was seen as a conservative show.
For me, it became difficult to take Palin serious as a world leader, I was wavering when she resigned as Governor, but I hoped she had loftier plans, like a Senate run. The moment she had Kate Gosselin as guest on her Alaska reality show, she lost me and I realized she didn’t have a loftier plan.
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Your less-than-christian personna is glaring through.
You’ve honed it well.