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Before I conclude my article on the Bay Meadows tragedy and the aftermath, I think a short column needs to be written concerning Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.
Until September of last year when then Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain selected her as his Vice-Presidential running mate, few Americans had heard of her. She suddenly shot out-of-a-cannon and roared to the center of the national political stage.
Before she even had a chance to catch her breath, the national media was screaming for interviews and a wild flurry of accusations sailed forth from opponents and spectators alike.
She had no national experience. She had no foreign policy experience. She was from a sparsely populated state, etc. Wherever she turned, a microphone was thrust in her face and the public demanded answers, pronto!
Unfortunately for Governor Palin, the rather startling beginning happened so fast that she had understandable problems adjusting to the intense national spotlight.
First up to interview the governor was Charles Gibson of ABC News. His interview with the governor became an overnight u-tube classic with all the mistakes, mishaps and bumbling remarks.
Taped at her home in Alaska, it was the classic “got you” interview people like Gibson only dream of. It was obvious that she had much to learn and she hadn’t spent the necessary time needed for such an occasion. Her handlers blew it and the media was ready for the kill.
Out of that interview came obvious distortions and untruths that might have been forgiven had it not been for her wildly successful reception at the Republican National Convention earlier that month in Minneapolis. .jpg)
The speech outraged liberals with its home spun themes and populist slant. Fiercely anti-abortion and nuclear family, Palin raised the hairs on the necks of stalwart liberal democrats, feminists, gays, etc. A virtual rainbow of instant opposition to an individual candidate practically nobody had heard of a month before.
They laughed at her stumbles during the first interview; about seeing Russia from her home in Alaska as proof of her foreign policy experience. She was unfamiliar with the Bush Doctrine. Later it appeared to be just as murky to everyone else, but no matter!
The governor couldn’t do anything right and the media was doing all it could to make it remain that way.
From the beginning the cry was incompetence and inexperience. They were the party of leadership and she brought nothing but neanderthal politics to a more refined political world.
But her message of home, family and country rang true to a solid base of conservative Republicans. It ignited the first real fear the Obama camp had experienced during that Fall campaign. She might be the game changer now that she was aboard. She put a new and fresh face on a campaign of tired and old ideas led by a man who’d had cancer three times already.
She was what the opposition feared the most: The “Rocky Balboa” no one saw coming.
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Governor Palin had the political world by the tail. The media did everything within their power to take that from her through ridicule, innuendo and pure gossip. Virtually none of it worked and the juggernaut continued into October.
But, then comes the economic collapse; the Vice-Presidential Debate and the overzealous spinners losing control of Palin’s persona.
Gone was the admiration Americans had initially held of her. Sarah battling the evil media giants of the East Coast! No longer were her gaffes taken lightly or mislaid facts left at the door. The tide had turned and so had Sarah Palin.
It seemed she began to see herself as an avenging conservative fighting the good fight alone. Her diatribes became legendary and her grasp of the facts more and more dissected. Her buzz words or mood changers at each campaign stop began to ring hollow and rehearsed.
She began to think she was much more than what she really was. That was the beginning of her downfall. And it has brought us to the Sarah of today.
Instead of accepting the inevitable defeat in November with the legendary grace McCain showed, Palin began to act as if the campaign wasn’t over; that the fight had just begun for 2012. There would be no intermission. The fight would continue as if there was no end at all.
Her handlers told her this was the time to strike! But Ms. Palin forgot the first rule of politics: Know when to fold. At least fold for awhile! People had just witnessed the longest presidential campaign in the history of the country. They were bone tired!
Now, months after the balloons and ticker tape have been swept up, the crowds have gone home to their regular lives and the endless campaign commercials have been shelved for the next fight. Except for the usual snipes from leftovers like Gingrich and Romney, the country is taking a rest and judging what they elected.
Sarah is struggling like Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard”; a faded actress/politician who can’t stand to leave the limelight.
If it’s not her brave stance on special needs for children, it’s her fight for unwed mothers (pretty much a slam dunk issue for her). She’s fighting every moment for newspaper space and time on the networks. The country will be interested again, but not now.
She has been ruffling a lot of feathers within the Republican circles with her ultra-right leanings. Many feel that her ideas will only lead to another defeat for the White House in 2012.
But her handlers are telling her now is the time to rally the “base”. Now is the time to build on your stardom.
Whereas most wounded Republicans are trying to ascertain what that base is, Governor Palin sees it as the NEW “silent majority” former Vice President Spiro Agnew spoke of 40 years ago.
And now we have the latest headline grabber: Written, produced and starring Sarah Palin in the lead role as the avenging heroine defending all mothers of the empire against the evil comedian talk show host, David Letterman.
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Someone always becomes the symbol of another’s political anger and Letterman’s ill thought jokes concerning her 14 year old daughter last week was the ticket!
Never mind that he apologized eventually with the roar became too much. In his own disbelieving appearance to apologize, Governor Palin had staked her ground for the fight to come. He’s the anti-Christ the Palin handlers now point to as the “don’t get its” of the East and West Coast media centers.
So the seeds of strategy have been sown. Sarah has found her niche and she’s fighting the good cause. But 2012 is a long ways away to begin making headlines this soon. The word burnout comes to mind.
Obviously a joke about a 14 year old girl being molested by a grown ball player is ill advised and ill thought out. Letterman knew that instantly from the understandable outrage by Women and Americans in general. He apologized as best as he could.
But this is now Sarah Palin the victim. She kept up the strangely empty appearance of indignity long after the groundswell was gone. People had gotten the message, but like a fighter who is clearly punch drunk, she kept swinging long after the crowd was gone.
This is not what the Republican Party needs in 2009. There are already enough victims to go around. This doesn’t win elections or recertify your beliefs to the electorate
If Palin thinks continuing to swipe at a COMEDIAN who himself is a family man, her handlers are leading her right into the box of has-beens before 2012 begins.
Go home to Alaska Ms. Palin. Do what you were elected to do for the voters of Alaska and formulate a resume that you can wave to the voters in three years. Continuing these made-for-TV news events will blow up in your face. The American people are smart enough to know a candidate that’s simply reading the monitor and today’s polls.
It was Robert Redford who made the classic remark in “The Candidate” after actually winning a senate seat from California. “What do we do now?” was his response.
Governor Palin would do well to see that movie and think about those words.
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