I don’t think by and large we on the left found Palin threatening to us. Of course we were frightened at the prospect that she might conceivably become the President of the United States. But our main reaction was slack jawed amazement. I thought I’d become as cynical as I could be about the Republican party, but I was stunned that they would attempt to put someone so obviously unprepared for the job in a position to be first in line to become President should anything have happened to McCain. I was floored that with few exceptions, conservatives defended her selection and in some cases even repeated her argument that Alaska’s proximity to Russia somehow gave her foreign policy experience. I couldn’t believe it. Before that, I thought my respect for the Republican party couldn’t drop any lower, but I was wrong.

The other point to consider is that as rudderless as the GOP is at this time, is how inept would the Democratic Party have looked if McCain had pulled off an upset? You’d probably have a very small Dem majority in the House, and Nancy would not be able to herd the southern Democrats, Reid can’t manage with 60 votes and would just be giving up with anything else. Dems benefit from having a once-generation leader in Obama but let’s not think the bench is all that deep on that side of the aisle either.

It’s another sign of how little the Palinistas care about the actual business of governing, and how it is their movement that is really messianic.

I have said before that both the love in some quarters and the hatred in others are completely inexplicable. Her actual positions are pretty run-of-the-mill. This most recent strange action is the first truly distinctive thing she has done.

I do think she has a good chance of winning the nomination in 2012, however, unless (my pet prediction) Cheney runs.

McNair was traded to the Ravens in 2006 after the Titans drafted quarterback Vince Young, who was advertised to have McNair’s combination of skills.

I don’t think I ever feared that she would run for President in 2012. If she ran, she would lose the nomination . . .

I have long thought that Palin is likely to be the Rudy Giuliani of 2012. She may have high poll numbers and lots of buzz and ‘excitement’ up until the first primaries or nearly so, but in the heat of the contests she will melt down and possibly not win a single primary. Where the evangelicals are strong she may lose to Huckabee, and everywhere else she is likely to trail the pack.

Any chance she had of winning the nomination has now gone to negligible if not zero. If voters forget, primary rivals will make it their business to remind them.

In all the discussion of Palin’s speech, there has been scant mention of the possibility that it contains some of her trademark brazen lies. No one in the media has fact-checked it yet, as far as I know.

Before the speech, Andrew Sullivan had already linked to this:

http://www.themudflats.net/2009/07/02/numbers-shmumbers/

I don’t expect her to have a Nixonian comeback. I do expect her to try. The results are more likely to look like Perot’s in-and-out routine in 1992.

David, I am with you in that struggle. Earlier today, over at NRO, Victor Davis Hanson proffered up his latest Palinite nugget – that by 2016 “the key is whether she convinces conservatives in eight year of travel and reflection that she’s a charismatic Margaret Thatcher type heavyweight.” Good luck with all that, VDH. What an insult to the Iron Baroness. I cannot conceive of the formidable _ever_ anouncing to a breathless and enraptured audience that, in paraphrase, “Only quitters stick it out and toil-on; winners quit!”.

The most amazing thing to me is that, generally, the most vociferous affirmants of the hidden depths and subtle steely judgement of the Alaskan SuperMom are the ones who most contemptuously derided Obama supporters as buying into style over substance.

Happy July 4th to all of my American cousins south of the Great White North – the best neighbour a country could ask for, if an oftimes puzzling and unpredictable one!

Cheers.

I should stop being surprised.

It will be very difficult to explain to later generations what it was that the Palinites saw in her that made them so fervent and enthusiastic. The Palin enthusiasm of 2008 will not end up making much sense a few years from now.

If at this time it makes sense and is easily explained, I would like to hear the explanation.

That sounds snarky, but I don’t mean it that way. I mean it literally, and I don’t know a better way to say it.

I am struggling to understand the Palin phenomenon. Presently I’m reading Hofstadter’s Anti-intellectualism in American Life. It sheds some light on the subject, but I’m still a long way from fully understanding it.

As for Palin’s followers, my sister is a true-believer, mother of 5, home-schooler and blogger. Read a few big family home-schooling mom blog comments and you realize a large percentage of the discourse is how beautiful their families are. Beautiful family = morally good. Sad, but true.

Good point.

I would add that Palin is quitting just as her popularity hits 55%. Getting out before it goes below 50% allows her to keep claiming to have been a ‘popular governor of Alaska’, without ambiguity.

If the governor is smart she will blow off this political nonsense and sign a contract with Fox News. Huckabee is going to run again, and there will be an open time slot when he steps down.