I know that we’re having a bit of a meta night and all, but I just finished reading Robert Draper’s profile of Sarah Palin for this Sunday’s NYT Magazine.
I was amazed by it on a number of levels. One, I thought Draper was writing the kind of soft introductory NYTs profile that seemed designed in part to ensure future access. No blame on Robert as I think that is part of the form for these early ‘possible Presidential candidate’ profiles. But even with the obvious efforts to be ‘nice’ to Team Palin the crazy just shined through.
At one point Draper asked Palin why she dropped the bi-partisanship that she ran on to be elected Governor of Alaska. The answer was steeped in paranoia and Fox-newsspeak:
I brought up her past efforts at bipartisanship to Palin. âI was so innocent and naĂŻve to believe that I would be able to govern for four years and if I ever moved on beyond the governorship I could carry that with me nationally,â Palin said. âAnd it was proven when John McCain chose me for the nomination for vice president; what it showed me about the left: they go home. It doesnât matter what you do. It was the left that came out attacking me. They showed me their hypocrisy; they showed me they werenât willing to work in a bipartisan way. I learned my lesson. Once bitten, twice shy. I will never trust that they are not hypocrites until they show me theyâre sincere.â
The betrayal of her trust was that these ‘liberals’ did not vote for her and the only way to prove your sincerity, your lack of ‘hypocrisy’ is to join the cult of Sarah. If you’re not with her you are an enemy to be attacked and destroyed.
Another amazing section has her talking about the books she reads.
The newsy bit is that she confirms that she is all but an announcement away from running for President–but that is hardly news to anybody paying attention. What struck me was the deep levels of paranoia of Palin and her team paired with a her demand for cult-like loyalty as a precondition to work for her. And her cult of Sarah is wedded to a world view that is seriously at odds with history, science, the Constitution and reality. Her run for the White House will be a solid bet on the stupidity of Americas and her ability to get them to trust her and her cult with the future of the Nation.
FSM help us.
While I would like to think that Americans are not so stupid that they will buy this pile of mock-moose shit, when I really think of the last twenty years then I know anything is possible.
As I said, I can not begin to describe the crazy of this cult of the Quitta, this Cult of Sarah.
Cheers
srv
Dennis, would it be possible for your outstanding Confederate Party series to be put in a unique tag for the web redo?
MobiusKlein
I don’t want to be a h8er, but the link is busted.
(I feel dirty even clicking on it to find out it was bunk.)
russell
My opinion on Palin:
She is neither crazy, nor paranoid. She is extremely, extremely narcissistic.
JGabriel
Dennis, here’s the link for the NYT Magazine article on Palin, so you can just cut and paste it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/magazine/21palin-t.html
.
Moses2317
What I don’t understand is why the media continues to cover Ms. Palin. For the conservative media, wouldn’t they want to be highlighting someone a bit smarter and less paranoid? And to the extent there is any liberal media, the question has to be asked as to why they continue to seriously cover a know-nothing politician who is plainly completely unprepared to be President and who couldn’t even serve out a full term as Governor of one of our smallest states population wise.
Winning Progressive
Taobhan
After the last 20 years, nothing will surprise me anymore. The ability of the GOP to message total bullshit into the consciousness of American voters is nothing less than stunning. When a political party can get a majority of Americans to ignore its own ineffectiveness in governing and to vote against their own self-interest, anything (including POTUS Palin) is possible. Of course, the GOP has been able to do this against some pretty weak opposition. The Democratic party ain’t exactly winning the day, either on messaging or governing effectively.
General Stuck
And she is a cultist with a sizeable following. And is currently running second to the Mittster for the 2012 GOP POTUS nomination. Politics has become simple for me. The wingnuts must lose, be quashed into the little balls of fury and hatred they are, and unceremoniously deposited on the garbage heap of history. At this point, I don’t want to talk to them, find common ground, nor even acknowledge their existence as fellow citizens. And the reason is they have set that bar towards me as a liberal.
Fuck em. And fuck the glibertarians, and also too the leftists who don’t realize who the real enemy is.
Dennis G.
@JGabriel:
I forgot to check the link. FYWP.
Thanks
Mark S.
Jesus, Sarah, you were running for vice-president. Of course the other side is going to attack you.
Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter)
Well, at least they asked her the standard ridiculous questions about “bipartisanship”.
You see, the political press fetishizes “bipartisanship”. That’ why the loved, loved, loved Maverick, because they thought he was “bipartisan”.
It’s best to dismiss the issue with some bland, perfunctory lip service, like mccain did. Then you’ll have the media curling up in your lap.
Watch, in 2016, Al Franken could be the Democratic nominee, and he’ll give some lip service to “bipartisanship”.
Citizen Alan
@General Stuck:
I love you General Stuck. I want to have your baby.
Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter)
This interview isn’t a candidate profile, rather it’s just PR in support of her book release and the start of her reality tee vee show. Also, too, the Times feels compelled to do theses fluff pieces because they suffer from right wing spousal abuse syndrome (“yoooooooooooooooooooooour biased!” -//- “no I’m not, seeeeeeeeee!”)
Citizen Alan
I truly believe that the election of 2012 will be a watershed moment in American history, one of those moments where Americans are asked whether they want to continue the democratic experiment or just burn everything down and start over. If the Republicans succeed in preventing any sort of economic recovery in the next 2 years, Obama will be so vulnerable even a narcissistic twit like the Palin creature will have a good shot. Though I’m still more afraid of Huckaby than Palin — he’s personable, at least marginally literate, and his ideas sound good until you actually stop and listen to them and realize they’re the same crap that Palin peddles but with a warmer presentation.
