Pauline-Palin

I’m convinced neither that Palin can’t win serious office nor that “official conservatives” in the US have much interest in tearing her down. Going back at least to Dan Quayle (and arguably to a somewhat false understanding of Ronald Reagan), there have been plenty of “official conservatives” in the US who have been willing to back underqualified populist frontmen (and women). People who back this strategy are pretty convinced that they can control things behind the scenes while the frontperson keeps the rubes happy. Think of it as the Bush-Cheney model. So far, the only thing that gets a potential frontperson stricken from the list is a willingness to raise taxes (sorry, Mike Huckabee!). And Bible Spice has stuck to the straight and narrow in this regard. I’ll believe that there’s interest on the right in tearing Palin down when I actually see it happen. Until then, I think it’s just wishful thinking.

Of course she’s the GOP nominee. Who else is there?

And if she’s the nominee and the economy takes a downturn in October 2012. . . then she’s president.

I’m not sure what people who say “she’ll never be president” are thinking. How is she in any way different than Bush?

“Who else is there?”

According to Intrade she’s way behind Romney. But she was pretty close until she became the victim of a pogrom (as the Washington Times has it).

I’m not so worried about Palin winning anything. I think it would be very unlikely for a candidate to win when they are currently losing in the polls by 26% (link) despite having universal name recognition to actually win, and despite our being in a lousy point in the economic cycle.

If Romney, or Pawlenty, or especially Thune, or some other identikit Republican is the nominee, then I trust that the usual econometric models will roughly predict the final margin. And in that case whether Obama wins depends a lot on the state of the economy in early-mid 2012. But Palin is an historically bad Presidential candidate, and would almost certainly lose despite having a very favourable environment.

Palin is flagrantly incapable of the self-discipline required for a successful presidential campaign. Short of a true economic cataclysm (as opposed to continued slow bleeding), her nomination would be an early 2012 Christmas present for Obama. And I’m not even sure she could be elected in a desperate economic situation as she is not exactly the sort to inspire confidence in most voters, only in her brain-dead 20% coterie of true believers.

Palin sure seems dumb and undisciplined, but she is where she is for a reason.

The reason is pure dumb luck, even as concerns the origins of her accidental political career in Alaska. She has long since fallen victim to the Peter Principle and her only talent, and interest, is raking in the big bucks by ranting to Faux News-watching morons. I’m a hell of a lot more worried about the far slicker Huckabee, and also about Thune.

I’m all for challenging conventional wisdom, but Palin is not being underestimated; she’s being accurately estimated. Here main use is as a convenient bogeyman with which conservative Democrats try to scare progressives.

“an ongoing pogrom against conservative thinkers”

How disgusting to hear liberals hypocritically complain about Sarah Palin’s merely metaphorical violence while she and her conservative thinker friends are being attacked, rounded up, sent to concentration camps, killed, their homes and offices burnt by Obama’s brown-shirts.

Palin sure seems dumb and undisciplined, but she is where she is–

–not Governor of Alaska, making millions via Fox News–

–for a reason.

…because she had to evade one scandal that turned serious, and now Fox News pays her $$ to stir up more.

Palin will do whatever is necessary to… hold onto a lucrative job as a Fox News ‘commentator’ or whatever it is they allegedly pay her to do (her actual job duties being, uphold and reinforce the Fox brand of emotive paranoia).

Pr Q said:

Palin now seems to be reaching the same point as Pauline, where the official conservatives start tearing her down.

The Centre usually holds in stable healthy democracies. In fact the ability of the Centre-Right REPs to reign in the Far-Right Tea Partiers^ is a test of the health of US democracy.

Far-Right politicians get their “Have you no shame, Sir” moment from the more mainstream members of the Centre-Right party. (the Army versus McCarthy) Just as Far-Left politicians get their “Sister Souljah” moment from mainstream members of the Centre-Left party. Howard & Abbott double-teamed to get Hanson out of the way.

Back in May 2010 I predicted that the Tea Party would burn out fairly rapidly, given the history of instability in Right-wing movements in Anglo settler countries. Obviously I was wrong in my time frame, badly under-estimating the amount of political momentum the Tea Partiers generated amongst the economically anxious white voters.

