It’s not too often that you actually catch the rats in the act of scurrying to get off the sinking ship, but here’s a good view of Matt Lewis swimming for his life:
It’s time to admit that, whatever their motivation was at the time, the Alaska governor’s critics always had a point.
Has conservative genuflection at the altar of Sarah Palin finally come to a halt?
In case you missed it, her speech in Iowa this week was not well received on the right. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York called it a “long, rambling, and at times barely coherent speech” and National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke said she slipped into self-parody. And there’s more. The Examiner’s Eddie Scarry, for example, contacted several conservative bloggers who were once Palin fans, but have since moved on.
But here’s my question… what changed?
Yes, in 2008, Sarah Palin delivered one of the finest convention speeches I’ve ever heard (trust me, I was there), but she hasn’t exactly been channeling Winston Churchill ever since. Remember her big speech at CPAC a couple of years ago? You know, the one where she took a swig out of a Big Gulp and said of her husband Todd: “He’s got the rifle, I got the rack.” Not exactly a great moment in political rhetoric.
So why is anyone surprised when, this weekend, she said: “‘The Man,’ can only ride ya when your back is bent?”
Demosthenes, she is not, but there’s nothing new about Palin’s penchant for populism or lowbrow rhetoric. What does feel new is that she has finally gotten around to roundly losing conservative opinion leaders. (OK, this has been a long time coming. In 2011, Conor Friedersdorf noted that the hard right was skewering Palin, and that Kathleen Parker had been vindicated. And as recently as this past April, I wondered whether it was finally safe for conservatives to criticize her publicly. But it does feel like we have finally reached a tipping point where criticizing Palin isn’t only acceptable for conservative opinion leaders, it’s now almost expected.)
***Is it possible that Kathleen Parker saw something I didn’t when she attacked Palin? I saw it as strangling the conservative baby in the crib; Parker probably saw it as snuffing out a monster.
Such is the plight of a writer; I got some stuff right, and my position was justifiable at the time, but in hindsight I regret contributing to the premature deification of Sarah Palin.
I still say she was an incredibly talented political force, but she squandered her opportunity for greatness, and instead became a fad. And it’s worth considering that maybe her early critics saw some fundamental character flaw—some harbinger of things to come—that escaped me.
What she saw was that Palin is and was an idiot. The reason you didn’t notice is because stupid people don’t notice stupidity until it is personally painful for them. And then, sometimes, they notice the pain, but don’t understand the source, and continue to blame it on the wrong thing, as the few remaining Palin dead-enders will no doubt do. In fact, here is Mark Hemingway doing just that- blaming the media for the fact that Palin is a moron.
CrustyDem
DING DING DING!!
Seriously, no one with a triple digit IQ could ever describe her in glowing terms..
Cacti
Palin slipping into self parody assumes that anyone took her seriously to begin with.
Baud
They were wrong for the right reasons.
Iowa Old Lady
I seriously think the woman has some sort of substance abuse problem. She’s also stupid, but her manner is just way too incoherent.
JPL
Now he has insulted lowbrows… Sarah is and has been incoherent. If one thought she did a good job during the debate, they need to watch the debate again, now that their balls have deflated.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I read that earlier and enjoyed it. Pupdate, por favor? With photos of everyone else also.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, duh, Matt.
Intelligent people figured this out the instant the bimbo was foist onto the national stage by John McCain, with an able assist by the most consistently wrong person in this quadrant, one Bill (not the guy from The Princess Bride) Kristol.
Hell, even Peggy Noonan, of all people, instantly realized that putting her on the ticket was essentially conceding the general election to “that one.”
But you, being one of those bears of very little brains, and with no other redeeming qualities at all, just hearted Mooselini like there was no tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow is today, and holy shit, you’re a jackass!
trollhattan
So, if we can “bury” Palin and Sully on the same day, does this automatically become a national holiday? I’m in.
Villago Delenda Est
The scum that are the teatards, in a nutshell. They’re being economically fucked over and they blame FDR and Obama for it.
opiejeanne
She delivered one of the finest convention speeches??? It is to laugh. I watched it and was stunned but for the wrong reason.
Christopher Buckley is vindicated, not Kathleen Parker.
yam
Oh, fuck me, Agnes. He has ab-so-fuckin’-lutely no clue.
Hal
If you say so. Insulting Obama for being a lazy man without a real job and comparing herself to a pit bull is what passes for brilliance on the right, I guess. A paragraph in a Salon article Christopher Hitchens wrote way back in 2009 has always summed up Palin for me.
Morzer
@trollhattan:
If we bury them in the same grave, the high-speed dual rotation energy from it ought to be enough to power most of Michigan.
JPL
@trollhattan: I’m a little concerned. Sarah and Todd are probably in their AZ home, sipping on something cold, plotting their comeback..
Btw.. I clicked on the Weekly Standard..
Sometimes additional comments are unnecessary. Of course, wtf, might be appropriate.
Trentrunner
Rich Lowry’s starbursts have faded and now been doused.
So what’s left behind?
Only luminol can tell.
Villago Delenda Est
At times? At times?
As in from start to finish?
Baud
You mean liberals?!
Villago Delenda Est
@Morzer: Quebec called. You’re endangering a huge sector of their economy with that proposal.
AnonPhenom
So, Dunning-Kruger is not incurable.
JPL
@opiejeanne: Was that the speech that Noonan didn’t know her mic was on and gave a honest opinion of her performance?
Baud
You’re talking about blaming Obama, right?
Violet
@Iowa Old Lady:
Meth, coke or speed. Not sure which. Maybe all of the above.
Women saw through her within the first few minutes of her appearance with John McCain. It’s not a coincidence that Kathleen Parker saw through her and Matt Lewis didn’t.
smintheus
@opiejeanne: Yeah, that was an atrocious speech. All taunting, zero substance…and by a candidate so unknown she desperately needed to prove she had some substance. One of the biggest whiffs I’ve ever seen.
jl
The grifters who promoted this particular grifter tell us now that she is a grifter. Soon they will assure us that the next grifter they pick will be our next great statesman and national savior. They have a long list for 2016:
Republican Party presidential candidates, 2016
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_candidates,_2016
So I hope, as a Democrat, that they don’t make a better choice.
Palin was parody from the first day she stepped on the national stage, and as soon as she established her identity, she became self-parody. My Alaska connections tell me that she was not pure parody as AK governor, but said even at that, she was in a little bit over her head. So, I think she made a conscious choice. She could have been a Bobby or a Marco or a Rand now, but she decided to make some cash. Now she is among the Newt, Cain and Trump class. I hope she’s put some of her grift into a retirement account, and she can go manage apartments or something.
tagged45
I need a cigarette after reading that post.
JPL
@Violet: I thought Stewart left out part of the clip and did further research on google, I found the printed quote and it was a word salad. If you didn’t see the Daily Show clip, watch it because he’s right, it would make a great Lincoln ad.
trollhattan
After reading the entire Lewis piece I’m thinking a whole lot of projection was going on in ’08 (and earlier, as he confesses) because he’s proposing she was once viable and now is not–in part because of how she was treated.
Bullfuckingshit. It was all there from the get-go, Matt.
Hungry Joe
At the convention, after weeks of coaching and practice, Palin was able to deliver, semi-competently, the gob-smacking speech they wrote for her. Aside from that half hour, when has she ever demonstrated the ability to do anything other than spray words around pretty much at random? What did Lewis, et al, see when they looked at her, other than a mean streak and — her word, remember — a rack?
She actually could end up in trailer someday. Not even a double-wide.
cahuenga
Seems to me McCain’s handlers immediately figured it out she could not be trusted with impromptu speaking. If memory serves she was quickly taken out of circulation.
jl
@trollhattan:
” because of how she was treated ”
Because a news reporter asked her what newspapers she read in an interview, and similar discrimination, oppression and micro-aggressions?
Villago Delenda Est
If nothing else, the Katy Couric interview demonstrated that the woman is incapable of thinking on her feet. Or her ass. Or her back.
Seanly
I thought it was a good move for the Republicans to nominate a woman for vice president. Then I read up on her a little and, already being pretty liberal, confirmed that I would never, ever vote for McCain.
My almost equally liberal wife was excited, but as soon as she heard Palin speak that excitement died.