Redshirt
Prediction: Sarah runs, decimates the Republican primary process. Chaos. If she wins the nomination, she gets 42-44% of the vote, scarily enough: The Wingnuts. (38% + remainder “Independents”). If Mittster et al wins, the R gets 46-48% of the vote. Regardless of the Repuglican, Obama wins in 2012.
Silver
Funny thing is, scroll down a few posts, and you can see Kain basically pull the same whine.
Sure, he doesn’t have it polished yet, but that’s because he doesn’t have the same amount of practice that Sarah does.
Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter)
@Moses2317:
1. because there is no liberal media.
2. cable news is a misnomer. They’re actually info-taiment. They’re freak shows (high speed car chases, Bear chases, missing white girls, balloon boy, viral videos, lady gaga, etc.). And there’s no bigger freak than palin. She’s the latest version of morton downey, jr.
YellowJournalism
@Mark S.: You know what’s funny? I actually kind of liked her as a choice the night she was announced. She seemed different and would hopefully freshen up McCain’s campaign up a bit. (This is when I had read that she ran on bipartisanship, blah, blah, blah.) Then the woman kept on talking, got interviewed by Katie Couric, and I realized that she actually stunk the campaign up like a woman walking through the room drenched in cheap perfume and odd cooking smells.
I would love to read this article all the way through, but I need to head to bed. I should have gone a half hour ago, but I wanted to see if the link would get fixed.
I’m sick. I need help.
Roger Moore
@Moses2317:
That assumes that A) they’re able to recognize that she’s stupid and paranoid and B) they think that stupidity and paranoia are bad. Instead, they’re all paranoid about what “the left” is going to do and how they aren’t being treated right. She’s playing to their common paranoid fears, so they validate what she’s saying rather than filtering it.
Roger +2
fasteddie9318
@russell:
I think she blows past narcissism into full-blown sociopathy. Bill O’Reilly is a narcissist; it’s why he can’t get over not being “cool” the way he perceived that Stewart and Colbert are, so he keeps trying to engage with them and be part of the clique. Palin isn’t trying to win acceptance because she can’t fathom why anyone other than her is worth troubling her beautiful mind about. The absurdity of her offense at the fact that liberals didn’t fawn all over her after McCain picked her shows a level of self-absorption that IMO is beyond narcissism. She and W, whose lowest point in a catastrophic 8 year presidency was the time some dude went on TV and called him a bad name, are a matched pair in that regard.
CaseyL
In my darker moments, I think she’ll run and win because the country just wants to get it over with, like the Easter Islanders chopping down the last few trees. Or because enough of us have become so alienated from the political process that it’s nothing more than a source of entertainment, and a Palin Administration would offer a lot of that: something to watch and hoot at while the country finishes its slide into a third-rate banana republic.
In my more optimistic moments…
I actually can’t remember the last time I had one of those.
joeyess
In the interest of melding pop culture with the culture in a petri dish that is Sarah Palin, I’ll defer the movie reference to Tbogg in times like this.
asiangrrlMN
@fasteddie9318: I would agree. Palin is way past narcissistic (and believe me, I know narcissistic). She’s scary, though, in that she taps into some deeper emotion with many people. I, too would like to believe that America is smarter and better than that, but I am not so sanguine. The last elections did not give me much comfort or reason to believe that insanity and stupidity will not win the day.
ETA: I still don’t think Palin has the wherewithal to stand a presidential campaign, though.
freelancer
@asiangrrlMN:
Neither does any staffer that she would inevitably hire and subsequently fire. Seriously, given the reports from the campaign and her recent travels, what competent person in their right mind would choose to work for her? This is the reason the campaign would be as amusing as it is short-lived.
Katie
Governor quitter has certainly made being intellectually incurious and narrow minded a good thing hasn’t she? I’ll never understand how so many people could be fooled into thinking that smart people are inherently evil. I wish she’d just go away. Far away.
Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter)
if she does run, it will be fun watching Sully stroke out.
The Dangerman
@Citizen Alan:
He can’t make it through what should be a rough and tumble primary; his fingerprints are all over the parole of the Dude that killed 4 police officers in Washington. If you thought the Willie Horton commercial was ugly, the one on this event should create the new standard.
Palin is definitely running and, in an era where the Right nominates people like Angle and O’Donnell, she might get nominated. Her chance in the General, though, is roughly the same as me hitting the lotto (and I don’t pay to play, but there is probably a nonzero chance that I find a winning ticket laying in the street). It is NOT going to happen. The GOTV from the Left would be epic if she were nominated … and the Right is already attacking her in a preemptive strike (“ninconpoop”, etc.) to prevent it.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter): A whole boat load of people wouldn’t mind having Franken as the nominee in ’16. TGOS would be overjoyed.
Davis X. Machina
She’s got unfavorables, in the latest Gallup, of over 50%, two years out. She’s already got name recognition of 100%. And only a tiny fraction of ‘independents’ are actually persuadable.
