Time to bring back the quitter
by digby
I’ve got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.
You think I’m joking? Think again.
In 2008, Palin, running as my party’s vice presidential candidate, was widely supposed to have cost John McCain the election. But that wasn’t so. A national exit poll conducted by CNN asked voters whether Palin was a factor in their voting. Of those who said yes, 56% voted for McCain versus 43% for Barack Obama.
And Romney? Well,the problem was that he just couldn’t appeal to the average Palin voter:
Gabriel Malor, writing for the New York Daily News’ blog, pinpointed another reason: By focusing his campaign mostly on serious economic and political issues such as the national debt and tax incentives, Romney failed to take into account the fact that large segments of the electorate neither know nor care much about serious economic and political issues. What they — a group sometimes euphemistically called “uninformed voters” — do know and care about are the tugs on their emotions, fears, revulsions and heart strings provided by hours and hours of uninterrupted television watching.
No really, that’s the argument:
Palin can more than keep up with the Democrats in appealing to voters’ emotions. Hardly anyone could be more blue collar than Palin, out on the fishing boat with her hunky blue-collar husband, Todd. Palin is “View”-ready, she’s “Ellen”-ready, she’s Kelly-and-Michael-ready.
A Palin “war against women”? Hah! Not only is she a woman, she’s got a single-mom daughter, Bristol, to help with the swelling single-mom demographic. On social issues, Palin, unlike Romney, has been absolutely consistent. And let’s remember that most Americans, whatever their view of choice, disapprove of most abortions.
Gay marriage? Palin opposes it. But she is also a strong advocate of states’ rights, and I’m betting she’d be fine with letting states and their voters grapple with the issue on their own. Remember that all of America didn’t swing toward approval of gay marriage on Nov. 6. Three reliably blue states and their voters did. If she were smart, Palin would recruit a member of her impressive gay fanboy base — yes, she has one — to help run her campaign. I nominate Kevin DuJan of the widely read gay conservative blog HillBuzz, a Palin stalwart since 2008.
And then, of course, there’s the feminist vote:
Furthermore, looks count in politics, and Palin at age 48, has it all over her possible competition, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will be 69 by election day 2016 and who let someone talk her into adopting the flowing blond locks of a college student, making her look like Brunnhilde in a small-town Wagner production. Men love Sarah Palin, and she loves men.
Well, maybe not. But there is her vast political success post-2008:
She’s tough as nails too. After Election 2008, she was supposed to have been through. This year eight of the 14 GOP candidates Palin endorsed for Congress won election or reelection, including tea party favorite Ted Cruz for a Senate seat in Texas.
And anyway, she’s God in drag:
Ever since the 1990s, Republicans have been looking for the next Ronald Reagan. Reagan is now revered in bipartisan circles, but during his presidency he was, like Palin, ridiculed by liberals. They cited “Bedtime for Bonzo” and sneered at his no-name college degree.
Sarah Palin is the new Ronald Reagan: charming and affable and unwilling to back down if she’s right. I can’t see what’s wrong with that.
Yes, I think it’s a great idea too. Let’s spend the next few years following her around and hanging on her every word like we did last time. It did the country a world of good.
And I have a sneaking suspicion Palin will be all for it. Surely, there’s money to be made.
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