Violet
@JPL: Her speech in Iowa wasn’t substantially different from any of her recent speeches. It just had a lot of press watching it and happened at an event for potential presidential candidates after she’d just teased she might be among that crowd. She’s been word salady for a long time. It’s just that the press noticed this time.
trollhattan
@jl:
Yeah, you know–character assassination.
“What newspapers? You’re some kind of monster, Katie Couric!”
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Does anyone else want to point to the elephant in the room? She’s older, and doesn’t look as good as she did, so of course the conservative commentators are feeling fewer starbursts.
Sarah Palin is aging. She’s now 50 compared to the relatively spry 43 she was during the 2008 campaign. She’s solidly in the Grandma age category now. Aand, she still does her makeup in the youthful tones she used before, which makes it even more apparent she’s aging.
It really just validates what I and others were saying that the main interest in Sarah Palin back in 2008 was that she was a (relatively, anyway) attractive youngish Republican woman, not that she had any innate political talents.
But the right has moved onto Joni Ernst (note, about the same age Palin was when she came to prominence–44) as their new middle-aged womancrush. There’s no place for Sarah Palin anymore.
Violet
@trollhattan:
He’s talking about how people “made fun of her family”–like her daughters and grandson who were on multiple reality shows–and howled when she and her family got in the drunken brawl this summer. That’s the “how she was treated” part.
smintheus
@Violet: Well, I saw through Palin the morning McCain introduced her as his VP.
Bobby Thomson
@Hal: Truth be told, Jackson and Jennings Bryan were embarrassments to the Democratic Party. So there’s that.
JPL
@Violet: Word Salad would be a great game for students just learning to read.
I can imagine little kids laughing now.
jl
@trollhattan:
The fact that Lewis is peddling such nonsense about Palin as victim is case closed evidence that he is just as much a grifter as Palin, only he can maintain a front more pleasing to the VSP and miserable corporate media hacks.
Lewis and his ilk will pick someone as bad, or on actual policies they would pursue, worse than Palin. The only difference is that they will pay more attention to their polish.
Remember that before Palin decided (I think consciously) to put on the clown act for grifting purposes, she had a record as a sensible moderate (well, sensible and moderate for our current rotten GOP) governor of Alaska. Even my AK relatives, who disliked her intensely, admitted that much.
I have no soft spot for Palin. I sometimes ask whether such-and-so person is a knave or a fool. But with people like Palin, and all the googleplex of GOP 2016 prez hopefuls whom I am familiar with, they know exactly what they are doing. They are dangerous knaves, and best not to forget that. Palin was, at least as far back as from the moment McCain picked her for VP. Paul, Graham, Carson, Huck, Jeb!, Mitt!, Chris!, are too. They all are.
Violet
@smintheus: Yep, that’s what I meant. That was her first appearance with McCain and women pretty much saw through her right away. Those that didn’t, because maybe they weren’t paying that much attention, saw through her in the next few days and weeks after they’d seen her a few times.
She’s a Mean Girl. She’s not that smart and she’s always got by on her looks. Those are fading now and she doesn’t have that much to fall back on. So she gets meaner and crazier. It’s going to be an ugly fall. Now that she’s been shown to be fake, watch for the knives to come out. She’s got ugly secrets and people won’t be as willing to hide them if she can’t pay them out of her SuperPAC money.
Mike G
One characteristic of stupid people, particularly on the ideology-addled right, is that they never, ever admit making a mistake (which guarantees they will make huge mistakes over and over). And in an authoritarian system, minions never, ever point out that an authority figure has made a mistake.
Palin was picked as VP by their authorities, therefore it was UnPossible that she was anything less than brilliant. It took seven years of being clubbed over the head with her vast public idiocy and seething resentment, and being thrown under the bus by party authority figures (and perhaps the fading of her looks), before the party sheep could maybe-admit that she might be a tiny, tiny bit substandard for the role she was appointed to.
CAfan
We need puppy/pet pictures to wash the nasty Palin taste away. Please, and Ginger pics, too.
raven
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: That mouth could suck a golf ball through 100 yards of garden hose.
Mike J
@smintheus: Palin was on the ticket to fire up the Republican base. If it wasn’t for the pesky media allowing humans to watch her she coulda been a star.
Pogonip
Pupdate request seconded!
Bobby Thomson
@Violet: Do tell? I wonder why men didn’t.
Mike J
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
I’ve never read a Republican attack on a Democratic woman that didn’t include talk about sexually unattractive the writer claimed to find her. Clinton, Pelosi, Warren, doesn’t matter who it is. They complain that grandmothers aren’t sexy enough for them.
Jeffro
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: I’ve mentioned this before: Ernst can be neutralized for all time with just one question: “Senator, can you tell us just one policy position, large or small, where you differ from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin?”
It almost doesn’t matter what her answer is…just watching her try to figure out how to answer, what to answer with, how to be infuriated, and exactly why, should pretty much finish off her political career (outside of Iowa, that is).
jl
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
” Does anyone else want to point to the elephant in the room? She’s older, and doesn’t look as good as she did, so of course the conservative commentators are feeling fewer starbursts. ”
That might well be a GOP thing. Lord knows during the Palin era there were several far more plausible women GOPers with more potential for national office than Palin. Comes to mind that they were all older, a fact upon which I reflected at the time. But they were also mostly more moderate, at least their public faces were more moderate. So not sure which was worse for the GOP brain trusters such as Kristol.
I don’t think it is necessarily a media thing. Warren is an example, and she is described as an appealing political hottie sometimes. That is apart from some whitemangoofsplainers such as Matthews and Mornin’ Joe (no apologies for the ‘splainer slang applied to those two).
I don’t think it is a factor in Dems, since we have HRC, and Pelosi, and DiFi, and people tend to oppose them in frankly substantive issues. Exception is the supposed dynastic issue, but that is charged against Jeb! as well.
smintheus
@Violet: Sorry; my only point was that I saw through her instantly and I’m a guy.
Morzer
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hannity-palin-teleprompter-iowa-speech
Anyone else remember the glory days when Republicans insisted that someone couldn’t manage a coherent sentence without a teleprompter?
Turgidson
All kinds of lies,delusions and all-around fail in this article:
Since this is subjective, it’s not a lie, but damn if it isn’t at least a head-injury-stupid statement. She managed to read a bunch of content-free quips off a teleprompter without fucking it up. It says a lot about Lewis that he considers this to be the criteria for “one of the finest convention speeches.”
Pointing out that putting targets on hated liberals’ heads is maybe a bit inflammatory and unnecessary isn’t quite the same thing as saying she might as well have pulled the trigger.
You did…until just recently. You were deranged to think she was ever more than a sideshow.
False. She did not have any potential to waste.
Sure, if you consider having no sense of shame and a bunch of thinly-veiled race baiting to be a “contribution.”
Cmon man, you know the answer. Palin said it herself. It’s the rack.
False. Conservatism was never an intellectual philosophy; it was intellectually bankrupt. The fact that William F’ing Buckley was a clever guy doesn’t mean his ideology wasn’t abhorrent.
Really? You wonder? I wonder if your full-throated defense of nitwits like Palin has contributed to global warming, since it was all bullshit, and there’s methane in bullshit.
That argument has been over since the Couric interview, Sparky.
I think you misspelled “was bullshit” as “feels increasingly tenuous.”
Provide evidence or it didn’t happen. Lie, until shown otherwise.
Lie.
More bullshit.
you mean that she’s an idiot? It was pretty hard to miss unless you yourself are an idiot. Hmmmm….
You’re only six and a half years late to this realization. Good job!
We’ll see about that. I hope so.
Morzer
@Violet:
Point of order: conservative men had their minds veloci-raptured by Palin. Sane,decent, liberal men not so much.
jl
When it is said that Palin is stupid, what are Rand Paul, Jindal, Pence, Rick and Rih and their ilk, chopped liver?
I detect sexism, and as a straight white male, I detect sexism in charges of stupidity and idiocy. I resent it, and consider it micro- or even meso-aggression against stupid men.
But, then I think Palin made a conscious grifting decision to put on her persona, and don’t think she is really as stupid as she often seems. Inarticulate, yes, she is that. But so is Rick. Rick has trainers, or handlers, who have fed him a larger list of cliches to mouth, but we have seen what happens when he gets thrown off of his script. Palin is more amusing because he is articulate enough to say something really strange and amusing, rather than just stand there and repeat ‘uh’ over and over again. I realize that saying Palin is smarter and more articulate than Rick is saying almost nothing.
