Being sick decidedly sucks... perhaps never more so than a holiday weekend where 24 hour news is dominated by 2 endlessly repeated and poorly understood stories... in my case, more about Michael Jackson and drugs... and Sarah Palin.
In the rush to sort out Sarah Palin, the general fascination with "why" and "what now" seem kind of missing the point. What this latest move shows, most vividly, is that the conservative right has an enormous problem which Sarah Palin embodies: the fact that the political narrative of right-wing politics has gotten completely away from the people best suited to help craft the agenda, and is, instead, in the hand of attractive charismatics with unclear motives.
Even as "serious" conservative types started analyzing all the possibilities, it was clear that Palin's real audience already got the message. Conservative true believers - the ardent "base" of the right - knew Palin had made the right choice because... well, she made it.
It's the cult of personality surrounding Palin, the one which brooks nary a dissenting word about her, that's most indicative of the political problem the right faces. Aside from soberly asking whether a first term Governor abandoning office midstream can seriously be considered for future office, the most basic observation of Palin's clumsy, confusing attempt to explain her choice was that it did nothing to lay the groundwork for future office seeking.
That doesn't matter to the true believers... and that's the problem. Palin could easily serve as a national distraction for years to come, as Republicans struggle to find a new way to connect with voters and develop new ideas, only to be made irrelevant by a base that likes what it likes and wants what they know. And what they think they know, right now, is Sarah Palin.
The struggle to understand what Palin did and why, I suspect, is that it's rare to see people who leap on instinct, and leap so publicly. By not choosing conventional steps, Palin has a) managed to write a fairly successful ticket so far and b) given herself both options and the sureness of being noticed.
Yes, by abandoning her Governorship, Palin makes it hard to see what a successful next step is, in terms of elected office (although, if she turned around and ran for Lisa Murkowski's Senate seat, she might very well solve that in under a year)... but again, in some sense, that's the wrong question. If you look at what Palin was looking at - a glaring spotlight with a lot of unwanted attention, a challenging landscape in Alaska's government, a desire to reconnect with family - the question isn't what next... but "what now?"
Palin's ability to connect with "ordinary folks", even her ability to polarize the national audience, is often underestimated, or not fully understood. That's especially true, evn I have to admit, among the kind of "coastal elites" I tend to have little use for. Partly that's because the kind of class resentment Palin's tapped into is one that many of us like to deny even exists... and to the extent we examine it, we tend to look down on the people who raise it.
The trouble is that Palin's expression of class distinctions is often vague and incoherent (along with, as well, her politics and actual proposals). As such, she may be able to tap into a kind of resentment of a more succesful, uncaring "other"... but she has few practical solutions for breaking down the divides; and without solutions, she's little more than a channel for economic and social frustration. And in that, she may be a good vehicle for holding the more business-oriented and upper-class instincts of the establishment Republican Party in check, but she's in no position to actually change it.
And so the left is left, once again, sort of out of the problem conservatives are having among their own, and in the dark about what's really driving it. Politically, Palin doesn't amount, even now, to much of a challenge for the left (True Believers who envision her as a leader in the charge against Obama will likely be enormously disappointed), but it's always been her potential to marry up her audience appeal to an actual message that's been the reason to be concerned, and why, I think, so many otherwise reasonable folk get so rattled considering Palin's prospects. And that's why her endless complaints of "media mistreatment" are at once tiresome and pointed: it would give her less of a case if, like this month's Vanity Fair hit piece, the establishment's attempts to define her badly didn't seem like trying to kill a mouse with a Howitzer.
I don't think Palin is afraid of the Howitzer; I don't think she likes the idea of subordinating her options to other people's directives. There's a reason she didn't "wait her turn" in Alaska politics, and there's a reason she has little use for the kind of "political operative" advice that would have said "stay in office, and wait a year to announce your intentions." That Palin doesn't feel bound to expectations, or to anyone's rules, is, in its way, captivating. Make the first move, stay in control of your life and your choices... it's not the worst way to live.
It may though, be the worst way to create a common-sense political movement which can have broad appeal. That's what Republicans need... and it's not what they get with Sarah Palin. It doesn't matter why she resigned or what she does next... what matters is whether any Republican can stop her hijacking the whole operation. And right now... I'm not sure they can.
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