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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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The Palin Problem
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Edited | Monsieur Oct 26, 2008 12:34pm |
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| Category | General |
| Media | Magazine - Newsweek |
| News Date | Sunday, October 26, 2008 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | John McCain's defeat will be a lonely one. The old soldier has always taken pride in proving no one owns him—not his party, not its leaders and, for damn sure, not the ideological purity police of the right. So if the polls prove right, and McCain loses to Barack Obama next Tuesday, no one but him will own his defeat. Already, from every corner of the conservative coalition, the same refrain is rising: nasty, obstinate old fool, he should have listened to me.
Will Sarah Palin join that chorus? The answer, if Palin has big ambitions (and every piece of her life story suggests she does), is almost certainly yes. Even now she is dropping hints of unhappiness with her running mate's way of doing things—saying, if she had her way, the McCain campaign would skip the robo-calls, go after Obama's association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and continue to pour resources into Michigan. It's easy to imagine her amped-up post-election critique: they dressed me in their fancy clothes, they fed me to their elite media friends, they even made me bow and scrape to "Saturday Night Live," but they still couldn't change me. I'm still Sarah from Wasilla and I'm ready to take Real America back.
Democrats, having witnessed Palin's wobbly 2008 performance (31 percent of registered voters in the new NEWSWEEK poll say Palin makes them less likely to vote for McCain), will no doubt relish the prospect of Palin lingering on the national stage. They should be careful what they wish for. For all her problems now, Palin has the biography, the ideological sympathies and the charisma to be what the Republican Party lacks: a populist, far-right politician with intense celebrity appeal. |
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