But it is not literally saying nothing, dammitall!
Wag
“long, rambling, and at times barely coherent speech”
He was talking about the few seconds that almost made sense. The rest was completly incoherent.
gogol's wife
@Turgidson:
Excellent post.
Tree With Water
“The reason you didn’t notice is because stupid people don’t notice stupidity until it is personally painful for them. And then, sometimes, they notice the pain, but don’t understand the source, and continue to blame it on the wrong thing..”.
And California’s GOP is bursting to the brim with them.
FlipYrWhig
@jl:
My sense was that she was never either sensible or moderate but that her political “brand” was “I’m a mom without much book-learnin’ but a lot of common sense.” Her first big play for prominence in Alaska was “all these Career Politicians are corrupt and I’m just folks,” right?
The problem is that _that_ “brand,” Common Sense/Just Folks, conflicts with her other, earlier objective, which was pretty clearly “I’m pretty enough and athletic enough to be the Phyllis George of Alaska.”
I think she just wanted to be famous, and blundered into it, and she’s treated fame (and it, her) about as well as Lindsay Lohan did.
Laertes
For fuck’s sake, she’s dumb as a stick. Are they really incapable of seeing it, simply because she hates all the right people?
I get that partisanship can blind you to a candidate’s flaws. Take John Edwards for instance–I’d bet that righties were more likely to correctly perceive him as a shallow creep than lefties were. On the other hand, we all knew that Clinton was a womanizer. Some of us cared more than others, but mostly we all saw it.
This inability to see that Palin is an idiot would be like a Dem in 1998 remaining convinced that Clinton was a faithful husband. It can’t possibly be honest. It’s got to be either cowardice or trolling.
Turgidson
@Violet:
Generally, I’m totally fine with the “family is off-limits” unspoken rule for politicians. But not as much for Palin, who used/uses her family as props for her own self-promotion whenever she feels like it. And Bristol is a chip off the old block, seeking publicity as it suits her.
Sullivan’s obsession with Trig, on the other hand, was deplorable.
JPL
@jl: Palin’s problem was that she was uninformed and decided to stay that way. In Alaska her husband was a union man who worked for an oil company. She gained a lot of knowledge from that industry from him. Her faith also dictated some of her personal views. Her ad libs on views that are beyond her knowledge, cause her to just say words. (That and drugs)
The two candidates that concern me are Rick Perry and Scott Walker. Scott Walker has been molded by the Koch brothers and probably can’t think for himself. Rick Perry appears to just be dumb. I hesitate to use that word but I think it’s accurate.
Mandalay
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Media figures for the Republican establishment (John Fund, Byron York, Sean Hannity et al) have turned on her pretty aggressively in the past few days. It’s clearly a concerted effort, and I don’t think looks are anything to do with it.
They are hellbent on wheeling out the candidate they think has the best chance of defeating Clinton (i.e. Bush), and Palin is an obstacle to that goal. She has now become a liability rather than asset for firing up the base, and for a good while she has been attacking them, and moderate Republicans, just as much as the “lamestream media”. Now they are fighting back.
They just need their Villagers to keep on attacking her, portraying her as a little bit crazy and irrelevant, until Bush (or Romney or Huckabee) secures the Republican nomination, and then she’ll be forced to STFU. She won’t give up on attacking the Republican establishment again after the election, but as time goes by Republicans like Cruz (who surely despises her) won’t need her, or want to be associated with her. She will fade away with each passing year.
rikyrah
@Violet:
so true.
Women had her number from the very beginning.
Women have the scars in their backs from their encounters with their own Sarah Palin.
Laertes
@Turgidson:
“Sullivan’s obsession with Trig, on the other hand, was deplorable.”
I’m torn. On the one hand, Sully is an asshole. On the other hand, Palin’s story about Trig’s birth was preposterous. I suspect that she was trolling him.
Keith G
@Mandalay:
Until Bush or Christy secures the Republican nomination. I think it’s likely to come down to those two after the semifinals.
Laertes
@Keith G:
I’ll bet you all the money in my pocket against all the money in yours that Walker outlasts Christie.
different-church-lady
The thing that escaped you, Matt, is that Palin is a stunt politician. Shtick is all she has to bring to the table.
The reason it escaped you is that you still haven’t come up with enough self-realization to understand that shtick and stunt is all that appeals to you and the modern right. You saw shtick and you thought it was substance because to you there is no difference.
SRW1
And, any conclusions from that considering business yet, Matt?
different-church-lady
@Laertes:
jl
@FlipYrWhig:
First, opinions may differ. Second, I did say she was sensible and moderate compared to other GOPers as governor.
You can make up your own mind from her wikipedia article.
She could put at least one and one together to get two wrt to Alaska energy policy: funding a renewable energy program to eventually replace the oil revenue, and a populist increase in the oil severance tax (one that recently was repealed) to beef up the Permanent Fund.
To some extent, I am taking my AK relatives’ word for it, who found her contemptible and ridiculous, and said she was completely unsuited and would in way over her head for national politics. But also said that she was in only barely over her head as AK governor and was doing a passable job, for a Republican. Of course, Alaska Republicans were a pretty ugly and ruthless take-no-prisoners breed at the time, so she was being compared to the thug Don Young, and the late mega-girfter Paul Stevens.
Mandalay
@FlipYrWhig:
It certainly was, and it had to be, because apart from her appearance she had nothing else to offer.
But common sense is, by definition, not a rare commodity. So whenever she promoted her common sense it invited the question: how is Palin’s common sense any different or better than our own? And that’s when her allure stopped being a bright and shiny object.
We want our leaders to be the kind of people we’d like to have a beer with, but we certainly don’t want them to be average.
different-church-lady
@Hungry Joe:
A white knight riding over the horizon. “GAME CHANGER!”
SRW1
@JPL:
.
If she couldda done five campaigns she mighta got there.
Keith G
@Laertes: I am not expert, but I do mosey around talking to folks from the other side. Christy, for all his considerable baggage, is a known quantity and a known warrior. The authoritarian mindset that is the spiritual foundation to conservatism seems to find harmony with that man. Plus I get the feeling that if push comes to shove, whether in be in a debate or another less formal arena, Christy might well dismantle Walker.
Walker may have his strengths, but performing at the highest level of public debate certainly ain’t one of them. Whatever happens, it will be fun to watch.
chopper
Well, Lewis, that’s because you’re an idiot.
SenyorDave
A little after Palin burst onto the stage, I was at the gym and I heard two older black gentlemen talking about her at. These two men are Korean war vets, so I’m guessing at the time they probably in their late 70’s. They were talking about a poll that indicated that about half the people polled thought she was more qualified than Obama to be president. One of them remarked, almost sadly, that Obama had the American dream background, average upbringing, went to Harvard aw School, head of law review, US senator, now running for president. And the conservatives were almost sneering at him as if that was a bad thing. Palin’s convention speech basically consisted of deriding all of Obama’s accomplishments. Palin is an evil person, and completely suited to the modern Republican party.
JPL
I listened to the Hannity clip with Sarah and came away confused. On one hand, she wants to lower corporate taxes and on the other hand she wants to rein in crony capitalists because they have lobbies and loop holes.
According to Sarah they are the persecuted and the persecutors. Is that possible?
JCJ
@Iowa Old Lady:
I always thought she was just shy of being diagnosed as bipolar. Sometimes when she speaks she seems to be hypo-manic with pressured speech.
JPL
@SenyorDave: That’s why Walker’s lack of a college education will make him a winner and Hillary’s advanced degrees will be used against her.
Arclite
@Hal:
Well, it was red meat for the base. Just so happened that it was laced with arsenic, and the more speeches they consumed, the more poisoned they became until here we are.
rikyrah
@Turgidson:
Amen all the way.
thanks
schrodinger's cat
She has always been awful and vacuous. It was obvious since her first appearance on the national stage in those Naughty Monkey (I am not sure of the brand name) red peep toe shoes. She was practically snarling in her convention speech, not unlike a pit bull I might add. McCain’s minions did manage to dress her better than she ever managed to by herself, before or hence.
Corner Stone
@Laertes: And I will bet both of you that Mitt and Bush outlast both Walker and the NJ Gov.
Walker has the charisma of a splintered garden gnome covered by snow. Christie has zero chance. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise.
