Howard Fineman and some other astute political observers have written in recent days that Sarah Palin's announced resignation as Alaska's governor is a clever first step toward a 2012 presidential run. I just do not believe that this is true. If she really expected to run for president in 2012, it is fully understandable that she would not run for reelection as governor when her current term expires at the end of 2010. If she does have presidential expectations, however, it does not make sense for her to resign just over half way through her first term as governor. Although she is a darling of the Republican Right (I am trying to recall who the conservative pundit was who basically admitted to being sexually excited over Ms. Palin during her vice-presidential run), she has almost zero respect or credibility from the rest of the country, and quitting her current job for no obvious reason at this time would hardly help in building up her reputation.
If Governor Palin is resigning early because of family considerations, I can respect that. That could be a contributing factor, although I doubt that it is the primary reason. I think it is more likely that the main reason is that her being routinely lampooned by commentators and comedians caused her to lose her taste for electoral politics. If this is the case, she would have to be quite a masochist to want to run for president, in 2012 or any other year.
The main direct effect of her resignation is likely to be that she will make many times more money (probably something like $50,000 per speech) as a private citizen than she could possibly make as a government officer. As a private citizen with a major fan base among the right wingers of America, she could become something similar to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly. She could articulate her message, make a fortune, and be accountable to nobody. She will be able to raise a lot of money for other Republican candidates, but contrary to the assertions of some political writers, I do not think it is likely that she will be doing that in order to collect a lot of political IOUs. She might be thinking about it, but I think it is more likely that her distaste for the political arena is genuine.
Was some of the criticism and jokes aimed at Sarah Palin unfair? Yes, some of it was. Should we feel sympathy for the governor? Hardly. This is not exactly a nice person we are talking about here. During her campaign for vice-president, Sarah Palin constantly told anybody who would listen that then-Senator Obama was "palling around with terrorists." She did everything she could to suggest that Barack Obama was siding with the terrorists against all decent American people. She belittled Obama's background as a community organizer, as if that was Obama's sole qualification for president. She also made very clear that she believed that the only "real Americans" were small town conservatives similar to himself, implying that those of us who do not fit that description ideally should not have the right to choose our political leaders.
Palin's defenders might argue that the job of a vice-presidential candidate is to attack the other party's presidential nominee, and that some distortion of the opposing candidates' records is part of the way the system works, and that the Republicans are no more guilty of these distortions than are the Democrats. That may all be true, but just as distorting a political opponent's record is as American as apple pie, so is political satire. One of the most famous pearls of wisdom attributed to Harry Truman was: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Governor Palin is simply taking that advice. As far as I am concerned, Sarah Palin combines several unattractive qualities. She is shallow, vindictive, and self-pitying. Perhaps that characterization is (slightly) too harsh, but I am expressing it as a matter of opinion, not fact. Nixon was vindictive and self-pitying in the extreme, but he was not shallow. I would hate to get another president with Nixon's personality traits, but I believe that Palin would be even worse. At any rate, I think it is extremely unlikely that we will ever find out, and that is a good thing.
Comments are closed for this post.
