The Sarah Phenomenon

This is a work in progress, so forgive me if it seems a little disjointed at first. I've decided to address why many fail to grasp why Palin's popular... and at the same time, address why I think she'd be fine in government.

What provoked me is a Peggy Noonan column, and of course, the incessant droning of Rod Dreher.

Noonan here: http://pnwcc.info/node/73
Dreher here: http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/07/sarah-palins-epitaph-by-peg...

There's more, but for now, I'll leave it at these...

Here's a quote from Noonan:

"Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

Really Peggy? You know all these motivations...how?

And you know how she thinks...how?

First, I have to say that I love Noonan's gifted ability to write. But I don't agree with her on all things. She isn't convincing, because, sadly, Noonan has been in the "in" crowd in DC for 30 years plus and I think she's no longer capable of judging anything except by Beltyway rules. And sadly for her, the Beltway rules don't apply to non Beltway people, except as they attempt to play Beltway politics.

Example: "She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything."

Of course all this is nonsense. "explain and defend her positions". On what? She was asked beltway policy wonk questions, or beltway culture questions, but gave ordinary answers to them. That's not an indicator she doesn't know what she thinks. It's just that her answers don't fit Noonan's template.

One question in particular was about Georgia, and how her experience at governor had influenced her thinking about how to deal with Russia. She gave a very good answer - from the AK governor's perspective... we need practical working relationship with Russia. It was true, and it was the precise answer for the question asked.

The problem is that the "pundits" do not know the role of the state of Alaska in regards to foreign policy. It's where the rubber meets the road. It has huge ill defined borders with competing international interests, combined with law enforcement and emergency issues, all of which are international in scope. Palin's office likely deals with international issues more than any other state governor, but at the same time, on matters of substance and often sticky or even very contentious matters, such as fishing rights, etc.

Perhaps Palin should have educated the audience on the matter, but then, Noonan would have criticised her for that, too.

And why is Palin popular?

Well, why are present politicians so UNpopular?

1. Lack of integrity.
2. Lack of working knowlege of ordinary issues.
3. Driven by opportunism, rather than a desire to serve.

Let's address each of these in a concrete way.

1. The "torture" issue... Many of the people who are now screaming collectively claimin that GWB was to blame for "torture" were on the approving side of votes concerning it. Back then, it was "in" to be "tough". Now it's "in" to express "concern" for enemies. But only because it can be used to morally criticise the other side. What is in the core of these people's hearts? Re-election.

2. This subject is near endless in examples, but the health care debate is a target rich topic. Obama calls for "insurance" as the cure. What? That's insanity. More later, in some other blog.

3. I somehow don't think that this needs either examples or explanation. Just be honest with yourself. Politician, thy name is opportunist.

So, why is she the opposite?

1. In each office held, Sarah's made specific promises about her behavior. In each case, we see pretty much a good focus on those things. Including leaving office. When the false ethics charges keep coming, and occupied too much of her time and became a distraction from the agenda, she removed herself. That is the soul of integrity. Yet, everyone's claiming it's some kind of character flaw to resign. Really? That's absurd. The purpose of public service is...service. Nobody is indispensable, service should come ahead of personal gain.

2. In her own life, and in the role of governor, and mayor, etc, Palin never committed to things that could not be paid for, championed ideas to better things, and was fiscally responisible.

3. Palin's last act was not required. Yet, it fulfilled every requirement of the idea of service. Even if Palin now pursues something else, it can and will be said that she never let her personal life intrude into or detract from her term as a public servant.

Some stuff that is related:

'The mouthbreathing, lowbrow "base" likes her because she's ignorant". Wow, do a bunch of morons repeat that endlessly.

Naw, we just like the underdogs. The people who succeed IN SPITE OF being "ordinary". We admire Lincoln for his humble beginnings, for instance. It takes a special kind of person to do that. And, those people deserve our respect and those are the kind of people who SHOULD be in office.

Palin needs to study up on the issues. Well, I suppose "keeping current" is good. But the "issues" change from day to day. In reality, what they're saying is that she needs to learn Washington-speak. No, it's not needed. Presidents don't serve Washington and the Beltway, they serve us, the ordinary people. Speak to us.

"Palin doesn't grasp the issues". Well, there's probably several responses to this, all of them would be true of me, her, and lots of other people I know. "The issues" that garner buzz in DC aren't necessarily what matters to US. We don't necessarily agree with the Beltway pattern of thought. Oh, and when that happens... we're generally right, not them.

We want our taxes cut. We want employers taxes cut, we want our employers to hire more people. We want our industrial base to move back and hire us. We want the heavy hand of DC out of our lives. We want to have leaders who do not echo the amoral, anti-virtue crowd who infests the info and entertainment media. We want to have respect for law, for individuals, for privacy, for law and for those core societal issues that keep our civilization together, like family, marriage, respect, love, virtue.

We want respect for those fantastic ideals that our founding fathers advocated. Liberty, freedom, individual equality before the law, limited government.

We want our money and time and energy back from those who consume and arrogantly tell us we're stupid.

We want the insane spending to end, and for government to be as careful with our money as we have to be.

Funny thing is, many of us make our living interacting with people and we have to learn to be a judge of who you can trust and who you can't. Palin we'd trust with our wallet, kid, and car. And we'd conduct business with a handshake.

I'd never do that with Obama. He'd say one thing, and do another, and then sue you.