From the NY Times write-up on Palin’s speechifying overseas:
A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling.
***Accompanying Mrs. Palin to Hong Kong was Randy Scheunemann, the former foreign policy adviser to John McCain, who lost the 2008 election to President Obama.
Mrs. Palin did not take questions from the media after the speech, and there was a high degree of security and secrecy around the event. Only invited guests and a handful of employees from CLSA, the brokerage house that sponsored the event, were allowed inside the ballroom.
What is great about all this is that in a few years, she will present herself as new, and the village idiots like David Gregory will crow about how much she has grown and Chris Matthews will say that she has gained some gravitas and on and on. They’ll never look into the big money boys who started propping up Palin websites and making sure her book sales do well and the astroturf campaigns that start appearing in the letters to the editor at your local city rag. And then, as the wheels start to churn, the Palkin team will snub the media and attack them on the rare occasions that one of them does manage to get a question off.
And the whole time, they’ll pretend to not see the strings in the puppet show, even as it is winking right at them. You betcha.
*** Update ***
More here.
4tehlulz
>she was articulate
Racist
JenJen
Jonathan Capeheart of WaPo made an interesting point this morning on “Morning Meeting,” while the on-screen graphic showed Sarah Palin’s bio. She claims “Governor of Alaska, 2006-2009.” Capeheart was quick to point out that she was elected in 2006, entered office in 2007, and left a year and a half later.
Amazing how one can rather easily make 1 1/2 years look like 3 years. I need to try this trick on my own resume!
Alien-Radio
This would be her speech in hong kong where she was booked as the comic relief speaker? Any one who reports on that appearance as a serious event rather than a bunch of notorious prankster fund managers gawping at white trash is being fed as line.
asiangrrlMN
Someone last night posted a tweet from the dinner in which Palin said something about incorporating India into Asia. Sorry, I don’t remember in which thread, but that sounds par the course for La Palina. God, I am so fucking tired of her.
Cat Lady
In a few years she’ll be over 50, and speaking from experience, her sell-by date will be past.
dmsilev
@JenJen: I wonder how her resume spins her current occupation. Maybe something like “2009: Scheduling, and occasionally actually delivering, speeches”. Hmm. Needs some more punch, I think.
-dms
DougJ
This calls for a “We Are All Mayans Now” tag, no?
DougJ
Capeheart was quick to point out that she was elected in 2006, entered office in 2007, and left a year and a half later.
Dirty fucking hippie.
That is weird, though. I mean, Bush isn’t listed as president 2000-2009.
thomas Levenson
Not so serious, apparently, if you actually do some reporting. (Should Brad DeLong be preparing another NYT Crashed-and-Burned post?)
Michael D.
http://twitter.com/cellomonkey
Comedy Gold.
MattF
So, pretty soon, Palin is going to ask Dick Cheney to recommend a vice presidential candidate…
Sly
That’s funny.
Via WSJ:
From someone who Twittered the event:
And
From Andrew Breitbart’s Pit of Despair:
ed
I’ve told them a hundred times: put “Sarah Palin” first and “Puppet Show” last.
neil
I wonder why NYT couldn’t find anyone who’d criticize the speech, while
AFP couldn’t find anyone to say anything good about it?
Rey
Damn, just when I was getting excited about Huck being the 2012 Repug nom, now this numbskull goes and starts learning stuff and putting the “r” after her verbs.
asiangrrlMN
@Michael D.: Yes! Cellomonkey is the guy. Thanks. Hm. I don’t see the India quote, but I swear it was the same guy. I played the cello, so I noticed his moniker specifically.
As for La Palina, sometimes, you really do just have to walk on by.
Zifnab
“–
Well, we can’t show you the car or let you drive it, but we assure you it gets a much higher MPG than the previous version, handles as well as the best coup, and simply sparkles in the sun.
–”
You know who else plays these “Trust us, it’s as amazing as we say it is” tricks? Freak’n Scientologists. That’s all I’m say’n.
The Saff
@asiangrrlMN: Me too. I do not understand how anyone can take this woman seriously as a candidate for president of the United States. Her 15 minutes should’ve been up as soon as McCain conceded November 4, 2008.