Where’s the upside potential? Short her on Intrade the day after she announces, and clean up.
morzer
@efgoldman:
We voted for them before we voted against them, as I recall.
freelancer
@Davis X. Machina:
And you think it’s bad now? Wait a week. When Bristol wins DWTS thanks to teatard email vote fraud, Palin’s brand is done for with “I don’t pay attention to politics” independents.
asiangrrlMN
@efgoldman: Well, I never thought either of them were going to win, so chalk one up for my consistency, I suppose.
@freelancer: Yeah, I would agree. However, again, I can’t shake the feeling that we as a people are deeply deeply stupid right now. Perhaps always. I don’t know since I’ve only really followed politics in the last two years. I mean, McCain/Palin won forty-plus percent of the popular vote. Even if Palin isn’t on the ballot for the Republicans, I do not doubt that whomever is on the ballot will be bad for the country and will end up with roughly half the vote. That perturbs me.
@Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter): I actually don’t think Franken would give lip service to bipartisanship–at least not in the conventional way. Just a hunch on my part, though. I have nothing to back it up.
Villago Delenda Est
Dennis, this country bought into the pastiche of Hollywood horseshit that was the shitty grade Z movie star.
Of course there are those who will buy into the bubbleheaded bimbo that is Sarah Palin.
joeyess
Palin is made up of equal parts Nixon paranoia, blended with Nixon victimhood and sprinkled with a hefty dose of Munchausen Syndrome garnished with a sprig of nefarious corporate leanings all the while claiming that she knows the mind of god.
These are the people the founders worried about when they wrote the bill of rights.
And she’s getting very good at cooking up this toxic stew for the electorate’s consumption.
Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter)
@Davis X. Machina: that’s true. the high water mark for some one with 100% name identification is the day he/she announces.
morzer
@joeyess:
And Nixon and his intellectual progeny won elections. Rather consistently. Worrying isn’t it?
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
“A thousand points of light, stay the course, a thousand points of light”
“I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy!”
joeyess
@morzer: very scary.
Wile E. Quixote
@The Dangerman:
Ditto, don’t be afraid of the Huckster because the Huckster is dead, dead, dead, dead. Maurice Clemmons made Willie Horton look like a boy scout. There is no fucking way in Hell that the Huckster is going to overcome that, especially if Snowbilly Snooki and the Mittster are running. Both of them will point out that they never pardoned any crazed cop-killing felons while they were in office and they’ll beat the Huckster to death with this, which is what he deserves.
I want to see the Huckster run though just so he can be crushed like the scumbag that he is.
The Dangerman
@Villago Delenda Est:
True, but Reagan worked hard for two decades to become electable, including multiple terms of Governor in CA; there is the next clue, he had a big State as a base of electoral votes. I think CA was the biggest even then as it is now. Part of that hard effort was keeping his nose clean of scandal; Palin has Troopergate, et al.
Short the shit out of her, indeedy, also.
JCJ
As I have posted before, Palin could easily win in 2012. All she has to do is win the states McCain won and add on states Republicans have won in the past – PA (a state which elected Santorum so they are easily capable of voting for a lunatic,) IN (home of Dan Burton and Mike Pence,) Ohio (aka Boehnerland,) NC (think Jesse Helms,) VA (just look at the governor and AG who were recently elected,) FL (Rubio,) and even my state of Wisconsin (dumbasses in the state just voted out Feingold.) The Republicans could nominate a dead cat (with a birth certificate, of course) and win LA, TX, AL, TN, KY, WV, GA, SC, OK, KS, and many others. I would likely consider moving up retirement and moving to Thailand were this to occur.
Suffern ACE
@morzer: And have never been driven out of the public no matter how many times they come back. I would even expect Rumsfeld back in office to give it go number 3.
morzer
You want something scary, try watching this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9210246.stm
JWL
The GOP is the party of rule-or-ruin.
The idiotic refusal of democratic officials to make that plain in their public pronouncements is inexcusable.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: You suck you suck you suck. Never from the BBC would I have expected that. Fortunately, my reading prowess is legendary, and I was able to grasp what I was about to be watching before the video actually started playing. Mission successfully aborted!
morzer
@JCJ:
Don’t bet on Michigan staying sane either. Obama saves the auto industry and millions of jobs in the Rust Belt – and the morons elect job-slashing GOP useful idiots.
Suffern ACE
@JCJ: Exactly. The next two years have to be about Democrats convincing voters in those states…and it won’t be easy in many of them. I could see Palin losing the popular vote and winning quite easily.
Dee Loralei
Look, St. Sarah, of the Snowbillies had an incredibly easy time of the VP race, no one anywhere attacked her or even questioned her past. That’s not gonna happen in a real presidential run. The Huckster and the Mittster are going to eviscerate St. Sarah in the first debate. Joe Biden went easy on her, he didn’t need to be an attack dog. And he had to worry about offending Independent women and marginally Republican women, so he left many things on the table.( Just as the entire Obama team did.)
Mitt and Huck don’t have that leeway. They have to go in for the kill. And they have to do it, before the Iowa primary. Huckabee has to prove he’s the only true “evangelical” in the race. And Romney has to prove he can defend the oligarchy, and Snowbillie Snookie can’t. And he has to prove he can defend the National Security State, and she can’t or won’t.
The problem is, in the past, the Rep. primary was winner take all. So, I can see Sarah taking Iowa, she thinks Brandstat owes her and will lean hard on him, ( though, he had it won before she backed him.) And there are a bunch of religious fundamentalist Republican votes to be had in Iowa. I don’t see her winning NH, but I see her leaning on Ayotte to push her over the top. ( I think Mitt has that one sown up, by dint of nearness.)