Starfish
@Violet: What about when Andrew Sullivan could not let go of speculating whether she had been really pregnant and whether her son was her own?
Corner Stone
Chris Hayes is doing the slam poetry bit on Palin. That was full on nuts.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
It is an ex-asshole. It has ceased to be.
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
@Villago Delenda Est:
She cut herself to ribbons being interviewed by Katie Fucking Couric. My only regret is that it wasn’t Mike Wallace in his prime.
It’s a measure of just how desperate the Teatards were that they praised such a weak candidate so highly. McCain was the nominee, they couldn’t change that, but nobody really liked him (we won’t talk about what they thought about Obama). Palin was one of them – loud, belligerent, didn’t let facts get in the way of a good rant. They heard what they wanted to hear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
cthulhu
This was likely said upthread though I didn’t see it specifically when scanning: The evidence to Palin’s incompetence is that she couldn’t manage to ride the wingnut gravy train for even a decade. Not even cunning enough to keep both the rubes and the establishment happy. Doesn’t seem to be that hard, really. Both groups are inclined to give you a lot of latitude as long as you beat up on the right people. But, sheesh, your attacks have to be at least marginally effective/coherent.
jl
@JPL:
” lower corporate taxes … rein in crony capitalists because they have lobbies and loop holes ”
That is the standard formula for reducing statutory corporate tax rates, while increasing the average effective corporate tax rate actually paid. Palin may even understand it (probably better than Perry) even if she gets confused when she tries to explain it, especially with Hannity who will twist it into a scam.
The idea itself is not automatically a scam, and true blue liberals like Dean Baker have produced progressive proposals that actually involve getting rid of the corporate tax. Baker has analysis on his side, but like Krugman, I am not sure he understands the politics. I have little faith that a progressive/liberal tax reform that reduced or eliminated the statutory corporate tax would not turn into a reactionary scam during the legislation. I have much more confidence that Obama would veto a really bad scam, but am not 100% sure. I think that Obama, like Big Dawg Clinton, thinks he understands economics better than he really does. Otherwise, how do you explain Geithner hanging around all those years? I would given Geithner his walking papers asap after the intitial panic was over and was feasible to get an honest person who knew what he was doing (aka, not Geithner)
Edit: worse than I remember, Obama brought Geithner on board in 2009. How could I forget Paulson?
different-church-lady
@Laertes:
Yes. SATSQ. Hating the right people is the only qualification for the modern GOP.
Corner Stone
@Starfish: Fuck Sully and fuck all his blatherings on anything having to do with women and/or their personal stories on pregnancy.
Morzer
@JPL:
What she really wants is to expand the size of lobbies and ensure that every corporate fruit-loop gets a hole in one.
Mandalay
@JPL:
How the worm has turned. I don’t know why she never gets called on it, but while Palin was Governor of Alaska she increased the taxes on oil companies, then used the proceeds to increase the rebate that was paid to Alaska residents.
There was nothing wrong with her Robin Hood policy from my perspective, but why hardcore Republicans never criticized her for that blatantly socialist policy still baffles me.
Turgidson
@Keith G:
Just a random amused comment that, for all the Village’s talk of the GOP’s strong crop of candidates and deep bench, the guys the elites want nominated are total fucking losers.
Jeb Bush? He’s George’s less charismatic (albeit also less idiotic) brother last I checked. The GOP really thinks it has a chance in a Bush /Clinton throwdown?
Mittens? He lost to the Muslim Kenyan usurper who destroyed freedom, apple pie and the economy.
Christie? Everyone hates that guy now. His only persuasive argument was electability and that’s toast. And his legal entanglements aren’t over yet.
If this is the best they can do, they really might get stuck with a creature of the braindead base. Or they’ll settle on Scott Walker.
raven
Ain’t there some other dog to be talked about?
different-church-lady
@Morzer:
Au contraire: it has merely chosen to excrete somewhere other than the blogosphere.
jl
@Starfish:
” What about when Andrew Sullivan could not let go of speculating whether she had been really pregnant and whether her son was her own? ”
Correct me if I am misremembering, but Sullivan’s weird crusade was a crusade of one. Did anyone take him seriously on his obsession? There were a few mildly debunking stories about it, IIRC. But I might be wrong.
SRW1
@Starfish:
Andrew Sullivan and wemmenz is a dungeon no sane person would enter voluntarily.
I am very sceptical, though, that Sullivan’s obesssion with Sarah Palin’s relationship with Trig explains much of her persona.
drkrick
@Mandalay:
Only if it’s labeled accurately. I’m of the opinion that it’s more like a damn superpower.
jl
@Turgidson:
” Just a random amused comment that, for all the Village’s talk of the GOP’s strong crop of candidates and deep bench, the guys the elites want nominated are total fucking losers. ”
The same goofballs who sold, or were enthusiastically sold on. a certain Sarah Palin.
Mike in NC
@Laertes: With the Kochs ready to spend upward of a billion bucks to buy the White House, I’ll go with Jeb Bush/Scott Walker as their useful idiots to achieve that end.
JPL
@jl: The effective corporate rate is much lower for some, so I understand the need for corporate reform. I don’t think Sarah understood that crony capitalists can be corporations also.
Thanks for the info on Dean. I read Krugman but it would be interesting to see what someone else has to say.
Morzer
@Turgidson:
I don’t see either of the Repub Retro Retread candidates lasting the course. Mitt had his chance and lost and Jeb’s best days are far behind him in the wingnut mirror, plus RINO-bro etc etc.
Walker versus Santorum will be the real contest and I would guess that Walker will prevail because Santorum won’t have the money to play in all the big states. Walker, on the other hand, will be so heavily Koch-funded that he could probably pay off the Philippines national debt and still have enough cash to buy Nebraska and Montana.
Morzer
@SRW1:
Palin’s record as Mayor of Wasilla was wingnutty and grifty enough long before the media bothered to cover her in depth or Andrew Sullivan triggered his various obsessions with her.
fuckwit
Palin always was, and is, and will remain, merely a troll. For a year or so she managed to troll an entire media establishment. Since then, it seems, as happens to most most trolls, people have gotten bored and have learned to stop feeding them.
This sums up her whole act right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTSA_sWGM44
Mandalay
@cthulhu:
That’s not possible any more. The rubes are in the Tea Party, and they are against the Republican establishment.
Nobody can straddle that fence. Palin went with the rubes, which is why the Republican establishment are sticking knives in her back right now.
Corner Stone
@Morzer:
Walker v Santorum?
Turgidson
@Mike in NC:
I don’t think Koch money will be a determining factor in buying the White House (yet) because our candidate will be Hillary and she’s well-known and presumably well-financed enough to defend herself, just as Obama was in 2012. But that money will keep state and local offices, and some congressional seats and even a handful of Senate seats (looking at you, Joni Ernst) locked in under GOP control for the foreseeable future. I just hope my state of California can stay relatively immune to that disease for a while longer.
JPL
Well if we are going to play a guessing game, I think the top three candidates will be Walker, Bush and Cruz.
Mike in NC
Back in the day when I’d still look at the Washington Post, regular columnist Kathleen Parker was smitten with candidate John McCain in 2008 and then Mitt Romney in 2012. If she ever had an unkind word to offer about Sarah Palin, I must have missed it.
jl
@JPL:
I think reading Baker is a daily lesson, (or for me, refresher) on basic sound economic analysis and public policy. Baker’s destruction of the daily gross incompetence of the corporate media at economic reporting is also fun, if you have a nasty streak in your sense of humor, as I do.
Baker is not always doctrinaire, and sometimes wrong. While his pure theory analysis of a progressive case for zero corporate tax rate is correct, IMHO, I am not sure how well it would fare after it meets the reality of legislative scamming, and post-passage implementation and gradual legislative sabotage. His organization is CEPR and they do sound and correct economic policy analysis that is also fairly easy to understand.
Beat the Press blog
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/
Corner Stone
Just speaking for myself, but I’m not wealthy, I don’t have 25 times the net worth the avg person does. But I’ve been contributing to a 529 plan for 10 years based on what the premise was sold as.
Not sure why the admin thought changing that premise was a good move.
