Sarah, plain and tall
Many are scoffing and clucking at Sarah Palin recent announcement that she is resigning as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. Either the pundits can’t figure out why she’s doing what she doing or they’re saying what a political catastrophe it is for her.
I will take the contrarian view and say I think I understand what she’s trying to do. She’s running for President in 2012. After meeting with several top GOP politicos when she was in Washington last, including Bush I aide Fred Malek, they must have told her she cannot be governor of Alaska and run for President at the same time. So she took their advice and decided to vacate the office and made the decision to do so right away.
Now while the decision is unusual and her detractors have a point that when voters elect you they do so presumably for the full term in office, Palin can reply back that she wishes to run for the White House fulltime and was not going to let state business suffer because she traveling around the country. And she can also ask messrs. Romney, Pawlenty and Huckabee how often did they do their jobs or were around in their offices in the last months or years of their final terms as governor while they were running for President? She can also point out that Jimmy Carter spent his last years as governor of Georgia (1971-75) traveling the country on behalf of Democratic candidates and wasn’t around Atlanta all that much either. She simply chose not engage in a charade nor did she wish to be continually harassed by her enemies in Alaska. These are not unfathomable reasons for leaving her post early. Unconventional yes, but not unfathomable and it may be all this sound and fury now will be forgotten in a few years.
I will grant you her recent public utterances have been less than coherent to say the least (“higher calling?” Are you joining a convent?) Perhaps in this two and half year period she has to get ready to run for the White House she can invest the time to find literate speech writers for example, to give her words to speak that voters can follow. One would also hope she spends this time traveling the world, brushing up on public policy and perhaps finding a rational for her campaign beyond the obvious ethnic, racial and gender symbolism. If she does not do these things, she will be exposed in debates and by the media as an empty skirt and will be crushed at the polls and deservedly so. This is her last chance.
However, simply leaving the governor’s office does not solve her logistics problem of campaigning from the White House from Alaska. Perhaps before 2012 she may move somewhere in the lower 48 to better position her campaign. Why not Evansville, Indiana, right in the country’s heartland where she was warmly received the last time she visited?
Very refreshing to read a reasonable view from the “right” regarding Palin’s unusual move. We live in a an age of “politics as sport,” wherein we are expected to root for our “team” no matter what. This devolution in interpreting the founders vision of balanced government is hurting our country. No wonder they established the electoral college.
Unless and until we as American citizens educate ourselves enough to demand and recognize “the best and brightest” candidates for the job, we are doomed to a selection of factional icons. Brilliant as they may shine, most are mere infomercials for sound bite slogans. Can they be valuable messengers? Certainly! Should they be day to day leaders of the free world’s complex, ever changing issues? In the words of one of Gov. Palin’s clan . . . HELL NO!
Why, when it comes to filling arguably the most important calling/ job in the world, do so many Americans want someone who’s “a regular person?” Our President, be they Republican or Democrat needs to be vetted by a lifetime of preparation. Arguably, years of higher education, business, public service, reading, debating, building long term coalitions and persevering sacrifice is needed. As well as a proven track record of accomplishment. Those qualities cannot be “shoehorned” into an unfit vessel. And why try, when there are many who are ready?
Since sports metaphors seem to be fashionable, I will offer this. I was very good at track, running the (dating myself here) quarter mile and half mile. I lost only 3 races in all of high school and college, but I trained incessantly, almost fanatically. This gave me not only the physical preparation I needed but also the mental justification to “believe my own hype.” My belief that I was “the man,” was earned because I knew I’d paid the price for success. In close races (and there were many), I wouldn’t quit because I believed and knew I’d “paid the price” and earned the right to win.
I don’t see Gov. Palin as one who is willing to truly “pay the price” to “run with the big dogs,” nor can her history support that she is. I fear that would take too much unrecognized work and humility. She would have so much to catch up on, so many habits to build and change. She is however, ready and prepared to rally Americans to a cause! I say good for her. As long as that cause is not “Palin for President.”
Hopefully…she will continue to open open and insert foot , leg and upper torso.
Is she simply a tool to divide the vote in 2012?
Or is she all that the GOP think that they have? Surely, after the big boo-hoo…I am a big cheating on my wife and state of South Carolina, crying scene that S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford put on…he is out of the running.
The pick’ens are starting to look thin.
Southern smiles and world peace,
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
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