Sarah Palin stories are like the Terminator series: however much you think, “god, this is even dumber than the last one,” you know that there’s a small, dedicated fan base guaranteeing that there will be another before too long.
However, given that I dedicated a healthy part of Panoptiblog’s infancy to the presidential race, I feel I should say something about the fact that Sarah Palin quit her job last week. Why she would do such a thing is anybody’s guess. An oncoming scandal? A sincere desire to quit politics? A plan to run for President?
It is, of course, that last question that draws most people in; otherwise, she’d be just another odd political story. The Daily Beast‘s Joe Mathews and The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol have claimed this might be a “shrewd” or even “brilliant” move to get into the White House. Mathews’ evidence for this is what her expected 2012 primary opponents are doing:
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama’s January address got terrible reviews in part because he was being evaluated not as the nation’s youngest governor but as a presidential candidate. By comparison, the Republicans who look strongest are those who are already running free and clear—2008 campaign veterans and very former governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
Yes, though he seems to forget that the latter two served their terms and didn’t run for re-election; they didn’t walk off the job. Ross Douthat, on the other hand, views the whole thing with regret:
Had she refused John McCain, Palin would still be a popular female governor in a Republican Party starved for future stars. Her scandals would be the stuff of local politics, her daughter’s pregnancy a minor story in the Lower 48, her son Trig’s parentage a nonissue even for conspiracy theorists. There would still be plenty of time to ease into the national spotlight, to bone up on the issues, and to craft a persona more appealing than the Mrs. Spiro Agnew role the McCain campaign assigned to her.
What strikes me is that both sentiments above, and Palin’s resignation itself, unthinkingly puts potential for running and campaigning for election above actually governing. What will Palin do now? Oh, she’ll go around the country helping more conservatives get elected. But what good is that to them, if said conservatives quit rather than govern, in the name of more campaigning? And Douthat’s willingness to believe that all she needs is a little “boning up” is pretty hard to swallow.
Strangely, it seems to me that the effect of this on her chances of getting the Republican nomination is probably negligible. If the fact that she could name no Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade, and that she had command of exactly zero issues didn’t dissuade them before, resigning a year or two early is doubtful to matter (and nor will her confidence that, if she were President, the “department of law” would take care of her… *sigh*). Republican primary voters are a small block of the party, and are further to the right than Republican voters at large; just as Democratic primary voters are further to the left. It would certainly be a general election issue.
The video of her absolutely incoherent speech is after the jump. Watch any random couple of minutes, if you can bear it. It’s worth seeing and hearing, if only because one forgets exactly how awful the experience is. She makes Bush sound like Churchill.
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