GReynoldsCT00
“palin ties her lineage to asia by saying todd is part eskimo”
OMFG…
Legalize
90 minutes? That’s shorter than 3 episodes of Entourage.
Hunter Gathers
@Zifnab:
Lord Xenu will be very displeased to hear of your comments. Have you checked your thetan level recently?
Legalize
Longer rather.
Johnny B
John Cole (again) points out the absurdly predictable press trajectory for Sarah Palin 2012. Unlike 2008, the press will dutifully avoid pointing out her lack of experience and lack of knowledge. They will cite her “editorials” as proof that she is smart and well-versed on “the issues.” They will treat her as a new product hitting the stores, ignoring all her past history, so they can write the story of her “meteoric” rise to the Republican nomination.
Then she will lose to Obama by about 5-10%, or worse if a credible third party conservative candidate enters the race. Despite unwavering favorable press, she will blame the “liberal media” for her defeat. Then the press will look for the next shining star in the conservative movement. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Violet
Ugh, this post depresses me. Because I know it’s true and will happen.
The media are so incredibly inept, I don’t even know why they exist. To line the pockets of Murdoch, et al, I guess. Depressing.
@Cat Lady:
I’m counting on this. She’s in the very last years of being able to use her f&ckability to get votes. I doubt her brain would get her many of those. I am crossing everything that once she’s no longer a MILF, the starburst crowd will lose interest.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
We’ll always have her turkey decaptitation press conference to remember her by.
If she ever runs for office again, there’s a ready-made opposition commercial waiting to happen. One of many, really.
General Winfield Stuck
The Puppet Queen of Moose.
aimai
Weren’t we all saying that she’d “pull a nixon” and brush up her foreign policy credentials as soon as she left her previous job. This is right on schedule. But I think that the gender differences between an old male statesman and and old hag stateswoman will work against her in 2012. Not for her true believers, for whom she will still have a whiff of sex appeal/maternal power (I never wrote my blog post on Palin as Kali Mata and Virgin Mary but I think I’ll dig it up and post it in 2012) but for the country at large.
aimai
asiangrrlMN
@The Saff: Yeah, no doubt. I simply don’t get it–the horrid fascination with this empty, vapid, narcissistic Barbie doll. I think Cat Lady is right, though, in that once her smile is not so twinkly and the wrinkles can’t be hidden as easily, she will fall back onto the Help, I’m a Celebrity! Get Me Out of Here! D-list on which she so richly deserves to be.
aimai
Weren’t we all saying that she’d “pull a nixon” and brush up her foreign policy credentials as soon as she left her previous job. This is right on schedule. But I think that the gender differences between an old male statesman and and old hag stateswoman will work against her in 2012. Not for her true believers, for whom she will still have a whiff of sex appeal/maternal power (I never wrote my blog post on Palin as Kali Mata and Virgin Mary but I think I’ll dig it up and post it in 2012) but for the country at large.
aimai
BruceK
@DougJ:
Er, maybe the “We Are All Mayans Now” tag needs to go into the BJ Dictionary?
handy
Wait. I don’t get it. Who in this story is angling to be the next Turdblossom? Randy Scheunemann? Sorry if I’m missing something obvious.
shirt
@neil: The critics walked out.
see “http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/09/delegates-walk-out-at-palin-speech/”
Napoleon
I don’t for a second believe she was articulate at all. I think her mental wiring is such that she can not help but speak the way she does.
shirt
@neil: The critics walked out.
see “http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/09/delegates-walk-out-at-palin-speech/”
Brian J
The contrast between the article in The Times and those from the AFP is strange. I’m not sure what to make of it.
I wouldn’t be so sure that she’d get a pass on her hypothetical growth and intellectual maturity. It’s one of thing if it actually happens, something about which I am not holding my breath, but it’s another if it’s superficial. Not everyone is like this, but enough are so that laziness is a common factor in journalists. I think it’s therefore likely that they will simply go after her in the same way they went after her this time, because it’s easier. The idea that Palin is a lightweight doesn’t require any additional effort–and in this case, it’s almost certain to still be true.