Next is SC, ( She thinks Nikki Haley owes her. Does Nikki Haley reciprocate?) This is where it get’s really ugly, this debate will be vicious. If Huck doesn’t stop her here, she’s unstoppable and he’s unforwardable.)
After SC, there is Nevada. Here I think Mitt or Huckabee can reign. But in the past, the Rep primary was winner take all.
Then according to the past should be a weeks break and Super Tuesday. But I am to understand that the Rep party has moved and changed it’s primaries and they are no longer winner takes all. But since many of those states are southern, I don’t see how Mitt makes up for so many losses. So, unless Mitt wins NH and at least comes in second, or wins, two other states. By Super Tuesday he is gone from the scrum pile. Or he could place second in something like 10 or so Super Tuesday states. The man has the money, and the family to be mostly active in all Super Tuesday States.
So far we’ve had four elections and at least five debates. At some time Mitt and Huck will join together to kill Sarah’s electoral chances, and they will yolk themselves to each other. I suspect at this time another actor will enter stage right. Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul. The moneyed pillar of the party will have to step in because Sarah and Huck are the wrong sorts to lead the party or lead the nation. And they will put their own up to compete against the religious wing.
And the moneyed wing will win. Because they always do. And the religious wing will vote for them, because they always do. And St. Sarah will go back to her tweeting and to her Facebook diatribes, and she’ll plug her next book, and she’ll be aggrieved for the folks who read her books and wanted to vote for her in the later primaries, but were denied the chance. And she’ll promise them that next time….in 2016 the desire they have will come to fruition, and they will finally be able to vote, for her! ( If only they donate now, if only they contribute now. If only they keep contributing, NOW! Then, and only then can the true Sarah Palin come out!)
Xenos
@YellowJournalism:
Go back and watch her speech at the convention. She had only been in the public eye a few days, nobody had attacked her, everybody was giving her the benefit of the doubt because she had the reputation of being a reformer and a maverick.
And she proceeded to give a hyperpartisan, bile-filled, hateful denunciation and demonization of half the American public. Not ‘the liberals are wrong’ but ‘they are assholes, they are anti-american, they are destroying us’. This was no reaction to a hostile media, this was her introducing herself to the world as a hateful person who wanted fame, power, and riches through promoting hatred. All wrapped up in neo-fascist kitsch. And this was from the absolute beginning of her campaign.
The Dangerman
@JCJ:
I will toss out one X-factor that might send Palin to victory; Iran testing a nuke. I think that will freak the fuck out of enough people to at least make it interesting.
That said, I don’t think Iran is testing a nuke and, if they do, Israel will hit it with a preemptive strike…
…and, by that time, things will go to shit so fast it may not matter who is President.
Villago Delenda Est
@Dee Loralei:
Another thing that Huckabee and Romney can ding her on: copying and pasting from the Newt Gingrich “I might run for President if you send me enough money!” playbook.
morzer
@Dee Loralei:
Romney dare not attack Palin openly. She’ll play the Christian victim card against his Mormon ass. Huckabee has his past record of mistaken pardons etc to haunt him. She’ll cruise past either of them, and grow stronger when they attack her. My guess would be that a sitting governor from the South will take her down, and talk about responsibility and service, but never directly go after her, just let voters remember who quit and ran for themselves.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
I warned you it was scary. The interesting thing is that the reporter actually asks tough questions while Bachmann goes all googly-eyed glazed expression and carries out farting out talking points even when they patently have nothing to do with the question.
Villago Delenda Est
@Xenos:
What I found interesting about that speech is she talked about how her husband, the snow-machine jockey, was a proud member of a union, and the GOP crowd did not know how to react to that. They wanted to cheer her on, she was after all the nominee, but that evil word, “union” caused a reaction like Ron Weasley hearing Harry Potter say “Voldemort”.
asiangrrlMN
@Xenos: I agree. I was intrigued at the announcement because I only knew her from the stunt she did on Craig Ferguson’s show. I thought it was an interesting choice. Then she spoke at the convention, and I was completely turned off by her. Then I did a bit of research, and I realized just how loathsome she was. This took one or two days at the most.
@morzer: No. You can not tempt with the vision of Michelle Bachmann’s head ‘asploding from all the hard questions. I am staying in the boat.
eyelessgame
Ford. Reagan. Quayle. Dubya. Palin.
They’ve been running Chauncey Gardiner for president (or VP) for thirty-four years, and winning more often than not. I have no problem at all seeing Palin winning.
The Republicans consist of Big Money, Militarists, Libertarians, Religious Right, and Racists (thumb, index, middle, ring, little fingers). Palin appears to have the latter four sewn up, like no one since Reagan. Big Money would have to wage an all-out war against her with another candidate, and I don’t see them doing it.
In 2008 each one of the Fingers had their own candidate – Tancredo et al for the racists, Huck for the religious right, Paul for the middle finger, Giuliani for the index finger, Romney for the thumb — so they wound up with McCain, whom nobody really liked. They’re not going to make that mistake again. Neither Romney nor Huck nor Gingrich is acceptable to enough of the Five; Palin is.
Suffern ACE
@Xenos: Yep. It went from–who is Sarah Palin. Will she win the vote of women…to She looks nice but I don’t like her rather quickly. That may have been her role to fire up the base…but at least two years ago that base was the same “war forever” and “Terri Schiavo” base that had turned a lot of independents away from the GOP.
