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Palin's run the peak of her career
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Like many conservatives, I got swept up in the hype of Sarah Palin, whose bite seemed just as hard as her bark. She inspired conservatives and brought back the base, giving John McCain the step up he needed to regain his footing as the Republican nominee. But sadly, her run for Vice President will surely be known as the ride of her lifetime—and the peak of her political career.
Though there is much speculation that Gov. Palin will seek a presidential run in 2012, the likelihood of that ambition coming to fruition seems slim to none. Consider all the factors--beyond her domestic duties, Palin still has a day job as the governor of America’s northernmost state. The day after Election Day, reporters were quick to probe on her presidential motives, to which she humbly replied, “I will be concentrating on enrolling Trig in kindergarten and focusing on the needs of the people of Alaska.” This gave a glimpse into the fact that the woman herself knows that she is not qualified to become leader of the free world.
Palin’s debut in the national spotlight should have been in the first sign to conservatives that she was not the one we were looking for. Not only was she inaccessible to any kind of media in the weeks following her convention speech, the Katie Couric interview propelled her from conservative darling into an SNL punch line. Note to Sarah Palin: when the flighty Katie Couric comes out looking like the smarter, more poised woman, it may be a sign that you are not cut out to lead the nation in any kind of crisis, let alone day-to-day policy.
And who could forget the infamous shopping spree, in which Palin and her family racked up more than $100,000 worth of high-end clothing and accessories. If Palin is not ready to manage other people’s money and live by the fiscal conservativism so many in the base expect, and cannot be trusted with campaign money (donated by hard-working Republicans), how can Americans trust her with their hard-earned tax dollars?
All things considered, any true-blooded conservative must wonder why McCain would pick a running mate whose experience consists of managing one of the lowest populated states in the union and whose record is truly more moderate than staunchly conservative.
It can be assumed that, knowing a loss against Barack Obama was inevitable, the McCain camp went with a veep pick that would be a safe choice. In other words, Palin was a politician who would be a good-enough pick but one whose career would not suffer from a loss. Running for veep would be a great peak for Palin, after which she would return to Alaska a local hero and resume her life in the tundra. Palin did not have much to lose by running for the highest office she could ever fathom, and proved just enough to get McCain out of the doghouse with conservatives.
Yet there is rampant talk that Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican Party, amid speculation that she might run for Senate. There is one major problem with this bold ambition (aside from the fact that Palin herself has not affirmed this rumor). Her run for vice president was centered around her persona of being a real girl from the Midwest; who knew nothing of the good ‘ol boy club or elite Washington. Becoming a member of the Senate, or even campaigning for that office, would turn her into precisely the evil she had claimed to be so adamantly against. Not only would this make her a hypocrite, but it would give free reign to her opponents to paint her as a flip-flopper.
Should she decide to run anyway, she would have to shatter about 18 million cracks in the political glass ceiling. As soon as the presidential race ended, staffers of the McCain campaign were quick to leak stories, anonymous of course, of temper tantrums and in-fighting in the final weeks leading up to Election Day. To add insult to injury, some staffers claimed that Palin didn’t know all the countries involved in NAFTA (that would be North American countries), and reportedly thought that South Africa was just a part of a region; not a country within a continent. Is it too much to ask that our candidates for any kind of office, mayor, governor, president, or whatever, are able to pass the SAT?
When it comes down to it, do not expect Sarah Palin to foster a substantial run for anything beyond the post she already holds. Still in the throes of post-election drama, she is being courted by some Republicans who would like to think that she is the conservative we need to keep ourselves afloat. Those people need to take a good, long look at the woman who was so unknowledgeable that she could not even define the Bush Doctrine.
She has been thrown up against the wall but she will not stick. My advice to my fellow conservatives is to let Sarah Palin fade back into relative obscurity and continue searching for the true Reagan heir who will lift us back into the mainstream. As for Palin, I suggest a deep look into the soul, a la Reagan in the late 1960’s, to solidify her own ideology—it is only then that she will deserve to be taken seriously.
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