BDeevDad
Tweets from the talk I particularly enjoyed this one:
James K. Polk, Esq.
@Violet: She ain’t a MILF, she’s a GMILF.
Choice Frau Palin quotes:
(via Tbogg: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125368057547633229.html)
“Many believed that with China liberalizing its economy, greater political freedom would follow, but that hasn’t happened,” she said. “The more open [China] is, the less we’ll be concerned about the military buildup and its intentions.”
“We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place,” the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. “We’re not interested in government fixes, we’re interested in freedom,” she added.
She also spoke about how Alaska once shared a land bridge with Asia. And she noted that her husband’s Eskimo ancestors crossed that bridge. “To consider that connection that allowed sharing of peoples and bloodlines and wildlife and flora and fauna, that connection to me is quite fascinating,” she said.
Demo Woman
If the NYTimes were not so liberal, they would have Sarah’s article at the top of the page. Who is Mark McDonald? Did he just let Randy write the article? What does this mean in what was billed as her first speech abroad. Does this mean she plans on doing this again?
Just a few short months ago, she left the job of governor to spend more time with her family.
Yesterday there was a post on Edwards, today Sarah.
Maybe John should start a new category for politicians that should just go away.
asiangrrlMN
@GReynoldsCT00: To be fair, there is a theory that Eskimos come from Asia. Never mind the fact that Palin never talks about Todd’s ancestry unless it benefits her politically. Otherwise, she was perfectly content to letting the native folks in Alaska starve to death during the harsh winters. Talk about playing your race card.
To be fair = sarcastic predecessor to ripping someone a new asshole.
BDeevDad, that’s the one. Thanks.
Even the librul publication , , agrees = We whore ourselves out for linkbacks and clickcount.
The Grand Panjandrum
@thomas Levenson: Thanks for the link. Now I wonder who the reporter is that wrote up the NYT piece. Is this the newest addition of someone being spun by a political operative, or is this someone just not willing to do any additional sourcing in order to confirm what was stated by a single source?
Also notice the NYT reporter quotes an African-American who is allegedly a regional marketing consultant. Why is it even noted that he is African-American? He also claims to have done some campaign polling for Obama. Who is this guy? It is important to note this same guy then goes on to say that Palin mentioned Obama three times in her speech:
Interesting. In a report on the same speech from an AFP reporter I note the following:
I realize people may perceive things differently but this NYT report is quite suspect in its characterization of the events. This is an another interesting tidbit in that AFP report:
Why? I thought she was admired for telling it like it is?
cbear
WTF? She spoke for 90 minutes?
How long can it take to explain the proper method of cooking meth in an Alaskan trailer park?
asiangrrlMN
Even the librul publication (fill in the blank) agrees = We whore ourselves out for linkbacks and clickcount.
Editing box froze me out, the bastard.
handy
@The Grand Panjandrum: Very strange indeed. Perhaps we’re seeing the beginnings of a “beautiful friendship” between our Paper of Record, the NYT, and 2012 Presidential Hopeful Sarah Palin?
wasabi gasp
Palin’s gotta be careful how she incorporates her USA rubber chicken into a world comedy tour, else Prejean gets the advantage in 2012.
thomas Levenson
@handy: Would that this were all a Machiavellian plot by the MSM: to boost the grotesque candidate over a potentially electable one (who–ed?) to the point that, once the nomination is secured, the ravening wolves close in to destroy she whom they had exalted so recently.
But we’re talking the NYT here…so I just think this is a case of hedging bets and speaking comfort to power.
RememberNovember
Why are Conservatives so Hell-bent on destroying this country?
Has the Presidency become so much a puppet position that they want to put in the Vanilla from Wasilla as a candidate?
handy
@thomas Levenson: Either way democracy loses, to say nothing of the intelligence of the average American voter.
itsbenj
more ridiculous stenography from the New York Times, it appears. Palin travels to a communist country that practices forced sterilization, talks trash about our president, makes one dubious claim after another and babbles a bunch of generally nonsensical crap, and the times says that “people who attended found her compelling!” based on…what? I read a source that said many walked out on the speech before it was over. can they get anything right at the Times anymore?