Roger Moore
@freelancer:
Somebody who needed money. SATSQ.
morzer
@eyelessgame:
I think big money has already started to make sure Palin is over-exposed and that her past is kept in the public eye. My guess is that Mitch Daniels will be appointed as the compromise candidate once Palin’s flaws have been raked over by various anonymous groups. He’s got Indiana, and that gives him a good mid-Western springboard, and he’s been very very quiet recently, letting others have the limelight. He was also born in Pennsylvania.
Just a thought.
The Dangerman
@eyelessgame:
I can see her getting nominated (after Angel and O’Donnell, anything is possible). And she will win the States that all Republicans with a pulse win…
…but the Swings, especially Swings with a large Hispanic population (i.e. Florida) will swing from her hard.
roshan
If Palin is so butthurt about the left what does she think of her choir (does Frum still belong?):
__
vs.
__
morzer
FWIW, I think big money has already chosen Palin’s role – she’s the designated attack dog and bruiser, whose function is to bloody up Obama, throw some dirt on him, while leaving the real election campaign for someone who can be above the fray. Palin may not know it yet, but I am pretty sure that’s the script they have written for her.
asiangrrlMN
@efgoldman: It’s funny. I saw him on the teevee when I was about eight years old, and I thought, “Who is this man?”, and I didn’t like him for whatever reason. Maybe that’s why I’m a lifelong Democrat!
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
The same thing can be said about Adolf Hitler, a shrewd politician, a superb public speaker.
Doesn’t change his place in history, though.
Roger Moore
@morzer:
That may be their script, but I’m not convinced that “they” control things well enough to make sure things go according to plan. The Republican party made a bunch of unforced errors in the 2010 election by nominating tea party crazies instead of more electable middle of the road candidates. That’s because the crazy wing of the party is out of the control of the central planners. The same thing could happen with the 2012 Presidential nomination.
morzer
@Roger Moore:
Give them time and a few favors will be called in. Palin will discover how easy it is to get the right stories into the media, how campaign events can go wrong, and how embittered staffers will suddenly remember things she did or said. I don’t believe the wingnuts are all hers, and if they are offered a bright new toy, they’ll leave yesterday’s heroine without remorse.
Linda Featheringill
Interesting article on Sarah Palin.
I have often thought that Ms. Sarah is not running a campaign. Rather she is on a journey. And it doesn’t matter where the trip takes her, as long as it takes her high.
To put it in terms of a train, she has her ticket to ride [so to speak] but is not in control of the vehicle.
She is a shooting star, to quote Bad Company. With the same fate as the subject of BC’s song.
[have I mixed enough metaphors?]
Dee Loralei
@morzer: @Villago Delenda Est: I know Palin and Huckabee will attack Romney for being a Mormon. I know Palin will attack Huckabee on his criminals. I also know that Huck and Mitt will attack Palin. And I do not expect either of them to back off. These are vicious, bitter men, they will both shiv Palin during the course of a debate. She’ll get a few chops in, she’ll try to get a few more. Neither man will tolerate or stand by whilst she attacks. Romney has the personal money to make a run at the nomination. Which, if he runs, he will do. And Huckabee has the personal vindictiveness to keep nipping at Sarah’s heals. She will not get out of this run any sort of easy street. They will kill her.
morzer
@Linda Featheringill:
I feel worried when I reflect on how often I took train journeys without controlling the vehicle. I apparently have something in common with Fucknut Barbie. Troubling.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
Nixon was in control.
Reagan was a front man.
Big difference between the two.
NobodySpecial
Before all is said and done, Haley Barbour will try and salt away the nomination in a smoky back room somewhere. He has all the credentials, managed to look halfway decent in Katrina, no big scandals visible, plenty of connections. Plus, he’s a Southern White Male Christian, which is the preferred candidate of the GOP.
Comrade Kevin
Sarah Palin, if she runs for President, will get hammered in New Hampshire or Iowa or somewhere, and will drop out because she can “be more effective for her country by doing something else”, i.e. appearing on TV and raking in the money.
matoko_chan
@morzer: daniels is 5’3″.
no fookin way.
shez runnin’.
she is still pissed because she didnt get invited to the WH when McCain did. Once she declares even Pudgy Reese Witherspoon will have to try to kneecap her.
Mathematically she cannot win the general.
COD was a test case.
Yutsano
@NobodySpecial: The dog whistles alone could make this one interesting, but Barbour has the name recognition of a fruit fly, plus there are a few lobbying ties he’d have to fess up to that would be used against him. That and he really isn’t teabagger enough. He’d keep the old money GOP guard comfortable, but it’s hard to imagine him getting traction outside of the South. Not to mention you cannot win the West without sucking up at least a little to the Mormons, and that could kill him as well.
morzer
@Yutsano:
Barbour also looks like a toad with lifts in his shoes.
JGabriel
Moses2317:
Probably, but Nixon is dead.
.
Suffern ACE
I still am waiting for the Dem primary challenger. I still think there is a 2% chance for the Evan Bayah vs. Mitch Daniels election that would give David Broder a thrill, but would suppress the vote by 40%.
