Sarah Punchline

Nothing brightens the day more than discovering a fresh encounter between Sarah Palin and the media. (Please see enclosed link.) Of the most reknowned political figures extant, she manages to combine what appears to be a complete lack of situational awareness with folksy vernacular, to live down to the widespread perception that Sarah Palin is an ill-natured Ditz.

This is the point where very passionate and committed Republican partisans fire off an e-mail to your Wandering Gentile, reprimanding a reproach of their beloved Governor Palin. This is usually accomplished with as little attention as can be paid to grammar and still be technically written. There are exceptions who will offer a reasonable discussion of Mrs. Palin's achievements, but most frequently one receives presonal affronts.

The saddest thing about committed "Joe the Plumber" conservatives is that many of them are personable, decent human beings who have been so indoctrinated by the venom and vitriol on AM talk radio that there may never be any hope of reconciliation with a broader America. Not everything conservative is wrong, but a lot of the presentation is. Mrs. Palin is a weak speaker who interviews poorly. She comes from the vernacular of talk radio, which if presented with certain accomplishments of the Reagan administration, might very well call Ronald Reagan a Socialist. (Well, they're wrong about nearly everything else...)

It leaves Mrs. Palin of being supported by people who were going to vote Republican, anyway, and no one else. Democrats and liberals are well served by encouraging Mrs. Palin's broader aspirations. Indeed, the Limbaughesque tactic of supporting the weaker candidate could be a justifiable turnabout on the practices of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater. Palin is already the choice of the conservative opinion apparatus, as well as those information structure is based upon Fox News and the Internet's NewsMax service.

This information structure embraced by Palin's supporters also caters to a particular subset of conservatism which is better described as enumerating more heads than natively occurring teeth within.

This ostensibly paleoconservative subset has allied itself with some of the more extraordinary conspiracy theories, including the questioning of Mr. Obama's citizenship. They have cited the lapse between his birth on Friday, August 4, 1961 at 7:24pm and his registration with the Hawaii Bureau of Vital Records on Tuesday August 8, 1961, probably between 8am and 5pm, as being part of a conspiracy to cover up his birth in Indonesia.

Okay, five years later it took almost TWO WEEKS for a birth certificate to make its way from Savannah to Atlanta. Maybe I'm actually Canadian! It would certainly explain my liking for the sport of Curling, and preference for Pontiacs over Chevrolets!

The real truth is much more mundane. The Palinite subset is not capable of accepting the fact that they lost the election. Nor will they consider that Mrs. Palin may have had some consequence upon the ticket. It has become easier for paleoconservatives to engage in a quixotic fight against imagined enemies than make changes to the substance of their presentation and engage more people in the market of ideas.

More painful for liberals and neoliberals alike is that Palin's ultimate effect upon the outcome of the election was negligible at best. The fact was that Barack Obama ran a spectaularly effective campaign, and there may not be any Republican who could have won against any Democrat in 2008. Bush was that much of an Albatross.

Now come some words that the Gentle Reader may not expect: Sarah Palin is doing something very astute right now. By setting herself as the victim of a poorly executed campagn and a hostile press, her trajectory is set within the party. She is already the front runner for the 2012 campaign. But a few obstacles remain.

1.) Mike Huckabee. He's a better speaker, spectacularly likeable, and an extremely competent campaigner. Issue for issue, Huck is a mirror of Governor Palin's positions, but much less unwise in the stewardship of his presentation. He's relatively young, and a smart move would be to curry favor with Palin, land the number two slot in 2012, get the party on board, and win in 2016.

2.) Palin needs an image makeover. Nixon did it in '68, so we know it's not impossible. But most of Nixon's image rebuild relied upon Lyndon Johnson, and most of Palin's will be heavily dependent upon Barack Obama.

One foresees an Obama administration building upon the campaign infrastructure-in fact he has already started-with the ability to leverage the Obama Brand Goodwill through direct communication with supporters. This is the mother of all things big. In an instant Mr. Obama can connect to millions to plead his case for his legislative agenda. In other words, he can stand toe-to-toe with talk radio and have a chance of achieving his goals.

Likewise, he will take a cautious tack with his legislative priorities. Obama, likely more than anyone else, has the capacity to understand that he represents the aspirations of millions of Americans whose voices have been stifled for centuries. The cost of imprudence or incompetence would weigh unbearably upon the shoulders of the majority of americans who are not white, non-latino males.

To bet against Obama appears very foolish.

FIRST 2012 ELECTION PREDICTION!!!

Obama-Clinton (You saw it here first.) 425-475 Electoral Votes.

Palin-Huckabee 63-113 Electoral Votes.

FIRST 2016 ELECTION PREDICTION!!!

Alls I got is an image of the Arkansas governor's mansion. You know, the triple-wide in Little Rock.