TCG
Scheuneman, a hardcore neocon, tutoring Sarah for the next two years should scare the bejesus out of any sane person.
Morbo
There were rumblings that this was all a practical joke on the part of CLSA. eep in mind, this is the same CLSA who publishes the “Feng shui” index. They’re clearly not all work and no play (I love the illustration they use for the monkey).
The Grand Panjandrum
@itsbenj:
As long as Will Shortz is the editor of the puzzle page the paper
and Frank Rich is writing Op/Ed pieces it isn’t a complete loss.
BDeevDad
So Palin goes to a Communist country, acknowledges were still at war, and trashes the President. But the Dixie Chicks were the bad ones.
There’s gotta be a word for the hypocrisy of the right for the dictionary.
Brachiator
@aimai:
Money quote from the NY Times story:
Of course, the key difference is that Nixon, unlike Palin, had actual foreign policy credentials, having actually served his full term in various offices, including VP.
That said, I don’t think anyone can count Palin out. In a sane world, she would have dropped from sight after the November election, and certainly after she pulled her fast exit as Alaska governor. That some conservative voters continue to view her as a legitimate candidate suggests that the GOP has abandoned rationality when it comes to looking for their potential presidential standard-bearer.
Carnacki
This seems like the right post to link to this from The Onion.
thomas Levenson
@Brachiator: I’m not counting Palin out, but in my non-night-terror-moments I do recall that she doesn’t stand up well to confrontations with anything other than adulation…and there are a number of hungry, ambitious and ruthless folks in her party who also want to be President. Many of them, however noxious their views might be to me, are also a ton smarter (if not necessarily cannier) than the Caribou Barbie. I suspect she will have an interesting and unpleasant time confronting retail politics in Iowa, NH and the like.
She’ll make a splash if she does run, but I still doubt very much if she makes it very far.
That and a token gets you on the subway, of course.
Brachiator
@thomas Levenson:
Here’s the thing. Didn’t Palin get an op-ed piece in the Wall St Journal not too long ago? And while she is on her “view from Main Street Tour,” her most vigorous champions include Ivy League elitists such as Bill Kristol and Ross Douthat.
Palins isn’t just Caribou Barbie, she is some kind of weird Manchurian Stepford Barbie, the willing folksy front woman for a bunch of oligarchs looking for some angle to get the corporate wing of the GOP back into power by using Palin as sucker bait for evangelicals, the racial anxiety crowd, birthers and other ignorant rubes.
For instance, thanks to your link giving more accurate reporting of Palin’s speech, we find that Miss Main Street offers as a solution to the economy the same trickle-down remedy pushed by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:
I agree that Palin would have a tough time in an actual campaign, even given the backing she is getting. But I think that she is the template for what the GOP thinks will return them to the White House.
Oh yeah, and $300,000 for this speech?
Ash Can
@BruceK: I agree. I was on vacation when “we are all Mayans now” was added to the tags, and I’ve never really gotten it.
@Demo Woman: “Just a few short months ago, she left the job of governor to spend more time with her family.”
I chuckle at myself when I think how duped I was by that. I couldn’t fathom that she’d just up and quit; I was convinced a blockbuster of an indictment was soon to follow. Only in retrospect do I see that she did it simply because she could make a lot more money unencumbered by ethics laws, and so that she could attend Presidential Candidate University on a full-time basis.
As for how the press is likely to treat her in 2012, I’m not so sure. It seems that at least some of the press gaggle grew impatient with their lack of access to her. In contrast, they could hang out on McCain’s tire swing/campaign bus with the old guy himself, and actually talk to him. Likewise, when the Obama campaign decided to ditch the press for a little while, the butthurt on the stranded plane full of reporters was palpable. Sure, there’ll be plenty of fawning adulation, schoolboys hot for teacher, and all that stupidity. But I wonder how far Palin would get with the press pool as a whole on good looks and star power alone the second time around.
eemom
@thomas Levenson:
I think this is absolutely right. The Mittster and the Huckster are gonna make moosemeat out of her, and I very much look forward to the gory spectacle. I despise that woman with every cell in my body.