I still believe that the Tea Party will burn out or be called out, as did McCarthyites and Birchers. Its just a matter of time and the swing of the business cycle. Some sustained effort by Obama to get average white guys into secure jobs would help.

Pr Q said:

I’m less convinced than some that the tearing-down will work in time to stop Palin being a serious contender or at least a veto-holder in the selection of a Republican presidential candidate, and also less convinced than some that she could not possibly win office

I do not share Pr Q’s pessimism about Palin’s role as King-maker in the REPs. I am happy to predict and lay down a decent three figure sum against Palin’s chances of being on a winning White House ticket. I also predict that the Tea Party will fail in any attempt to shut-down government.

Basically Palin’s role is that of a get-out-the-vote base mobiliser. In any case, she is making too much money and having too much fun as a political entertainer to give it all up for the b*ll-busting business of running a political campaign and building a policy platform. C’mon, Hollywood beats Washington hands down.

The real question is: is there anyone on the bridge of the REPs who can act as captain and throw her in the brig if she becomes a loose cannon on the gun deck? There was no doubt that Ike was in charge when McCarthy got out of control. Likewise Nixon neutralised Wallace.

But I can’t see any of the old guard REP establishment ready to step in and take control. Where are the Bakers, Cheney v.1, Bush I, The REP bench looks mighty thin.

^ Enforcing standard immigration law is not a “Far-Right” policy. No more than it is “Far-Right” to eject alien trespassers from your property, or blog, for that matter.

Strocchi: “Enforcing standard immigration law is not a “Far-Right” policy.”

“Standard” immigration law can be very far-right law (e.g. mandatory incarceration for non-status individuals; indeterminate incarceration for the same; caning and other corporal punishment; stripping fundamental rights from non-citizens; etc.). Tea Partiers seem to be obsessed with far-right law itself, not far-right policies of enforcement of moderate or progressive laws.

If votes were weighted by fervor, Palin would be a lock on the Republican nomination and might win it all. But they are not, except to the extent that fervent people are more likely to show up. Her support, although fervid, is limited to a subset of the Bush dead-enders. And that, if I remember, was under 30%. Everybody else is grossed out by her.

No. It is becoming clearer every day that the people with money have decided that Palin can’t win, barring something completely unforeseen, and therefore somebody else needs to be the nominee. They are busily at work tearing her down. Since they built her up in the first place, I see no reason to think they won’t succeed.

While I am actually quite pleased that so many informed, intelligent people seem to be convinced this is the case, I remain unconvinced that there is a concerted effort to dear her down on the right.

I certainly hope I’m wrong, however.

(This isn’t to say that I expect her to be the nominee. I don’t. But I wouldn’t rule it out.)

“Her support, although fervid, is limited to a subset of the Bush dead-enders. And that, if I remember, was under 30%. Everybody else is grossed out by her.”

Republicans will vote for whoever runs against Obama. That will be determined by the GOP primary turnout, which will be dominated by Palin supporters; all other republicans have declared themselves to be “independent” and “above politics.”

There’s not a hair’s width of difference between Palin and Bush, and that smirking son of a bitch was re-elected in 2004. Does anyone thing that Americans have gotten less stupid or gullible since then?

I think Palin is an enormous problem for the Republicans, who realize that there is no easy way to separate her followers from her sway. She’s got enough negatives even among conservatives to be unlikely to attract many new followers, but that group is so firmly attached to her that the Republicans can’t force her from the fold without making a significant split in the party. It’s a conundrum for now, though one I expect to be resolved by her own inability to go the distance. But we’re in for an interesting show in the meantime…

yeliabmit @ #20 said:

“Standard” immigration law can be very far-right law (e.g. mandatory incarceration for non-status individuals; indeterminate incarceration for the same; caning and other corporal punishment; stripping fundamental rights from non-citizens; etc.). Tea Partiers seem to be obsessed with far-right law itself, not far-right policies of enforcement of moderate or progressive laws.

“Standard immigration law” is that borders should be closed to unauthorised entrants and that those without legal authority to be in a jurisdiction should be deported to their home country. If this is Far-Right then about 75% of the world’s voting population is “Far-Right”. You better be looking to elect a new people.