Anne Laurie
I clicked over to check on Draper’s Bush bio. Seems like the man has an extraordinary talent for the kind of high-level courtiership that almost got Machiavelli executed… Draper’s veeeerrrry complimentary to those points where his subjects are most sensitive, and yet he’s always simultaneously signalling to the rest of us that he (like us!) is in on the Real Game, that he’s willing to pivot and knife today’s honoree the second the wind changes. “Of course, Palin has some weak spots in her armor — see, I’m carefully marking them in read — but there is no indication that any competing candidate has a poignard long and thin enough to fit into the gap over her vitals right heeeeere. Bless her heart.”
I’d guess assigning him to interview Palin means the NYTimes isn’t willing to dismiss her, but they don’t believe she’ll be the 2012 nominee, either. The interview and its timing reads to me like they’re more afraid of the Palinistas’ frothing, off-balance wrath than they are of Palin or her “official” handlers.
Xenos
@morzer: You missed the BBC video of the Spanish Sockialist Partyâs commercial where a young woman experiences and orgasm from voting for the Sockialist Party. With a few adds like that we might be able to get a Sockialist Party going here, too.
JGabriel
@Anne Laurie:
NYT should be more afraid of the Palinistas. Those people are budding domestic terrorists. The next McVeigh will be a Palinista.
.
rikyrah
The majority of Democrats and Independents and damn near a majority of Republicans say she isn’t qualified to become President.
I keep on coming back to the gender gap. I want to see the gender polling on her. I believe that her gender gap is with WOMEN, who say that she’s not qualified by a greater degree.
I also believe that the serious people in the GOP, and we know who they are, are just beginning to seriously gun for her. When they thought that 2012 was some sort of pipe dream, and that Obama couldn’t be defeated, they were willing to let the Quitta go for it, be defeated and come back for 2016. Now that they think they caan defeat Obama in 2012, I’m sorry, but they’re not having her.
She’s not a narcissist. Hell, every politician is a narcissist. She is a sociopath. A stupid, doesn’t know shyt, sociopath, that doesn’t know she doesn’t know shyt.
to this day, the best description of her came from Fareed Zakaria:
it’s not that Sarah Palin doesn’t know the answers to questions…..it’s that she doesn’t even know the questions she should be asking.
and, I know that Sully gets the side eye from a lot of people here, but on this…his obsession with Caribou Barbie…he’s done a national service with the way he dismantles her LIES on a consistent basis.
Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter)
@morzer:
OMG – I had no idea Daniels was so short.
http://bit.ly/99MsRv
No way someone so short gets the nomination.
But more importantly he’s ….. wait for it…. of arab decent.
You know Palin/Mittens will go around saying “I don’t think Governor Daniels’ Arab heritage should be an issue”.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Redshirt:
You’re not accounting for Rick “Gov. Goodhair” Perry. He too has all but announced, and he’d be a serious threat in the primary (my prediction is that he’d take it). He has all the experience she doesn’t (just won his third term, God help us), TX weathered the recession better than a lot of the country (for which he will take credit, and a lot of people will believe him), and he has better hair than Mitt Romney. He’s already making his teabag bones by
fucking the poorcalling for TX to opt out of Medicaid. He also has an Obama-like ability to attract opponents who run bad or lackluster campaigns.And, unlike Palin, he’s not a gibbering moron.
Sweet Fanny Adams
This struck me:
It never occurs to her that “the left” that went “home” after she was nominated did so because she was nominated. No possibility of self-reflection there…Good grief! What am I saying! Sister Sarah and self-reflection in the same comment! I must be mad! Forgive me.
Mike Kay (Hippie Hunter)
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Perry has a big Skeleton in the closet.
aimai
Pity the person who had to put the punctuation into her speech. The press will take her down eventually just by refusing to clean up her sentences.
aimai
Xenos
@Sweet Fanny Adams: Re:
What does this mean? I looked it up in context, read it a few times, and I can’t figure what she is saying. What does ‘go home’ mean in this sentence? Why is it important, significant, some sort of betrayal of her, how does it justify her vituperation of everyone who disagrees with her?
The whole line fails to even assert a point of view, as far as I can tell, much less argue for something in a cogent or coherent fashion. Wtf? Somebody please translate into human language, pls.
Maude
@Xenos:
The left may have gone home, but they turned out to vote on election day.
Jeffro
@Redshirt: Spot-on
geg6
When Reagan ran, I told everyone I knew that America would never be so stupid as to vote for a senile puppet and shitty D list actor.
When W ran, I told myself and a small circle of confidantes that America would never be so stupid as to vote for a cowardly retarded person.
I no longer assume America isn’t stupid enough to do anything any more, including voting for an illiterate sociopath. In fact, my current operating assumption is that PT Barnum had America all figured out.
HRA
@Xenos:
âAnd it was proven when John McCain chose me for the nomination for vice president; what it showed me about the left: they go home.â
I believe she is referring to the moderate Republicans who dropped their support of McCain when he chose her and voted for Obama. Though the truth is they were already walking away from McCain and she made them pick up speed to get away from the ticket.
I know it personally. I kept my affiliation with the Republican Party for the election and changed it shortly after to Democrat.
Sweet Fanny Adams
@Xenos: My understanding of this is that she’s complaining about all those liberals who had (allegedly) shifted to the McCain camp after the drama of the Democratic primaries. They are the ones who went “home” to the Democratic party to vote for Barack Obama.
debit
@geg6: GET OUT OF MY BRAIN.