Corner Stone
Has anyone here ever actually looked at Walker? Listened to him?
raven
jl
@Corner Stone: Why? Should something tingle, or turn to stone?
mai naem mobile
I don’t think Palins bipolar. I think that maybe she has a severe form of ADD or a.meth problem. I’ve known a few people who had meth issues. Two were doing it for weight management so I can see Palin doing it for that. Meth people seem to have really nasty personalities that kind of fits in with Palin. As far as the pregnancy i think she was trying to intentionally/subconsciously lose the baby because she didn’t want to deal with a disabled kid. Yes, that’s a very mean thing to say but thats how i feel.
Corner Stone
@jl:
Generally, it should convince you immediately that he has absolutely zero chance of ever being nominated to run for president.
Redshift
@JPL: Keep in mind that in the wingnut bubble, “crony capitalists” only refers to companies that are allegedly getting sweetheart deals from a Democratic administration. It’s become a standard part of the patter, the key to all sorts of economic fairy tales they tell.
mai naem mobile
@Corner Stone: i have listened to Walker but I’ve heard Joni Ernst, Mike Pence , Ron Johnson and Steve King as well, and I think they all sound like buffoons and they all get elected.
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
Yes. You may not like Walker. You may find him dull, conniving and corrupt – but he’s better at white resentment politics than anyone else in the GOP. Santorum came second last time around and he’ll stay the course better than the other competitors. Christie, El Jeboso, MultiMittamin, and Man Who Can’t Count To Three Without Cue Cards aren’t going anywhere. I suspect Baby Doc will stay in Kentucky, but I doubt he’d be a factor, despite the hollering of the Angry Bro faction online.
None of this says that Walker would win the presidency, but I do think he’s going to be very hard to beat for the GOP nomination, if that’s what he wants.
jl
@Corner Stone: Thanks. I hope you are correct. Unless the guy would be such a disaster in the general election that he would seriously wound the GOP. In which case, maybe he should get the nomination?
Kay
I don’t think it was all their fault. Her polling was horrible for a really long time, pre-2012, and media kept promoting her and no one said anything. She probably promotes her various grifting activities by exaggerating her email list of supporters. fundraising, whatever. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. I remember during the 2008 Presidential campaign when I still had a land line I got a call to go to one of her rallies and it was 2 or 3 hours away. I thought at the time “are they just cold-calling thousands of random Ohio households?” It seemed crazy, like someone was getting paid and had to do X number of contacts.
They probably shouldn’t spend a whole lot of time making fun of her. She played them, too :)
Citizen Alan
Yes, in 2008, Sarah Palin delivered one of the finest convention speeches I’ve ever heard (trust me, I was there)
I remember that too. I watched it live. It was the first and so far only time I have ever used the C-word, which I screamed so loudly at one point (the “community organizer” sneer, I think) that my roommate rushed in from another room because he thought I’d hurt myself.
I hate Sarah Palin. I will never stop hating Sarah Palin, and I will never apologize for it, no matter how “irrelevant” she becomes in the future. If she dies during my lifetime, I will be personally disappointed if it was a peaceful death. And here’s why:
Because that evil bitch spent most of the summer and fall of 2008 telling audiences of thousands of proto-teabaggers that Barack Obama was a terrorist sympathizer. And then, she spent most of 2009 telling everyone who would listen that Obama the Terrorist Sympathizer was literally scheming to murder senior citizens as part of a socialist plot. And I am convinced beyond any hope of persuasion that she was doing so with the deliberate intention of getting some right wing nutjob so fired up that he assassinated Obama.
Morzer
@Citizen Alan:
I remember watching that speech and changing the channel halfway through because I was so disgusted by the crass, arrogant, sneering hatefulness of it all.
jl
@Citizen Alan: @Morzer:
Sorry to hear your hearts are so filled with hatred. I will pray to some convenient and understanding deity to fill your hearts with love understanding and forgiveness.
So, the differences between Palin and half a dozen other GOPer pols and prominent teabaggers are… what… exactly?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In the HBO Palin movie, there was one moment when all the McCain staffers– Woody the Bartender, Sarah Paulson, etc– breathlessly and with jaws dropped watch… not I think the convention speech, I think it was the “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” thing from the VP debate. “She came with that on her own!”. It’s kind of funny after a good twenty minutes of movie time used to give us the Schmidt-Wallace leaks about her thinking Elizabeth II was an absolute monarch and Palin didn’t know there were two Koreas, or why (both of which I have no trouble believing) , we’re supposed to believe that borrowed quip proved she was a Natural!
Morzer
@jl:
You found Palin’s convention speech acceptable then?
And since when did expressing justifiable criticism become hatred exactly?
Morzer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She walked! She chewed gum! On her own!
gogol's wife
@fuckwit:
You had to make me click on that, бля.
raven
@Morzer: I hate the skank, so what?
jl
@Morzer: You are riled up. I found Palin’s 2008 convention speech despicable. I think she said the same hateful and vile things about Obama and his policies that many other GOPes did. Maybe she said them in ways in a more animated and telegenic way. Maybe it seemed more threatening because their was a hard corps of Pain fanatics, including some besotted old teabagger guys or because media goofs like Matthews were almost spooging over her on air.
But I don’t think she said much different than other GOPers did. Most of them work off the same daily talking points.
gogol's wife
@jl:
SHE WAS ELEVATED TO BEING THE CANDIDATE FOR VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Morzer
@jl:
Fired up and ready to go!
Riled, not so much. La Grifterina hasn’t been relevant for a couple of years now and she’s a net negative for the GOP.
JPL
@jl: At the time there were not to many politicians calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer. I agree that now it’s common place. McCain at one point had to correct her.
Thanks for the link, I book marked it.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Before Sarah, I never knew Africa was a country.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: I am not sure how the Walker meme gets pushed. The last polling data I saw indicated that only 25% of his state wants him to run for president. Yes he is against the right stuff, but time and time again, getting elected to the presidency is shown to be a lot more complicated than being good at what one is against. And again, I just do not see how he outlasts Christy.
That said, I am not against Walker getting the GOP nom as he would be one of the weaker general election candidates. Which isn’t saying much (added after edit)
Hal
What works for Scott Walker in Wisconsin isn’t necessarily going to work on a national level. The don’t underestimate talk has gone from Christie, to Jeb to Walker. People weren’t supposed to underestimate Christie and is he even really in the running at this point? Walker’s ability to appeal to angry white people is supposed to make him a popular candidate on a nation wide level?
Obama won Wisconsin comfortably in 08 and 12. That Walker is electable in his own state as Governor is just that. I’m not saying not to count him out. That would be foolish of anyone in politics. Anything is possible after all.
jl
@gogol’s wife: Worse than McCain? He was the head of the ticket. He was behind the BS in Georgia, his foreign affairs adviser was some operative in puffing up Georgia’s little tin pot authoritarian going off on his little Marx Bros Duck Soup war intrigues. McCain tried to gin up a US-Russian crisis over that hot mess.
Not saying that Russia was innocent in that episode, but there was substantial BS on the US’s part too, and McCain and his camp were deeply involved in the intrigue during the campaign. That was despicable too.
It’s not that I dislike Palin less than people here. I think it is that I think they are all as bad as Palin, and have been for more than a decade. I don’t think she is a complete idiot. I think she is an accomplished knave, just as much as McCain, or Graham, or Romney and Ryan, all of them.
So, two of that type were elevated to candidates to run executive branch in 2008, two in 2012, and two more will be in 2016.
nobody
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey: This. I had seen the video of her in her AOG church. She appealed to the social conservative base, the same people who very much distrusted McCain. But as soon as I saw her melt down backstage with Couric after being lobbed a softball, I realized her days were numbered.
Morzer
@Hal:
I think Walker has the juice to win the GOP nomination – which depends on a very specific set of voters. I don’t believe he would win the presidency.
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
Exactly. What if McCain had had a heart attack? Or was pushed down the stairs by . . . someone?
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: That our Punditubbies liked the speech and were impressed by it, tells you all you need to know about them.
jl
@Baud: Someone else would have to finish the multiple wars, WW III scares and nuclear crises McCain started. Frying pan, or fire, my friend? Which do you prefer?
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Isn’t he also a cancer survivor?
Morzer
@jl:
All of them, Katie.
Felonius Monk
Palin’s place in the hearts of the wingnutz will be easily taken by Joni Ernst. Even though she is just as crazy, she at least is not coming across as a meth head.