The sooner the Left-liberals learn this the sooner the Tea Party will run out of steam and the sooner social democrats will be back in office managing the welfare state. Even Krugman agrees on the need for border control and national citizenship.

Why do Left-liberals find this bleeding obvious fact so hard to grasp?

Basically if Palin gets the nomination in 2012 she will wreck the REPs political chances, both in presidential and congressional contests. Moderates will turn out in droves to make sure she is not going to be the one standing behind the podium for the next four years.

The REP establishment – such as it is – knows this, the professional REP apparatchiks know this and the Big End of Town “donor community” know this too. So on any sane accounting of the facts Palin will not win and will probably not make a run.

Its really up to Rupert Murdoch to decide whether he knows this or is prepared to risk his dwindling credibility to install a “Murdochian Candidate” in the White House. Does he trust his non-reality-based conservative commentariat? Its not like they have an impeccable record of politico-economic prediction, is it?

Possibly I missed it (in which case apologies), but no one seems to have mentioned that the fact that she was the party’s vice-presidential candidate in ’08 alone gives her some claim to be taken as a serious contender if she decides to run, despite her bad poll numbers cited above and despite the McCain-Palin ticket having lost (thankfully). So I agree with B. Alpers: unlikely but not out of the question.

“Standard immigration law” is that borders should be closed to unauthorised entrants and that those without legal authority to be in a jurisdiction should be deported to their home country.

Yes, because otherwise labour would be almost as mobile as capital, and we can’t have that.

“Sarah Palin’s Alaskan Halibut and Chips” chain would complete the Pauline Hanson comparison wouldn’t it?

puzzling: Well, except for the superstar Evita syndrome I mentioned on another thread, which seems implausible.

This was my initial take:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perils_of_Pauline_(1914_serial)

“Surviving chapters of Pauline are noteworthy for their unintentionally funny title cards and dialogue captions, filled with misspellings, poor punctuation, terrible grammar, and odd expressions”

Sorry- that was a one-click double post- honest!

Obama has been extremely effective in confirming and legitimating the Bush agenda.

The subtext and implication of this remark is that there is only one ‘agenda’ and that all electable US politicians, of whatever party and supposed ideology, serve it. I do not agree.

Jason @37

The GOP leadership will reason that they need someone with ethnic appeal, to counter Obama’s perceived race card and, more importantly, to give them a race card to play of their own. They are losing Hispanics badly, yet need them to win, and will reason that Sandoval will get them over the top with that demographic (it won’t work, but this is how Republicans think.)

I don’t think it’s the way they think at all. Republicans do not have a history of nominating suprise candidates. The tendency is to pick whoever is next in line. Reagan lost the 1976 nomination to Ford. Bush 1 lost the 1980 contest to Reagan. Dole lost to Bush in 1988. McCain lost to Bush 2 in 2000.

That suggests Romney, I suppose.

Double take

You had my motors running for a second there with the title. I thought this was going to be some weird anti-St. Paul diatribe, as in “Pauline” the adjective, rather than “Pauline” as in the first name of Pauline Hanson.

Lord knows that St. Paul catches more than his ration of shit for weird interpretations that later Christians foisted on the epistles. But even if he was guilty as charged for all of that, he wouldn’t deserve comparison to La Palin.

hix @49, yeah, Bush is really a pretty close Precedent.

Apart from the aura of office itself, I think his family background and being male probably contribute to the lingering tendency to believe that there was more to him than met the eye. And they probably go some way to explaining the fact that he appeared (to my eye, but my then my eye won’t be voting) to be better at doing the ordinary folks shtick.

Aristos tend to be better at that, and at charm generally, than the middle classes, and cowboy is much easier to pull off than cowgirl, as documented in the traditional Alaskan ballad ‘It’s hard to be a drover (when you got to keep your gingham clean)’.

The Palin Phenomenon is the latest manifestation of a populist sentiment going back to the era of Jefferson. Its vilest apotheosis was the election of Andrew Jackson, who would go on to ethnically cleanse the Cherokee. Abraham Lincoln was another: a dark horse from the frontier possessed of a fund of folksy wisdom, blessed with a thin political resume. America has long resented its elites: read the 1789 Constitution to see a distrust of the Executive branch and the Senate’s fundamental bias in favour of rural constituencies.

