The Weekly Standard: Hurricane Palin About To Descend On The Lower 48
Friday, July 10, 2009
3 Responses
Matthew Continetti, from the Weekly Standard, released an early copy of his piece for the July 20th 2009 issue: Sarah Palin on why she resigned and what it means for her future. Mr Continetti looks at Governor Palin from the being of her carrier and demostrates The Governor likes gambles, never does anything by the book and is a women of firsts!On Governor Palin And Her Rise:
One thing you quickly learn about Sarah Palin when you study her career is that she never, ever does things by the book. The lady knows how to make a splash. She specializes in surprise announcements. Her 2004 resignation from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, her 2005 declaration that she was challenging incumbent Frank Murkowski for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, her March 2008 revelation that she was seven months pregnant with her fifth child, then her August 2008 addition to the GOP presidential ticket and the subsequent shocker that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant: All galvanized public opinion and upset established patterns of doing business.
Palin likes gambles. Her career is filled with firsts. In 2006, Palin became the first woman governor in Alaska history (as well as the youngest). In 2008, she became the first woman to appear on a GOP presidential ballot. And on July 3, she probably became the first governor with a 54-percent approval rating to resign from office for reasons having nothing to do with scandal or appointment to another job.
Palin's unconventionality and authenticity is the key to her appeal. She may move contrariwise to elite opinion in Washington and New York, but doing so strengthens her bond with conservative Republicans across the country. The things that make liberals bug-out at the first mention of Palin are exactly the ones that rally conservatives to her side. Liberals view Palin's resignation as a sign of weakness. Conservatives view it as attractive nonconformity. "To her credit," Dittman said, "she just didn't tip off a few people and go through the motions for a year and a half."
How The Media Went After Governor Palin:
Why is Palin leaving? At this writing, there is no reason to doubt her stated position: Her enemies' concerted efforts to tear her down have caused her family financial stress and distracted her from her duties as governor. Since she returned to Alaska in November 2008, she has been hemmed in. Ethics complaints, insults, invective, undue attention, and legal bills have been all-consuming. "I can't fight for what's right when I'm shackled to the governor's seat," Palin said. For the last seven months the governor's office has been a ward. A trap. She is breaking free.
Palin likes to say "everything changed" for her on August 29, 2008, the day she was introduced as John McCain's running mate. That may be an understatement. Before then, Palin was an extremely popular governor known to Alaskans as a bipartisan reformer and a champion of clean government. Outside Alaska, she was almost completely unknown. When she strode onstage with McCain that August day in Dayton, Ohio, the only thing the global media knew for sure about Palin was that she opposed abortion and recently had given birth to a child with Down's syndrome. Since then, Democrats and the press have done everything in their power to transform this populist hero into a gun-toting, idiotic, apocalyptic harpy.
Last year, in the space of eight weeks, the media said Palin was a Buchananite (she wasn't), a member of the Alaska Independence Party (nope), a book-banner (wrong again), and a biblical literalist who believed dinosaurs roamed the Earth several thousand years ago (an utter fabrication). When it wasn't mangling facts, the press did its best to undermine Palin's accomplishments, from selling Governor Murkowski's jet to finally pulling the plug on the Bridge to Nowhere to pushing through a natural gas pipeline with bipartisan support. The denizens of leftwing fever swamps accused Palin of infidelity and questioned her most recent pregnancy. Feminist activists denied Palin her womanhood because she did not share their politics. Comedians made fun of her accent, clothes, smarts, and good looks. And in a craven attempt to preserve their ties to the media, the campaign operatives who had promoted Palin to John McCain later turned on her, telling reporters (on background, of course) that Palin was an incompetent "rogue" "diva" who may have been suffering from postpartum depression.
Palin-hatred is visceral and unrelenting. "Our state was inundated with opposition researchers trying to dig up dirt, the Democratic blogosphere up here making stuff up," Palin told me. The file on my desktop labeled "Insult List" is an attempt to track every foul thing that's been said about Sarah Palin since she rose to national prominence. At the moment, the list is seven single-spaced pages long. Palin's been called, among other things, a "bimbo," a "cancer," a "farce," a "jack in the box," a "provincial," a "maniac," an "airhead," "Lady Gaga," and "political slime." And that's just a small taste of the G-rated stuff. The blue material is far worse.