As this transition takes place, Sarah’s money sources will dry up and she will soon (not soon enough, however) disappear into the political desert. ‘Cause Palin’s mantra is: When the money stops, I’m outta here.
jayboat
@mai naem mobile:
I absolutely agree with this. Throw in the added long-term stress of raising and caring for a child with these issues. Not that she would trouble herself all that much, as the heavy lifting is surely pushed off on hired help or the younger siblings… but, still… anyway, I think it shows in her face. Along with the drug use- whatever her poison is.
She’s definitely headed toward territory I’ve heard described by a 20-something male from the west coast as: “Her face doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of her body.” Sands of time, baby.
Baud
@Felonius Monk:
Fixed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think Palin is different than those four because she is a bone-deep hater. McCain is pathologically arrogant, with a vindictive bitterness fueled by that arrogance toward anyone who he thinks slighted him, whether it’s That One, George W Bush or the American electorate; Willard, White Horse or not, has the same birth-right sense of entitlement as Dumbya, with some actual achievements of his own that make it probably stronger; Graham is a bitter little man for a lot of reasons, and Ryan has an arrested adolescent Randian’s contempt for people who didn’t have the brains to be born to an affluent and politically well-connected family like he did. But I don’t think any of them hate with the passion and intensity of the small minded, small town, deservedly insecure, overgrown middle schooler that is Sarah Palin.
Morzer
@Baud:
Bank of America announced today that Sarah Palin will be joining them as a marketing consultant …
Mike in NC
@Citizen Alan: Remember how after McCain conceded Palin wanted to make her own speech, something a VP candidate had never done before?
No doubt it would have been something along the lines of “Kill that dirty n****r!”
cthulhu
@Mandalay:
I don’t know. Huckabee has seemed to pull it off for quite some time.
Iowa Old Lady
It would serve McCain right if she ran against him for the Senate nomination in Arizona.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m a Rachel Maddow fan, but she should be flat out ashamed of herself for this tabloidy tease on a rightwing bible thumper who’s in trouble. Of course I can’t look away.
raven
Rachel is pimping the shit out of some “exclusive” she has about some wingnut that lost his job. It’s been annoying as shit with her breathlessly announcing it over and over.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Great minds.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @raven:
Now I have to turn it on…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cthulhu: I’m just not scared of Mike Huckabee. The MSM tells me I should be, or at least should have been. Maybe it’s my cultural provincialism, but I just can’t see the bastard son of Elmer Gantry and Sherrif Beaufort T Justice taking the White House. Even the nomination would be a long shot. I don’t imagine even Ken Langone wants to place his tax cut bets on that horse.
on Rachel’s deep tease…. It can’t be….
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Maybe so. How about Santorum? His hate is of a colder cooler nature? But, I don’t care so much about where their problems come from, I think the horrible political consequences would be the same.
@Morzer: I think Palin could have a brilliant career in sketchy residential real estate. Wasilla, which has a sketchy reputation in the area, would be a perfect place to start.
catclub
@Keith G:
Also true for Giuliani. Did not mix well with non-Northeast GOP.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Change the channel.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: fevered religious fanatic with deep rooted issues about sex. A medieval Catholic Cliff Clavin more to be pitied than feared.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: I tweeted her instead.
Baud
@raven:
What did you say?
raven
So Brian Fisher is fired.
raven
@Baud: I said “you are better than this rinky-dink bullshit buildup.”
Baud
@raven: Bryan
Baud
@raven: Cool.
Keith G
@Hal:
He is….in all ways that do not require official paperwork.
One of his pre-announcement ads.
Remind you of anyone?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@raven: woulda been a good story about the RNC if she hadn’t pimped it like that.
ETA: And it is, I think, and important story. I doubt it will get legs but it could. Might even blow back on BiBi and Boner
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yea, too bad.
Keith G
@catclub:
Your statement re: Guiliana is true enough.
The people that I talk to the most and whose opinions I have listened to were Southerns and Midwesterners. It’s all anecdotal, so YMMV.
catclub
@Morzer:
You make him sound like Nixon. Which unfortunately is praise for a GOP politician.
jl
@Keith G:
” He is….in all ways that do not require official paperwork.
One of his pre-announcement ads.
Remind you of anyone? ”
The name is just on the tip of my tongue… can’t quite get it right now. Something about Hawaii.. but no. that is not part of the US… must be somebody else. Something about all being united, brother- and sisterhood of all Americans… looking past divisions for common ground.. but that is commie and the teabaggers won’t like it….
OK, I am stumped.
catclub
Relevant at Kevin Drum
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/01/why-are-scam-pacs-so-much-more-common-right-left
Jeffro
@Laertes: Seconded.
Brendan in Charlotte
I think this Elvis tune sums up Mark Hemingway’s feelings:
jl
@catclub: Interesting piece by Drum. I think GOP affiliated scams fleecing their dupes have been operating for decades, it’s just that PACs are the natural outlet for them now. The elderly GOPers and younger teabaggers who join up with GOP affiliated outfts (almost all of them) get the most ridiculous scam garbage in the mail. I remember some great aunts and uncles, who were moderate GOPers back when some of them existed, getting all sorts of scam garbage, that they routinely threw in the garbage that was ideologically associated with nut GOP causes (goldbuggery, social security is broke retirement scams, etc.) since I was a little kid. Sadly, a few of them got a little weak minded in very old age and started not throwing it in the trash and lost some money.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Mitt won’t last through next week. Christie is a non-starter as long as Bush is around. Walker, however, is a known quantity with proven results and a sh!t-ton of Koch backing. He also speaks $$$ to the establishment donors and speaks just enough religion to pass the litmus test with the fundies.
At the present time, he’s the one I’m most concerned about. Anyone who can moderate the GOP’s wacko message long enough to get elected, much less re-elected, is a worry.
JPL
@raven: Wikipedia says he was fired but not why.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Obviously the only one he’s ever heard.
What an ignorant cock.
Corner Stone
@Morzer:
He won’t even be in the top 6.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro:
Ridiculous. Anyone worried about Walker needs to dunk their heads into a really chilled portable cooler.
jl
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
” Obviously the only one he’s ever heard. ”
And that should be the only one you’ve ever heard to know it was garbage.
Lewis is not ignorant and not stupid or idiotic. He is a scammer and grifter just as big and ruthless as Palin and her GOP pals.
Also, IMHO, a bad faith artist and liar. He has to make up some story. This sad dreck is the best he can do.
rk
If anyone can listen to Palin more than once and not reach the conclusion that she’s mean and empty headed then there is something wrong with them. In fact liking people like Palin, Limbaugh, Coulter, Glen Beck and all the other right wing loonies should be used by Psychiatrists as a symptom of a mental disorder.
Jeffro
@JPL: I’ll be interested to see how Cruz maneuvers in the coming year…I’m sure he is smart enough to understand he’s not going to be in the top tier of candidates should he run, but he’ll certainly try to insert himself into the GOP’s “discussion” and elbow his way into that Veep slot.
Jeffro
@Morzer: Seconded (again)
jl
I see we have predictions! I will note them down.
My prediction is that once we get to about 25 hopefuls, they will all get about 4% polling, So, none of them will qualify for the first debate. A GOP primary crisis will occur. I am working out all of the possible hilarious and disgusting cascades of fail that will then occur. Stay tuned. My jl’s Pundito Crystal Ball web site will soon be open for business. I plan on giving some great deals on trial subscriptions. Deeper discounts for anyone interested in weird tricks to get rich quick.
Corner Stone
People who think Scott Walker is a national candidate who might possibly get the R nom for president are laughable.
edit – and yes, I mean not just the idea of a Walker nom is laughable, but any person who thinks so is also “to be laughed at”.
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
Well, alrighty then.
Corner Stone
Marco Rubio won the Koch donor straw poll. Now what, say you all Walker backers?
Keith G
FWIW: This chart illustrates Christie’s greatest problem – a problem that he will try to turn into an opportunity by saying that he is the one candidate who can poach voters away from the Democrats.
How well will it work?
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Yes, because a well-(Koch)-funded Establishmentside candidate with a doofus face who don’t always speak too well but still comes across as a little folksy and a little aggrieved…somone who beat down the Dems in his home state, twice…and someone who speaks Money fluently and Fundie well enough while still seeming likeable (or at least, not immediately hateable)…that is someone to dismiss as having a realistic chance at the GOP nom.
Am I reminding y’all of anyone yet? I know memories are short on the R side but there was this governor from Texas a little while back…
Nickel bet!
rikyrah
@Morzer:
White resentment politics?