When John McCain’s advisors went looking for a vice-president, they saw in Sarah Palin an anodyne to Hillary Clinton. How quickly we forget the vicious passion of Hillary Clinton’s critics, even within the Democratic Party. McCain understood Brendan Behan’s waggish observation “There’s no such thing as bad press unless it’s your obituary”: he’d endured the slings and arrows of ink-pissing critics for decades. Choosing Palin breathed life into an otherwise-moribund campaign. If McCain had his druthers, he would have chosen Joe Liebermann, but the GOP could ill-afford to run Two Old Guys against Hillary or Obama.

Palin’s appeal is in no wise diminished by the aforementioned ink-pissers. America will always hate that Gomorrah-upon-Potomac with all the fervour of their Jacksonian forebears. The more Palin is attacked, the stronger she becomes.

Yeah that may in fact be bollocks. Was thinking of the (also perhaps somewhat bollocksy) idea of UK aristos being able to interact less affectedly with teh common man, which even to the extent it’s accurate is not really the same as the ‘ordinary folks shtick’ (for example possibly drawing on an unforced kind of deference) and also probably doesn’t translate to the US equivalent.

I hereby retract my bollocks. (A trick I picked up from a wrestler in Burma – do you know Rangoon? No, I suppose not. Well look here, I don’t know how you can drink this ghastly stuff – I’ll get a couple of Scotches and we’ll have a bloody good piss-up.)

@58

Dalwhinnie

@Gene O’Grady: Lincoln emerged from poverty: his once-affluent father was reduced to hardscrabble farming and it was a miserable existence. For several years as a child, Abraham Lincoln’s father indentured him to work on several local farms: when Lincoln said “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master”, he knew whereof he spoke.

Lincoln was one of America’s most-hated presidents. Even his own cabinet, recruited from among the former candidates, called him The Great Baboon behind his back.

Lincoln was never among Illinois’ elite: he was always viewed as an up-and-comer. How you could arrive at this conclusion is a great mystery to me. Lincoln’s disastrous marriage into the Todd elite (via his partner Stuart, a Todd cousin) was hardly a step up: the headstrong Mary Todd made her own choice, very much against the family’s wishes. Stephen Douglas also courted her: she married for love and the Lincolns were indulgent, loving parents, almost as a reaction to their own tragic childhoods.

At any rate, Lincoln was advertised as log-splittin’ rube from the western frontier. Lincoln was sui generis, an ambitious man of whom more has been written save Jesus Christ.

@ 63:

the problem for Democrats will be that their main message will have to be something along the lines of “vote for us or the Republicans win”. That didn’t work too well last year and I don’t see it working any better next year in terms of getting the middle to come out and vote.

As far as I can remember, it’s always been along the lines of “vote for us or the Republicans win”. And it might work better next year, because this time there is this Republican-controlled congress to run against.

Maybe it’s just me, but I could have sworn there was a campaign in recent memory where this wasn’t the case :-) Also, I don’t recall Clinton running on that slogan either . . . in either campaign. Again, maybe it’s just me, or maybe you’re thinking of something else.

Maybe, but there are counterexamples, notably George H.W. Bush (a/k/a Bush 41), who wasn’t/isn’t good at this. Cf. the moment during one of his campaigns when he sat down at a New Hampshire lunch counter and asked for a “splash” of coffee.

Cite? I am intrigued. Didn’t he spend decades of his life in Midland?

I think the Republicans have a little bit of a dilemma when it comes to Palin. Her appeal to working class Republicans has always been that whenever liberals go after her they interpret it as a sort of snobbery and attack on themselves, not her. How is the Republican establishment going to get rid of her without being perceived in the same way?

If I were a Republican, what I would do is give her as much opportunity as possible to self destruct.

Glen Tomkins @52: But even if he was guilty as charged for all of that, he wouldn’t deserve comparison to La Palin.

Why not? They both exploit(ed) rubes for person gain.

Actually, “Message: I Care” is Bush 41. Could be Clinton, though.

As far as I can remember, it’s always been along the lines of “vote for us or the Republicans win”.

Because the alternative is to talk about something like hope and change, have your agenda strangled in the Senate, and be branded failures (if nothing happens), sellouts (if something happens but you had to compromise to get it), or both (if the result is ambiguous, like most political results).