For the world’s best snark on Palin, I urge you all to visit TBogg. The man is a master.
Ash Can
@Brachiator:
This. And this ultimately is what worries me most of all, because this is precisely how the GOP rolls. The guys behind the scenes, with all the power and all the dough, calling the shots and looking for the right person to front their operation. If they can play the system well enough to get Palin to look good enough to enough unsuspecting voters, well, there’s no telling how much damage they could do to this country in their next go-round.
simonee
Damn: we *really* dodged a bullet, guys. If she were VP, this speech would have been delivered to the UN as we speak.
gocart mozart
That is like the exact opposite of the truth.
Shorter Palin “If we had only deregulated the banking/financial industry more, none of this would have happened.”
Brachiator
@simonee:
This makes the timing of Palin’s speech and reporting about it a very interesting coincidence. The reporting about it is coming out as Obama is speaking to the UN for the first time.
In the Wingnut news cycle, Palin’s speech and Obama’s have the same weight, making Palin, for now, the shadow president of the United States.
Let’s see if Palin’s handlers keep this up, timing her appearances to major addresses by Obama.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@BDeevDad:
There is. It’s “IOKIYAR.”
Citizen_X
As in this?
FYNYT.
JK
Sarah Palin’s decision to resign from her job as governor of Alaska because she couldn’t cope with some frivolous ethics complaint charges revealed her to be a COWARD and a QUITTER. If a liberal Democratic politican had resigned under comparable circumstances, I’d have no problem labeling him or her as a coward and a quitter as well.
30 years ago, I don’t think any politician would have been able to get away with resigning Palin style and still be politically viable for a future presidential run. Such a politician would rightfully have been laughed out of politics by the public and the press. I can’t believe how truly low our standards have fallen. This is the fusion of celebrity culture and political culture.
Ultimately, I think the nation will be spared from the grotesque travesty of Palin winning the Republican nomination because Romney, Huckabee, and others will not fall on their swords for her. They’re going to rip her to shreds if she runs. I can’t wait to see Palin melt under the relentless assault she will receive.
Steeplejack
@The Grand Panjandrum:
True dat.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
And the Book Review.
Damn, still no edit for the Steep-man.
JK
@Steeplejack:
Hard to believe, but The New York Times is now the only American newspaper with a separate, standalone Sunday book review section in its print editions.
I love literary blogs, but I think booklovers are worse off today because of the death of all the other Sunday book review sections.
Northern (not Alaska!) observer
The Hong Kong brokerage firm that sponsored/hosted Palin’s appearance is famous for its um, imagination, when doing events. More here.
matoko_chan
I dunno….I think…..2012 isn’t far enough out from SNL, but she will be post-menopausal by 2016.
The demographic timer on non-hispanic caucs keeps running too, and the GOP is devolving into the old white evangelical party…
She quit when Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg told her to go back to Alaska and read some books. That same week Team McCain dripped a little poison from the campaign into the media just to show her what they could do.
But if Schneuer is fluffing her then she is back on the team.
The GOP has always intended to refurbish her to use her on the base like a tasp again…..
But I think the intertubes will prevent her from pulling a Nixon.
Two words…..SNL youtubes.
I dont think she can ever get away from Tina Fey.
BDeevDad
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: Thanks
slippy
@James K. Polk, Esq.: She’s a GMIRNPWIF (GM I’d Rather Not Picture While I . . . )
The obsession rethugs have with her physical appearance has me see-sawing wildly between hysterical and appalling. No, she’s really not that attractive (gack!), and Jesus, why are you fantasizing about her like you’re fifteen years old, and furthermore why do you expect this kind of giddy fanboi gushing to be taken seriously as political discussion.