Once Governor Palin Made Her Announcement:
When she announced her resignation, the Internet rumor mill went into high gear. Lefty bloggers could not countenance the idea that the woman to whom they devote such enmity might actually be resigning for her stated reasons alone. There must be some other story, they wrote, some other snowshoe waiting to drop. The CNN anchor Rick Sanchez speculated on air that Palin might be pregnant. The Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore wrote on the Huffington Post that Palin resigned because she was "under federal investigation" for self-dealing in the construction of a recreation center in Wasilla. Other liberal bloggers parroted Moore's baseless accusations. Palin's team wasted no time in issuing a statement from the governor's lawyer that shot down Moore's blog. "We will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation," the lawyer wrote. The FBI also came out and said Palin was not the subject of an investigation. Another malicious story batted down.
Palin had made a clear decision to defend her family's honor. "The toll on her family from all the events over the past three years has been extraordinary," John Bitney wrote in his email to me. "She had a baby, Bristol had a baby, Track was sent overseas, and no doubt Piper and Willow have all the day-to-day issues that come from young women growing up." The parade of outrages against her and her children didn't help.
Yet a politician's job is to serve her constituents, not bicker with comedians. Palin has been caught in a bind. Her global celebrity has been in tension with her duties to Alaska. Had she remained in office, the tension would have become more pronounced. Meanwhile, the agenda on which she defeated Frank Murkowski has been enacted into law. One more year in office would mean additional legal bills and constant juggling between the demands of family, work, and fame. The job had become demanding and unpleasant.
Speculation about Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions is premature. She herself probably does not know her next move. There is a strong chance that the unpredictable Palin may decide against running for any office, ever. You never know. But since the presidency so captivates Americans, and since the most recent vice presidential nominee has as much of a claim on the next presidential nomination as anyone, "Palin for President" (Tippecanoe and Piper too!) stories will be around for years to come.
Did Palin's surprise resignation help her chances?
The flippant answer is, "Check back in four years, bub." The serious answer is, "There's no strong consensus one way or the other." When Palin announced her resignation, the conventional wisdom immediately gelled behind the position that she could no longer win the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. Maybe. Slowly and haltingly, however, an alternative theory emerged that said the move might not damage Palin as much as the establishment believed it would.
The polling evidence seems to confirm this. So far, Palin's fans have viewed her decision not to seek reelection sympathetically. A Gallup poll released on July 8 recorded that 67 percent of Republicans wanted Palin to have a role as a national political figure. A Rasmussen poll from last week found that Mitt Romney, Palin, and Mike Huckabee are in a statistical tie for the nomination.
Palin has a devoted following. No Republican politician energizes GOP crowds as much as she does. When I saw her speak at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner in Evansville, Indiana, in April, Palin was practically mobbed by well-wishers and autograph seekers. The conservative movement is rudderless, and social conservatives in particular would like a powerful spokesman for their cause. The social issues may not have played much of a role during Palin's governorship, but once she is free from office she can emphasize them as much as she likes.
Throughout her career, Palin has seemed most "appropriate" at moments when she senses that the populace is diverging from the political class that rules over it. Palin exploits the split and wins office as the tribune of the people. That is what happened when she saw that Wasillans were tired of the nonideological, nonpartisan, unexciting mayoralty of John Stein; when she saw self-dealing among Republican insiders in Anchorage and Juneau; when she saw that Alaskans were tired of Frank Murkowski and the lobbyist culture he nursed and protected. That is what she and John McCain tried to do last year, when Americans had grown tired of George W. Bush and Republican misrule (things didn't work out the way they'd hoped). The next time Palin sees a gap separating the people and their government, she may try to jump in and fill it.
For now, though, Palin will focus on writing her book, on the midterm elections, and on giving speeches. One certainty is that neither she nor the people who love and hate her are going away. "It's not retreat," Palin said. "It's moving more aggressively than ever to fight for what's right." Today the Palinistas and Palinphobes are as much a part of the national scene as they have been part of Alaska's. Since her debut, Palin has sparked curiosity and revulsion, devotion and illwill, admiration and scorn in equal measure. For whatever reason, the press cannot take its unblinking eye off of her. To the media and her detractors, she is a force of nature. She cannot be ignored.
The obsession is sure to intensify. Be prepared. Hurricane Sarah is about to descend on the Lower 48.
Full Article At:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/708gpxia.asp?pg=1
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