The US political system is not conducive to actually achieving an ambitious agenda, so it’s safer not to have one and just speak in vague generalities. Raising expectations drums up enthusiasm in the short term, but sets yourself up to be perceived as a failure in the longer term.

How is the Republican establishment going to get rid of her without being perceived in the same way?

That’s what I’m wondering. The old-money types are already viewed with a little suspicion by the tea-party and religious base; if they attack Palin too openly they’ll just brand themselves as RINOs.

Their ability to manipulate the base through astroturf has been going strong for three decades now, though, so maybe they’ll manage it somehow.

Are you suggesting that politicians who want to increase their own power and influence might actually be working now to undermine the standing and credibility of a rival?

Good catch!

How is the Republican establishment going to get rid of her without being perceived in the same way?

I made my prediction about this somewhere upthread. To put it in a word: Swiftboating. Disseminated through faceless outlets. Of which they control an unlimited number.

Under no circumstances would Palin accept a VP nomination. She’d have much more money, fame, and influence without the office, and no accountability (or even anyone trying to restrain her). She definitely wouldn’t take it if offered. Further, no one would offer it to her. They’ll already have her support — or not — and, while she’ll have made clear that she won’t take it, they’d have to be afraid that she just might. Who would want the risks and downsides?

No, but court will be paid, definitely.

The real risk to the Republican Establishment is that she concludes that the only way to maintain her money and fame is to get in to the race, and a way must be found to get her out without stoking resentment from her and her flock. Which, by the way, is not going to need a smoking gun to conclude that the establishment candidate is responsible for the whispering campaign destruction of its champion.

I’m guessing that the Republican’s nomination will be reactive picks, that is, they will wait until after the Democratic candidates are chosen to come up with their own.

This is not even remotely possible given how the system actually works. Unless you mean that the Republican process can start now — as it already has, with people exploring their prospects with funders and endorsers — since we’ve already long known who the Democratic nominee is going to be.

She cant possibly be worse than Bush.

She can and would be. Her nomination would reflect the ascendancy of the worst faction within the Republican coalition, and her victory could only come about as a result of an ascendancy of rage and resentment that Americans know from the fringes, but haven’t seen all the way in power in our lifetimes. The question is whether she’d be worse than Jackson. My guess is that she would be.

Palin will abduct people all arround the world and torture them for years? Palin will start two wars?

Palin will start two wars?

That X was awful does not demonstrate that Y cannot possibly be worse.

Bush at least did not start a war with Iran, despite urgings to do so, which suggests that he had learned something. Palin on the other hand is on record in favor of the Full Bolton (IIRC — I can’t be bothered to research it).

The Democrats have not “picked” their nominee. That formal process will take place through the late winter of 2012 — and while the President will have enough votes to win the nomination by mid-February (give or take a week), the actual choice will not take place until mid-summer. We just all know how it’s going to turn out, even if we cannot predict the exact day on which Obama gets a majority of delegates. The Republican process will occur in exactly the same time period. We don’t know how it’s going to turn out. Perhaps no single nominee will emerge with sufficient delegates until late March (which seems more likely this time around with fewer winner-take-all contests) — but voters in a mid-March Republican primary are not going to behave differently than early Republican primary voters in New Hampshire or South Carolina just because Obama has locked up the votes.

If we agree, it is because of the two possible interpretations of your prior comment, you meant the most trivial.

Are Republicans who are thinking of getting into the race thinking about whether they can beat Obama? They are. Will Republican primary voters consider, among other things, which nominee is best suited to beat Obama? They will. Is that really all you meant?

> The real risk to the Republican Establishment is that she concludes that
> the only way to maintain her money and fame is to get in to the race, and
> a way must be found to get her out without stoking resentment from her
> and her flock. Which, by the way, is not going to need a smoking gun to
> conclude that the establishment candidate is responsible for the whispering
> campaign destruction of its champion.

Exactly. The Republican Party created National Candidate Palin under the assumption that it could control her as needed. If as you note she decides she needs the injection that a Presidential campaign would bring they I believe the Republicans will finally understand that they don’t control her or her supporters.

Cranky