Hello!
tavella
Yup. Never underestimate the ability of the corporate side of the Republicans to find a puppet. It’s BushJrx10.
slippy
@matoko_chan: There was a thread on one of Brietbart’s
shit holeswebsites about Tina Fey and Palin, and the conservative-dominated comment thread was a bunch of people mewling into their silken handkerchiefs about how wonderful Palin was and how Tina Fey was basically the spawn of hell and would disappear “long before our dearFuerherSarah.”They really didn’t like it when I showed up and explained to them that it wasn’t necessarily Palin’s looks and scintillating personality that Americans had rejected, it was her party’s incredibly stutterfuck ideas that we had decided to give a pass on.
Nellcote
@JK:
The San Francisco Chronicle still has a book review section in the Sunday paper. It’s been reduced to only a few pages but it’s still there. Particularly amusing is the weekly contrast between the NYT “bestseller” list and the local Bay Area bestseller list. Somehow Malkin and Co. never make it to the later.
cokane
“the Palkin team” eh? Is that some freaky child of Palin and Malkin, a horror bent on destroying liberals?
Davis X. Machina
The Republican party, ceteris paribus, nominates the best hater (Nixon’s Law). And Palin can hate with the best of them.
I don’t think she’s a threat to get the nomination, or to win in that unlikely event, but she can do a fair amount of collateral damage to the polity in the explosion. Certainly she’s permanently lowered the bar for candidates to follow — in a post-Palin-world, an at-the-time risible candidacy like Wilbur Mills’ looks like Cicero and Solon come back to life — and that’s even with Fannie Flagg.
Soylent Green
Says Palin of the Bering land bridge of 12,000 years ago:
That’s why she was invited to speak. She can see Asia from her house.
Brachiator
@JK:
Wait a minute. You mean this wasn’t the bold move of a maverick?
I continue to be amazed by the number of people I talk to, not all of them wingnuts, who are still impressed by Palin.
Part of this springs, I think, from the strong impulse of anti-intellectualism that has always been a part of America, the notion that all you really need is common sense, and maybe the Bible. On the other hand, people who are smart, unless they are folksy like Ben Franklin or Honest Abe Lincoln, may be dreamy, detached eggheads who cannot be trusted.
.
Funny. When Palin first ran for governor, the smart money thought that she would be decimated in debates with more seasoned pols. Didn’t happen.
And while Huckabee gots skills, Romney is God’s Gift to Empty Suits.
It’s still too early to tell whether Palin has any staying power. But you have to acknowledge that she has some Reagan-like Teflon that makes a lot of people who should no better think well of her.
And whenever I am inclined to toss Palin onto the dust heap of political history, I remind myself that we had Bush for president. For two full terms also, too.
Delia
I believe the “We are all Mayans now” tag refers to the currently popular fad which holds that the ancient Mayan calendar calculated that the world will come to an end in 2012 C.E. I believe that there’s some silly movie coming out based on that premise.
And I would love to see Palin locked in a death struggle with Mike Huckabee. I think the Huck would win.
JK
@Brachiator:
Absolutely true. I don’t think the starburst effect can be emphasized enough. I think many men, like the pathetic Rich Lowry, are simply infatuated with Palin. For them, she’s the sex goddess with whom they couldn’t score a date in a billion years. Those male delegates in the convention hall who screamed and hung on to every word of Palin’s acceptance speech and the throngs who greeted her like a conquering hero at campaign rallies were thinking with their genitals and not with their brains.
JK
@Nellcote:
Thanks for the correction. I do miss the old days when many of the major daily newspapers had pull-out Sunday book reviews. We’ve lost something that can’t be replaced.
Svensker
There’s a difference?
Calouste
@Soylent Green:
So she is not a Young Earth Creationist then? Although more likely she is either pandering or just doesn’t understand the contradiction.
Tom Levenson
@JK: Aiee! So true. I’ll be writing about this, as I lick the wounds induced by my latest brush with book publishing. (No self referential link; just take my word for it; the UK went fine….here, w. the death of literary journalism, not so much.) The literary blogosphere is not (yet) up to the task of creating a conversation/community of interest vigorous enough to give life to books that are not blockbusters.