Seriously, THIS. I’m poo pooed whenever I point out that W was elected when it was clear to everyone in America that he was an idiot. I wasn’t active in politics then, rarely watched TV, barely read the paper and even I knew he was a joke and wasn’t fit to be the president. I was utterly flabbergasted when he won.
And for those who’ll say, “The Mighty Wurlitzer will destroy her.” look at how quickly they changed their tune about Christine O’Donnell. The GOP: We won’t fund her. Two days later: How much money do you want, Christine? Karl Rove: She’s a nutbar. Less than two days later: That’s not to say she’s not a viable candidate.
Maude
@debit:
That’s what so scary about Palin.
Maybe they are trying to recast her as a thoughtful, intelligent woman who cares deeply for this country.
Could happen.
Dennis G.
@Linda Featheringill:
One of the more telling lines about Palin was this:
When one tries to understand Palin world one should remember that it is really all about the money.
Cheers
WyldPirate
@HRA:
You have misremembered. The Rethugs got a pretty sizeable bump from the crazy Snowbilly Quitta being added to the ticket. This happened towards the end of August and McCain opened up a little bit bigger lead.
The mid-September financial crisis and McInsane’s bizarre reaction to it when the worm turned with a minor assist from the Couric interview with the crazy ass Wasilla Wonder.
Sweet Fanny Adams
@Xenos: Missed the edit window – FYWP. They were discussing her “abandonment” of bipartisanship and she claiming that she only gave up on it because those treacherous lefties went back “home” to their party and didn’t vote for or support her.
debit
@Maude: Yep. And her ego is going to demand that she run. If she survives the primaries intact I’m really going to worry because every other candidate will, theoretically, know when to hit the brakes, and when they’ve gone too far. She doesn’t have any brakes or boundaries. I predict she’ll call for rioting and armed insurrection to “take our country back.”
Seriously, this woman frightens me. If you go back and look at the videos of her rallies last time around it’s clear that she loves the swell of hate and anger she gets from the crowd when she mentions the enemy. She won’t be able to resist pushing it as hard as she can.
HRA
@WyldPirate:
Yes, the audience for McCain swelled after he chose her. That was the plan to give life to the doddering idiot. It did not swell with the moderates of the party. By then they had bolted or were trying to decide who to vote for and I was already giving my donation to the Obama campaign for many months.
I should also include G who is a conserative under the Republican banner while leaning towards voting for Obama and supported him wholeheartedly after Palin came on the scene. He still supports him.
McCain had been determined as bizarre long before the financial crisis. She was the icing on the cake.
Hal
Forgive me for not falling into a fear comma over a Palin run; I think she’ll be creamed in the general election, and that’s if she even survives the primary.
What’s that you say? W got elected? Oh yeah, W won after the supreme court handed him his victory. He won in 2004 over lingering 9/11 fear, and the fact the Kerry could have run a better campaign (waited too long to fight swiftboating, was for it before he was against it.)
In other words, W was a fluke. As for Reagan, whatever else people say about him, Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan. She has none of his talent or intelligence.
One way or another, Palin will lose. Women don’t like her, Independents, Hispanics, Gays, Blacks. Alaskans don’t seem to crazy about her either. Her star is fading fast.
The demographic that love Palin will ensure she wins a few southern states, but the Presidency? I’m not even worried about it.
Ash Can
@Dennis G.: Not only that, but she’s saying things like this at a time when she was still drawing her governor’s salary, plus presumably collecting speaking fees and such. (And book royalties too at this time? Can’t remember.) Maybe she wasn’t Warren Buffett or Bill Gates from all that, but wouldn’t you think that with a little decent money management she could afford such things as travel for her family between her home and the capitol and security for her house without “going into debt”? Evidently, finances are yet another thing she’s incapable of managing.
Of course, legal counsel for a parade of ethics charges isn’t cheap…
Chris
Though Iâm still more afraid of HuckabyâŠ
Point of interest about Huckabee; the man not only lost the primary, he came in third behind someone most Repubs consider a RINO (McCain) and a New England liberal who governed on a pro-choice and pro-gay platform (Romney). Almost exactly like the 1988 primary, when Pat Robertson lost to George Bush the first and Bob Dole, two moderates one of which was a staple of the New England establishment.
That’s twice the religious right has tried to capture the GOP nomination, and failed spectacularly.
I don’t think Huckabee’s problems is that he has skeletons in the closet. I think it goes deeper than that; the silent majority among Republican voters doesn’t actually trust the religious right either.
cckids
@Ash Can:
Especially because: the state of Alaska had lawyers, who did much of the defense of the ethics charges for her; the RNC paid her over $200K towards her “legal bills”, she had/has her rabid followers sending her cash for said bills,no one really knows how much she owes anyway. Like so many things about St.Sarah the Perpetually Offended, her legal bills are a convenient excuse + fund raiser.
matoko_chan
@Dennis G.: nope, its pure-D refined classic Mean Grrl ressentiment. She got shut down for the
promWH. Be glad she wouldnt play Galatea to Team McCains Pygmalion.She would have been formidable.
The essence of Palinism from the 2008 campaign.
Chris
The essence of Palinism from the 2008 campaign.
Listen to her voice when the guy asks “so it’s not based on geography or income” and she answers “… course not!”
Oh me oh my, [snerk] how could you ever [tee hee hee] think that’s what I meant? [Big wink at voters]
Bella Q
Thank you Anne Laurie for the insightful analysis of Draper’s piece, and its subtle undertones. I’d noticed them, but could not describe them nearly as well. No doubt why you are the front pager rather than myself.