Mittens ran a full-blown Southern Strategy campaign, and it worked!!!
Willard won 60% of the White vote.
And, guess what.
It didn’t even matter.
Not for the popular vote, or Electoral college.
I doubt that the Democratic Party nominee in 2016 will be Black, so riddle me how Walker or any other GOP nominee can get more than 60% of the White vote.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: I dunno…how much weight do we give here to straw poll winners of any kind? Let me do a little research…
CPAC 2014 straw poll results:
31 KY Senator Rand Paul
11 TX Senator Ted Cruz
9 Neurosurgeon Ben Carson
8 NJ Governor Chris Christie…
Why aren’t we sweating Rand Paul or Ben Carson here? Oh that’s right, because they’re crazy and everyone (even the people on their side) know it. Straw poll =/= data.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: I’m happy to bet any amount you like to the charity of choice. Gov Walker has zero chance at the R nom in 2016.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: Listen. I’ve been saying for months that the R nom is either Bush or Mitt.
I still say that same very thing. Rand, Cruz, Carson, Walker, etc have zero chance.
Zero.
coin operated
@Citizen Alan:
Word!
Frankensteinbeck
@Mandalay:
They don’t really give a fuck about capitalism. The politicians do like to be bought, but the driving deregulatory impetus is Cleek’s Law, and it has been since Reagan. Hell, that was Reagan’s legacy, convincing the rich, the racists, and the fundies that they were all allies against the liberal threat, and should give the middle finger to anything liberals want – even if they personally supported it. That, and telling the soft racists that making life Hell for blacks wasn’t racism, it was Mature, Responsible Adult Thinking, so they could rest assured nobody was a racist who didn’t use the n-word.
Palin’s shoveling money to her constituents didn’t help Obama, so they don’t care. When did positions matter to Republicans? Only hate.
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
That Rubio is going nowhere fast.
File under: Ben Carson, Hermann Cain and assorted vaudeville acts.
Cervantes
@Jeffro:
I’ve seen no evidence that he’s capable of this much modesty or humility.
Morzer
@rikyrah:
You do realize that I made a very clear distinction between getting the GOP nomination and actually winning the White House?
White resentment politics will get you an awfully long way towards the first item, but it won’t win you the big game the way it used to.
Villago Delenda Est
@SenyorDave: The Republicans simply cannot get past the color of Obama’s skin.
It blocks out every other input into their feeble brains.
Ripley
She’s a whore?
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
You’ve already lost that bet. Walker has a chance at the GOP nomination. So do you. So does John Cole.
Very, very small chances for 2 out of three of the list, but not zero.
Basic probability, you know.
catclub
@jl: I just posted that the scams are MOSTLY on the GOP side. Now you hop in.
Corner Stone
@Morzer: Get back to me when he wins the R nom.
jl
@catclub:The jl Pundito Crystal Ball is completely non-partisan, I assure you.
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
So you’ve given up on your bet already?
That’s got to be a new land-speed record for a retreat from a ludicrously over-stated claim by you.
Morzer
@jl:
Pundito? That’s an illegal immigrant crystal ball the size of a canteloupe!
Corner Stone
@Morzer: No, dumb ass. I’m saying he will not be the R nom. He has zero chance to be the R nom. He will never be the R nom.
In case you can’t fucking read, he will not be the R nom.
If you want to bet that he will be, please proceed.
If you think my rough terminology leads to some sort of stupid bullshit that you’re trying on, bet that he will be the R nom. Because he will not be.
jl
@Morzer: it’s Eye-talian. Need to give it a little sophisticated flare. And confuse customers with some second rate competition.
catclub
@jl: Put me down for thinking Ted Cruz will go a long way, and so will Walker.
My general thought had been that Ted Cruz unites the wacko far right in ways that they were not united in 2008 and 2012 (i.e. early), which allowed McCain and Romney to win by _consistently_ getting 25% approval in the primaries. If both Mitt and Bush run the dynamic will be different – obviously.
On the one hand, the revulsion against Mitt when he said he was willing to run again was surprising.
On the other hand, polling still shows Mitt doing ten points better than Bush, so why should he drop out.
So I have no idea. Bookmark it.
catclub
@Corner Stone:
That makes it sound like you would give 100-1 odds on a bet.
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
You don’t really get this whole mathematical thinking idea, do you?
Villago Delenda Est
@Ripley: No, it’s that she’s much more convincing as a streetwalker than say Mike Huckabee is.
Frankensteinbeck
@Villago Delenda Est:
No finer example than Clint Eastwood’s empty chair. You couldn’t watch him for even a minute without realizing that Eastwood had no idea what Obama was like, and only saw a stereotype of an angry, lazy black man. Chiding Obama for swearing at him opened a window into the cloud cuckoo land of polite racism.
EDIT – It’s becoming clear to me that Clint Eastwood’s Empty Chair Speech will be the defining moment I remember about the current GOP. It sums up everything.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: BTW, in an earlier comment, you mentioned “Paul Stevens”. It was Ted “the tubes” Stevens. “The Tubes” comment from him was especially interesting since he was an alum of the university that was node one of the internet. I believe you’re familiar with the place.
Corner Stone
@Morzer: I know what zero looks like. He has as much chance as the unicorn in Harry Potter movies does.
Suzanne
There was talk that Palin bought the home in Scottsdale in order to run for Senate when Jon Kyl resigned, but that didn’t happen. Honestly, I don’t think she’s there much. Mr. Suzanne works in Scottsdale, and lots of my friends live there, and AFAIK, no one’s ever seen her or Bristol out and about. OTOH, Cindy and Meghan McCain are seen in restaurants all the time. I’m sure it’s a vacation home or an investment and nothing else.
Palin has always been an idiot. Since day one. I remember the first time I heard her speak, she sounded dumb. That halting way she speaks makes her sound stupid, and the content of her language confirms it.
I’m not sure if she’s being thrown away because of her looks. She still looks fine. And she still looks way better than most men in politics. I think it’s just finally undeniable that she’s dumber than a bag full of hammers.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: I meant Ted Stevens. If you saw ‘Paul’, I did a typo. Sorry if that happened. I am familiar with one, maybe two, distinguished SoCal institutions that played a role in early internet. I will have to look up what was done where to remind myself.
Edit: Did Ted Stevens go to college in Southern California. We might be fellow alumni? What? I’ll look up Stevens on the wiki.
Edti2: Oh dear!
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s an insult to streetwalkers to liken Palin to them.
There is nothing shameful about sex work. There is plenty shameful about dumbassery.
mclaren
Explains the entire Republican party and at least half the comments on this blog.
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
You are correct, sir. As usual.
The Republican ideal is a pol with the superficial respectability of a George H. W. Bush or a Mitt and the inner batshit-crazy far-right lunatic fringiness of a Rand, Cruz, Carson or Walker — a craziness which only becomes apparent after the Republican gets into office.
That’s an extraordinarily rare combination. The other only Republicans who have managed to pull that off in modern times were Nixon and Reagan and George W. Bush.
There’s no one with that rare combo of sociopathic charm and inner lunacy on the horizon in the Republican party. All the potential R candidates are either flagrantly obviously insane and out and proud about it, or reasonable and moderate an therefore unacceptable to the Republican base…or, if acceptable, so compromised by having to enunciate sane positions pre-primary and crazy policies once nominated, to be elected. As Bill Clinton noted, the American people prefer a pol who’s strong and wrong to one who vacillates and is right.
cthulhu
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am not particularly worried about his possible run. I think his best shot at the nomination was in 2012 but $ kept him out – in a couple of ways. I think his optics (not the least of which, coming off like Nixon) mean he’s not viable in the general.
But he has certainly worked the wingnut welfare system well.
Violet
@Suzanne: I think her looks were a lot of what got her the VP spot. She was a Governor of a state, so they didn’t really need to look much further than that. Then she was good looking, at least to Republican types.