Tom Levenson
@Brachiator: Had to duck out to do my day job for a bit. I think you are right that she is what the back-room folks in the party would like to elect, the populist know-nothing that could (presumably*) be controlled once in office.
I just think, as others here have noted, that outside the Wingularity she is damaged goods, and that the ferocious ambition of others in her party stand in her way. That she is both a danger and disgrace I do not dispute.
*For anyone thinking that it would be safe to elect Palin because grown ups would really be in charge, recall (a) Bush/Cheney and (b) von Papen’s remarks that January of 1933: We’ve hired him! Why yes, yes you did, to all our sorrow.
Brachiator
@JK:
RE: You have to acknowledge that she [Palin] has some Reagan-like Teflon that makes a lot of people who should no better think well of her.
The people I know who most admire Palin are women, and some gay men. Some of the women don’t have a great deal of formal education, but have worked hard to get ahead. A couple are office managers or independent business people who had to work hard to get where they are. Ironically, many of them went back to school or did an amount of independent study that adds up to more than Palin’s modest academic achievements, but they still give Palin credit for getting elected mayor and governor and for holding her own with political bigwigs.
By the way, I recall from the polling that the McCain/Palin ticket did worse with women voters than previous GOP presidential candidates, so Palin’s appeal didn’t carry far. Still, there are some women who strongly identify with her.
Actually, most of the guys I know who find Palin hot do pretty well with women. Most of these guys wouldn’t vote for her on a bet, and have no problem separating their brains from their genitals. They don’t take her seriously as a political figure even if she is high on their list of Cougars.
This misses the larger picture. Fortunately, Palin missed the larger picture, also.
When Palin made an early appearance in Southern California, she came to the Home Depot Center in South LA as opposed to a venue in more GOP friendly Orange County. The crowd was enthusiastic, ethnically diverse, and by no means largely geek-Starbust male. But very soon after, Palin decided that she would be the Caribou Queen of “real” (i.e., white) America, and immediately turned her back on a larger number of potential voters who appreciated what appeared to be a fresh face.
Since then, I don’t recall any speech in which she acknowledges that America is more than her narrow vision of Main Street, USA.
katiemc
@Zifnab: Not to be a nitpicker but I didn’t know that one could handle a “coup” well.. on the other hand I have driven some very nice coupes
pattonbt
I have 1% fear and 99% elation at the thought of the 2012 Republican presidential primaries. Someone above, forget who, sorry, noted that Sarah doesnt have what it takes to campaign for a long time. Sure, she can BS her way enough through Republican debates and be seen to do well (I mean all she has to say is she triple plus loves jesus, wants to quintuple Guantanamo, hate on “the other”, parise St Ronnie and shes good), but its outside the debates where she will fail hard.
She doesnt have the impulse or message control. I mean if she is in charge, she will make the insanity of the Hillary campaign look amazing in comparison. Sarah would have to surround herself with people who are intelligent, wise and controlling and she would have to listen and act on their advice – and be willing to be controlled to an extent.
And as some of the leaked emails from the McCain campaign show, thats not gonna happen if she is running the show. So when the other Republican nominess start sniping outside of the debate and the contest is on ‘to win the day’ in the primary news cycle, she will lose it. She simply will not be able to resist biting back and making herself look petty and stupid.
I already have the popcorn ready. Its going to be a spectularly beautiful and full of fail ride.
But I am saddened about what Cole points out above. She will be resurrected because the media can not help itself. They want her deperately.
Lesley
If she was articulate, compelling, and well prepared, they wouldn’t keep the media out.
The people funding her are liars. The people listening to her are idiots.
Steeplejack
@JK:
Huh? No more Washington Post Book World ? I never read it, but I assumed it was still out there. Will check the Post this Sunday.
Steep +0. Just got home from work. Must mix gigantic drink to dull the pain. My part-time gig (yeah, health insurance, hooray, bleah) is teh stoopid. And by “teh stoopid” I mean the managers.
Aries M.
Am I the only one who finds the Palin-Scheunemann relationship interesting? There’s an Eliza/Henry quality that intrigues me and I can’t help but wonder if there’s romance in the air…