Political Blinders

I wasn't planning to make today's posts exclusively about Republican women but that seems to be the case regardless. Some of you may remember Donald Douglas, my right-wing colleague over at American Power; he was nice enough to drop by to wish me a happy Thanksgiving holiday this morning so I ventured over to his domain to do the same, where I read the following in a post about Sarah Palin and her apparent enduring popularity:

The reason is obvious: Sarah Palin is now recognized as the face of the conservative future, and as a threat to long-term Democratic dominance.

The is why the nihilist left demonizes her so aggressively, and why conservatives are mobilizing around her as the standard bearer for 2012.

Actually, the reason didn't seem quite as obvious to me so of course I had to expound in the comment section at considerably longer length than I had originally planned:

Hey Don, I just came over after reading your happy Thanksgiving comment on my site to wish the same to you but after reading your post I also had to leave a comment.

While not an officially elected representative of the left, let me speak for my fellow communists and traitors on this issue: the reason Sarah Palin won't go away from the news is because she's the political equivalent of a deadly train wreck; whether fascinated or horrified by what they see, people can not help but stop and take a look and every media outlet in this country instinctively covers stories like this because it ultimately makes them more money than covering more important but less entertaining ones.

Couple this with the very obvious fact that your side is desperate to not just retool the Republican party's image and message for those outside your base but also to do so using someone who isn't an old white male as your public face and yes, I can see why you and other neocons would think that she's good for your side. You're hemmoraging younger voters badly and that does not bode well as the Boomers start to die off and the values of the country move further away from the far right.

And incidentally, we on the left are not afraid of Palin, in point of fact we love her; the absurdity of her VP nomination made clear to the rest of the nation that actually thinks for themselves and pays attention to politics just how desperate the right has become in trying to hold on to some semblance of electoral power, and she is the culmination of that desperation: a pretty, winking face coupled with an incurious brain and a mouth unfettered by political acumen or savvy. She's the personification of marketing over competence, of political maneuvering over responsible governing. She was your hail Mary pass of the last election, a low-percentage play that only works once in a great while; adding it to your regular offensive line up would seem to be an ill-informed strategy.

If we do fear her it would only be in the face of her actual election to higher office, and even then my fear would be more akin to that I would feel in the presence of a two-year-old swinging a loaded handgun around a crowded room: way too much power being wielded by someone who is dangerously unable to use it correctly or responsibly, putting the safety of everyone in the immediate vicinity in jeopardy unnecessarily. I refer you to the oval office's current occupant as a real life example of this metaphor.

So please run her in 2012, I beg of you! Choosing from amongst some of the more moderate and intelligent rising young stars in your party (Pawlenty, Crist, Jindal, etc.) would just give your side an actual chance of unseating Barack Obama after his first term in office, and Allah knows we free-loading socialists certainly can't afford to have that happen.

Just the same, a belated happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

I know that I said I was tired of sparring with these guys and I stand by that but sometimes I just can't help myself; the idiocy of Sarah Palin has made for such great blog fodder in the past and apparently I go through withdrawals if I don't get my regular winking fix from time to time. There, I feel better now.