As she ages, and as she does nothing but grift, she’s got to have more to back up her looks. And she doesn’t.
jl
Walker campaign blunder. Will he do well where voting public sober most of the time? (Sorry, whenever I think or WI, I think of Lewis Black’s drinking in Wisconsin routine)
Foreign Stock Images Used In Scott Walker Committee Video
TPM blog
” One image of an elderly man comes from Dualstock, a company based in Italy, according to Buzzfeed. ”
…
” Another image, 17 seconds in, is of a woman taken by Sylwia Bogdanska, a photographer based out of Poland. Bogdanska’s studio is in Koluszki, Poland. ”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/foreign-stock-images-our-american-revival-scott-walker
mclaren
@Violet:
I would respectfully disagree about Palin’s looks being her attraction to R’s. Palin had an unusual capacity for expressing virulent hatred in a way that made it seem almost respectable and mainstream that I’ve only seen with Nixon and Reagan.
As Palin found herself in more comfortable circumstances, she slacked off on the hatemongering. Hate takes work to maintain. Especially the crazed level of vituperative rageoholic hate of a Nixon or Reagan — and it takes almost superhuman levels of concentration and discipline to make that kind of frenzied hate seem like a sensible argument (instead of character assassination) and reasonable and socially acceptable, instead of red-faced hysteria.
Violet
@mclaren: Don’t know what Sarah Palin you’ve been watching, but she hasn’t slacked off on the hatred one bit. She’s filled with hate. Hate ages people. She’s aged quite a bit. You can see the hate in her face.
mclaren
@Violet:
Yes, but when I say “slacked off,” I mean that Palin is no longer working hard to make her hatemongering sound respectable. She just vomits out word-salad filled with lurid images: “the `man’ can only ride you if your back is bent,” and so on. If you compare with Palin’s 2008 speech, it was highly refined and filled with clever dog-whistle phrases. Now she’s just gotten lazy, and as a result, she’s no longer credible. She has, in other words, entered David Duke territory, from which there is no political return.
Lee Atwater summarized the tightrope act Republican pols had to walk:
Mandalay
@Violet:
She certainly is. Everyone is chortling about her speech in Iowa, but the actual message she delivered was very ugly, and deliberately divisive.
Forget the looks, the stupidity, and the word salads; she is one really, really nasty piece of work. Perhaps some right wing shock jocks outdo her, but I can’t think of anyone else in public life who is as consistently shrill, negative and nasty as Palin.
Long may she continue though, because she has become so toxic that even most Republicans now want her to go away.
AJS
Best post in a while. LMAO
brantl
@CrustyDem:High IQ people complemented her, if they were paid enough.
Applejinx
I think it’s gonna be Christie, because sheer vengeance bullying and hate trump policy and electability. I think he can put himself forth as the Id of the Republican Party and be the one. Could be wrong, though.
Jado
@jl:
I think it is the soft bigotry of low expectations – male politicians are usually of three types – wonky smart guys that can be counted on to fix things, dynamic leaders who may or may not be smart, but are incredibly politically savvy, and fun-guy morons that the voters want to have a beer with.
Any male politician who says dumb things is automatically expected to be the third type. It’s as natural as Good Ol’ Boys.
Female politicians are usually expected to be at least moderately intelligent. When they are not, it comes as a real puzzle why they are in politics when they could make good money at Hooters.
Or Hustler.
Depending on whether you think they can handle being a Hooters waitress (as a former waiter, I know it’s not as easy as it looks)
Violet
@mclaren: The 2008 speech was written by McCain’s people for her. Now she hires her own speechwriters or wings it. That’s why there’s a difference. If you haven’t seen her since 2008, no wonder you think she’s changed. If you’ve seen any speeches or interviews in, oh, 2010 or 2012 this Iowa speech is pretty much the same thing.
There’s no “trying hard” about anything she did before and no slacking off now. Sarah Palin doesn’t do hard work and it’s hilarious that people think somehow she might have sat down with policy wonks and learned stuff. That was never going to happen and anyone that thought it might was delusional.
catclub
@Mandalay:
the reason she is getting knocked is that it was divisive inside the GOP.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I know two men, they’ve voted Republican all their lives and would never have considered doing otherwise.
One’s my dad, of course.
Both are pilots. I think this factors heavily into their decision.
They broke their rule in 2008, both voting for Obama. For both of them, it boiled down to two things:
1. Sarah Palin.
2. An intimate knowledge of McCain’s personality as reflected through his piloting skills or lack thereof.
They both voted for Romney in 2012. They considered him fine, but not Palin. As my dad said “her being the one who steps in when McCain drops dead from a stroke of rage? No fucking way.”
brantl
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: Male chauvinist pig that I am, I have to point out that Joni Ernst with that big bobble-head and horse teeth isn’t going to have Palin’s shelf-life.
MaryRC
Some of my older women relatives and their friends were captivated by Palin at first. Although I don’t share their conservative views, I love and respect them and they’re not idiots. They were thrilled that a woman was on the ticket at last, and Palin did present an appealing picture to them. Most of us knew nothing about her prior to the convention and suddenly there she was, a woman who seemed to prove that you could have it all: a position of power and responsibility in the world, a happy marriage and family, well-groomed and well-dressed, pro-life and “pro-family”. I’m not sure when exactly the bloom wore off the rose, but it was definitely fading when Palin and her daughters started trash-talking on social media (I think Letterman was her first target). Women who are on course to change the world do not lower themselves to trash-talk on Facebook. Her book about the campaign was the last straw since whining and blaming others for your failures does not sit well with these ladies. But there was a moment when she held them in the palm of her hand. Of course, being who she was, she blew it.
Cervantes
@MaryRC:
And what was Geraldine Ferraro?
henqiguai
@Cervantes (#241):
A Democrat.
Sondra
How many of us noticed this line: “And as recently as this past April, I wondered whether it was finally safe for conservatives to criticize her publicly.”
Isn’t he admitting that there was an official position on Palin? A position that did not admit of criticism? In fact the official position that was dangerous to expose was that she was often incoherent but one had to ignore her bloopers and blunders or face the wrath of Rupert et alia.
That position was to make sense of her nonsense and defend it. Now when she has proven herself to be unelectable and in fact has no desire to be elected to anything, she has become disposable and it is finally OK to let the scales fall from over your eyes.
KarenJ503
@JPL: Truly. Mark Hemingway, and every Breitbart amateur, and every other conservative who calls themselves a “pundit” (Allah-, Gateway-, etc) never noticed that Sarah Palin never went ANYWHERE without her shields, behind which she hid (cowered) — her family.
But during that 2 months of the 2008 campaign, occasionally she was on her own without Todd and little Piper to hold her hand, and it was at those times she was shakiest — like the Katie Couric interviews, especially the one where even John McCain was absent.
During those 2 months and thereafter, Palin dragged her family everywhere, paid for by her SarahPAC — the book signing tours, the fake “family vacations” during the pre-2012 campaign season, and the endorsement tours in 2010, 2012, and 2014. If anyone DARED to mention that she had this huge family entourage with her, she lashed out like the professional victim she is. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Nevermind that her daughter Bristol parrots Palin’s Facebook screeds on her own blog now, posts bikini pictures of herself on her own Facebook page, setting herself up for being the topic of bizarre references in her mother’s most recent speech: “…Speaking of Bristol, maybe you have seen her in the news recently. Photos of her butt posted. They were candid photos of her, just nothing on but leather. Beautiful leather.”
James M. Grandone
The fact that conservatives did not see the Sarah Palin that is emerging is, in part, wishful thinking on their part. They sincerely wanted to believe that they had the real deal – John McCain certainly did. Here was a brash, attractive governor (sort of) who said what was on her mind (small as it is) and did not care what anyone thought. The political operatives were drooling over an attractive, femal conservative image that could be presented to the public and she wasn’t a balding, grey haired white guy! She would help solve the “women” problem the party suffered from at the polls. She was fresh and fun like a new toy. But after a little play, the imagination wore off and the wheels fell off, they saw what they really had. It wasn’t a diamond in the rough. It was just rough.
From a progressive point of view, we saw it from the start. So did Saturday Night Live. All I can say is, we’re glad you finally saw it too.
KarenJ503
@Mandalay: Have you seen Palin’s latest Facebook attacks on President Obama? She picked up on the media rumor about Beau Bergdahl’s possible military disposition, and full-throttle as always, revved up her hate machine.
https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin/posts/10153075872388588
And in another Facebook screed, she’s suggesting that the 50 states get together and amend the U.S. Constitution (to what, prevent racial minorities as of 2015 from seeking the Presidency?)
https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin/photos/a.10150723283643588.424640.24718773587/10153076291048588/?type=1&theater
That’s our Sarah, doubling down on the hate and political nonsense.