Sleepy Little Village

by digby

Keep in mind that the man who wrote this is the dean of the Washington punditocricy, the Village elder of Village elders:

In a session that was faster-paced and friendlier than the presidential debate, Palin and Biden smiled often at each other while exchanging glances and verbal blows. It was a reminder that politics can be fun — as well as informative.

But it created a mystery of its own. Why in the world has the McCain campaign kept Palin under wraps from her debut at the Republican National Convention until this debate? What were they afraid of?

I guess it was somebody other than Sarah W. Palin who made everyone in the country recoil in appalled disbelief that someone who answered Katie Couric’s softball questions so ignorantly could possibly believe she was ready to be president. (Either that or Broder was taking a nap.)

The McCain campaign had every reason to be afraid that Sarah W. could fall on her face. In fact, she did, repeatedly, when she was unable to simply parrot talking points in her confident and irritatingly non-responsive (or starburst inducing) rhetorical style and was forced to deal with actual questions. George W was very similar all during his campaigns and his presidency, but was able to filibuster effectively and simply bore his interlocutors to sleep before they could get to a follow-up. It’s a technique that his natural successor in wingnut mediocrity will surely develop.

I have an email acquaintance from Alaska who has some experience in Alaskan politics and is familiar with her style. His view is that she should not be discounted as some sort of a clown, which I was certainly tempted to do after her disastrous Couric interview. In fact, I began to believe that we were dealing with a Chauncey Gardner sort who had accidentally stumbled onto some popular “maverick” position in Alaska at a time of GOP disarray. I even thought she might be exactly what she presented herself as being — a “working mom” who treated the Governorship as just another 9 to 5 job and relied heavily on a competent staff.

My reader suggests otherwise —- that she is not only fully in control, but that she is an extremely ambitious politician who has her own compass and whose primary confidant is her husband. She is not an innocent. Obviously, she has demonstrated that she is completely unqualified, deeply lacking in the knowledge one needs to be a national leader, and has no business even thinking about the presidency. But from what he says, we can be very sure that parochial Alaskan politics are going to seem quite boring and restrictive to Sarah W if her ticket fails to win the election. She’s a comer.

The Politico’s Jeremy Lott reported this a few weeks ago:

Savvy readers might find cause for concern in Palin’s burning ambition, her ruthlessness or her complete lack of loyalty to political patrons. One sensible reason for Sen. Barack Obama’s not choosing rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate was the real worry that she would undermine and run against him. Palin has already done that to her patrons — twice.

Palin was encouraged to run for a City Council seat in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1992 by council member Nick Carney and was warmly welcomed into office by then-Mayor John Stein. Within months of taking office, she had voted against a pay hike for Stein and against a mandatory garbage collection ordinance that would have greatly enriched Carney. Four years later, Palin unseated Stein.

The new mayor found herself in protracted battle with Carney and much of the city government. She demanded resignations from all department heads and threatened to fill vacancies on the city council herself if the council couldn’t come to agreement. Regarding that last item, Johnson gingerly adds, “[I]t was questionable whether the city code allowed for such [mayoral] appointments. …”

The McCain campaign has made much of the fact that Palin opposed corrupt Alaska politicians. It’s undeniably true, but only part of the picture. Palin ran for lieutenant governor in 2002 at the urging of then-U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski. He won the Republican gubernatorial nomination and the general election. She was the first runner up in the Republican lieutenant governor primary, because her campaign lacked the funds to compete.

Murkowski offered Palin two consolation appointments, as head of the state Department of Commerce and state parks director. She turned those down as not substantial enough, so he made a third offer: a seat on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. She accepted that one and proceeded to help undo his administration. read on…

She may not speak in coherent sentences and she may know nothing about the world around her and she may be completely unqualified to be president. But she’s a real politician, no doubt about it, and her nickname ‘Sarah barracuda” obviously doesn’t just refer to her High School basketball days. She may very well end up being the front runner for the Republican party in 2012. If I were Romney or Huckabee, I’d watch my back.

.