Faux News
@russell:
Palin is not just a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. She is that AND a sociopath as well. Great combo!
jcricket
50% of me says the same thing that killed her during the last run (albeit as VP) will kill her this time – everyone outside the crazification factor hates her. Sure, some of the haters won’t vote Dem, but they’ll stay home, or reluctantly vote for her. But she’s not pulling over any Democrats. She can’t/won’t change her stripes to pull anyone outside her base in.
The other 50% says, we elected Bush twice, and we just forcefully threw out our only chance at meaningful economic recovery for anyone but the top 1% of the nation – almost guaranteeing 10% unemployment. And Californians (and my fellow Washingtonians) keep doing things like voting down tax increases while voting in favor of service increases.
So it wouldn’t surprise me if she was the nominee, and it was the highest voted-in election of all time, and it hinges on whether the GOP has succeeded in further worsening the economy and turnout. I also predict that even if she loses, it will only cement the right-wing trend of the GOP, taking polarization to new heights.
wazmo
If Palin does announce, every democrat needs to register as a Republican and insure she (and the baggers) gets elected in the primaries.
jcricket
BTW – I don’t think that it’s the GOP’s actual intention to kill the economy. It’s not kabuki. Yeah, they want to make Obama and the Dems a failure, but they believe that simply repealing everything the Dems do or obstructing anything the Dems want to pass will make Dems look like failures.
And, the GOP is just genuinely stupid enough to think trickle-down, tax cuts for the rich and de-regulation lead to good stuff despite all evidence to the contrary. Yeah, that’s depressing, but I think it’s more likely that Dastardsly McShively (R) twirling his mustache and thinking “this stuff is BS, but I know it’ll kill the economy and liberals will get blames, so I’ll vote for it”.
I also think there are plenty of grifters in the libertarian wing. Who sit on the sidelines ignoring the culture war and global warming denialism, as long as they keep getting their tax cuts.
Karen
Won’t all other Republicans be “discouraged” from running? We saw it with the Tea Party where the GOP basically became it.
Karen
@Faux News:
That would make her a Narcipath!
jcricket
@Karen:
How did the Whig party go away?
We all dance around this, but money is really what runs parties. And if the Tea Party becomes all culture war and spending cuts, all the time, don’t we think the money that fuels the Republican party (from corporations) will find a new home?
Chris
You’re forgetting tax cuts and deregulation. No, I don’t think the corpocrats are about to find a new home. I’d like to be wrong, though.
Jules
@asiangrrlMN:
I remember watching her speech at the R convention with my 17 year old.
After a awhile he turned to me and said “man, she is kind of a bitch isn’t she”
I said “yeah, and mean too”.
Everything I needed to know about her was summed up in her attack on “community organizers” and those people who don’t live in “real America”.
And we live in what she would consider “real America”…hell I might even be a Grizzly Mama for all I know.
asiangrrlMN
@Jules: Exactly! A mean bitch. Every woman knows one (and, apparently, some discerning young men, too). I couldn’t understand why people were so gaga over her when it was clear that she was mean, venal, stupid (descriptive, not pejorative), and dangerous.
Elizabelle
@Hal:
another thing re W getting “elected” in 2000 that keeps getting forgotten:
Palm Beach’s butterfly ballots. Crucial, since thousands of votes were miscast. For Pat Buchanan.
Thank you Theresa LePore.
ksmiami
@morzer: But the funny thing about Palin is that she is too out of control to ever be muzzled like that and she will turn around on her handlers in a sec. Plus, I really think Obama will make the Republicans look bad. Already, people are starting to get the ulcer feeling from the election and 2 years is a very long time. I mean this crowd is going after Bernanke for pete’s sake and will lose the wall street money just as sure as the setting sun. The teatard peons are so ignorant that they are starting to scare the moneyed elite and that will never do.
Now that being said, I do have my escape plans readied for 2012.
PonB
Lots of reasoned, detailed analysis here, but to me, the consistent fascination with Palin comes own to one thing:
Rich, powerful white guys want to schtupp her.
End of story.
– PonB
Gus
Here’s how I see Palin winning. I can easily see her winning in the Republican primary. O’Donnell, Angle and Miller show that anything is possible in a Republican primary. Then, a self-aggrandizing Firebagger type runs a primary campaign from the left. He loses, of course, but decides for the good of the country to stroke his ego further by declaring an independent run after he loses the primaries. He peels off enough lefty votes to give us President Palin.
Emerald
@Elizabelle: Yeah, the butterfly ballots alone were enough.
But never forget that over 90,000 Floridians voted for Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader, who said there was no difference between Bush and Gore.
Now, if Nader hadn’t run, perhaps half of those wouldn’t have voted at all. Perhaps some would have voted for Bush. But does anyone really believe that most would not have chosen Gore? They are basically mega-liberals, after all.
Oh, and it wasn’t just Florida. In New Hampshire, the margin of victory for Bush was far smaller than the Nader votes there.
So, when we accuse Americans of stupidity, let’s always remember that quality is not confined to the right wing.
Dennis G.
@Emerald:
You got that right.
Nader can run run from creating the conditions for the SCOTUS to install Bush, but he can not hide. Without Ralph’s help Bush never got out of Texas.
Cheers