As new polling shows her costing him more votes than she might win, John McCain's running mate is, in her own way, doing a number of services for the Republican Party and the nation as a whole.
For one, Sarah Palin is proving that gender doesn't count in bringing ignorance (pace Dan Quayle) and mean-spiritedness (shades of Spiro Agnew) to a national ticket as she promises a balanced budget after four years of a McCain Administration and keeps repeating blatant lies about Barack Obama's tax proposals. Feminists can rest easy now that she and Hillary Clinton have shown women to be the equals of men in both venality and statesmanship.
Perhaps even more valuable is Palin's demonstration, by her meteoric rise and downfall, that media exposure cuts both ways in politics as well as show business (i.e., Britney Spears and Paris Hilton). Her handlers have learned that in presidential politics, as Muhammad Ali said about the prize ring, you can run but you can't hide.
Palin's most important contribution may be yet to come. When the extremists who finessed McCain into choosing her for VP start pushing Palin for the top spot in 2012, traditional Republican may finally rise up and take back their party and restore responsible two-party politics to the national dialogue.
If and when that happens, Palin can go back to governing Alaska with a sense of accomplishment and a nifty new wardrobe.
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3 comments:
Thanks, for this essay. It is a reminder that Right is still Wrong. I have wondered exactly how she might preside over the Senate.
When I was a child, my father, a black man from rural Florida, used to vote Republican in just about every election. My mother, however, voted Democrat. When, while standing in line with my father waiting to vote, I asked why, he explained that he identified with the Republican ideals of being frugal with taxpayer money and a small but effective government. He also explained that Democrats tended to favor higher taxes to fund larger government programs that *did* do good things for people, but that--in his opinion--could also be done and done more effectively through private institutions.
That was in 1980. My father hasn't voted Republican since--mainly due to the emergence of "the Religious Crazies who have hijacked the Republican party for their own nefarious reasons." Recently, we spoke on the phone, and he commented that he used to vote Democrat, not because he agreed with their policies, but because he was disturbed and greatly concerned by Republican policies that seemed so far out of line with what he believed. Now, he votes Democrat because these days their policies are much more akin to classic Republicanism than the Republicans' are.
It's a funny old world, innit?
When asked how he would fight the fleet-footed Billy Conn, Joe Louis responded, "He can run but he can't hide."
Ali may have done some great lines, but this one is Joe's.
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