The Sarah Palin phenomenon is finally beginning to fade as contradictions mount up, says Alex Spillius in Washington Sarah Palin's political bandwagon is wobbling under the weight of contradictions. We are seeing the first signs of wobble on the Sarah Palin bandwagon. This may seem a strange thing to say about a political superstar who has earned at least $12 million in the past 18 months from a publishing advance, personal appearance fees and a television punditry contract, not to forget a reality show about life in Alaska .
Palin is such a boon to the struggling book world that her second opus, America by Heart - Reflection on Family, Faith and Flag, can already be ordered in advance even though publication is six months away. A return to the number one spot on the best seller list surely waits. But other indices are proving less kind to the former Alaska governor. According to a recent poll more Alaskans than not think the presidency should not form the next chapter of Palin's extraordinary story, while 45 per cent gave her a negative personal rating. When John McCain plucked her from obscurity to be his Republican running mate in the 2008 campaign, her approval rating at home was 80 per cent, the highest of any governor in the country.
Now even a poll of Tea Party supporters, her most ardent fans, showed that a majority wouldn't vote for her if she ran for president in 2012. It is not just that the faithful are beginning to question her readiness for the White House. It is not just that they have doubts about a would-be president who wants all her questions pre-screened, who needs to scribble her talking points on her palm and whose favourite modes of communication are those of a 15-year-old, namely twitter and Facebook. What is troubling Right-wingers is whether their great moose-hunting hope may not be the conservative real deal after all. Dissent is most evident among Palin's 1.5 million Facebook friends, who have revolted against her decision to endorse Carly Fiorina, the controversial former Hewlett Packard executive, in a California Republican senate primary over the Tea Party favourite, Chuck DeVore. "I don't agree with this endorsement AT ALL! What are you thinking, Sarah?" said one commenter who supports DeVore, a California state assemblyman. For some, Palin's choice compounded her recent endorsement of McCain in his Arizona senate primary election battle against a more Right-wing candidate. "That's two strikes against you, little sister! One more and you're done. You're participating in the kind of political payback that us conservatives hate," was one scathing view. The suspicion is that Palin either didn't do her homework on Fiorina - who favours a "cap and trade" energy reform bill and is considered insufficiently robust against abortion - or is indulging in old fashioned, Washington-style back-scratching.
Only now are Palin's admirers picking up on the contradictions and opportunism that have been evident from early on to her detractors. Palin decries federal government spending but as a state governor lapped it up (as almost all of them do). She attacked "big government" healthcare reform but accepts free care for her grandson, an entitlement received only because her husband Todd is one quarter native Alaskan. A supposed warrior against political correctness, she upbraided Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, for using the word "retard" as an insult, saying it was deeply offensive to her and Trig, her Down's Syndrome son. Indeed it may have been. But when Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio supremo whom no Republican dares contradict, then committed the same offence, she remained silent. An ostensibly staunch defender of the US constitution, Palin last week said that US law should be based on "the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments". In doing so she completely ignored, or was ignorant of, the fact that the very aim of the founding fathers was to separate church and state, that very British tyranny. As the first amendment states: "Congress hall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Those "unalienable rights" in the Declaration of Independence that Palin holds so dear were endowed by the "Creator", not a God of a particular church or faith.
For some time the question surrounding Palin has been: now what? A run at the presidency seems beyond both her temperament and stamina, though it might prove good for business. With the first rumbles of discontent among the masses of disaffected Republicans that have fallen for Palin's charisma, homespun politics and - let's be honest - her s*x appeal, the gravy train seems her best option, even if the wheels have begun to loosen.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, May 16th 2010 at 4:07PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
