Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate is now the recipient of the garland of garlic from the Republican Party. Caribou Barbie, or to use her Secret Service code name, Denali is back in Alaska and catching all kinds of flak from every quarter of the the Republican party.
Up front, I thought Palin was a weird choice, but might have been a foreshadowing of the New Republican Party for Change ™ coming forward to take over from the old Regan-era dinosaurs. I was proven wrong, but that’s the price one pays for having an analog crystal ball, instead of the newfangled digital ones. However, I wasn’t willing to throw her under the bus in September. I can live with that.
For a week or so after Palin’s appointment to the ticket, the Republican Reptiles stood her up as a solid, working-class, experienced and able candidate that would make a fine Vice-President right up next to the war-hero John McCain. They even whispered that if John McCain proved the actuarial tables right, that Sarah Palin had the qualities necessary to make an excellent Commander In Chief.
A couple of weeks later, after she opened her mouth to change boots, notably with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, the Republicans kept her in front of crowds: Palin the Maverick, the new spokesperson of the base, conservative, and family-oriented supporters of the party. As the campaign wore on, it became patently clear that with her winks, twitches and homespun language that she was designed to appeal to the basest of the base.
About all Palin didn’t do was to stand in front of an arena of supporters and scream, "You cain’t vote for Obama, ’cause he’s a Neeeegrohhhh." That was her job and she took it on with a zeal that only the simple, or, the Republican strategists could appreciate. If nothing else, Palin proves that the Republican party knows what their base supporters want to hear.
Now that the GOP is shut out of the levers of power, there has to be a goat and it can’t be John McCain. Never mind that the Republican Party strategists chose Palin. Never mind that the Republican Party strategists vetted her politics. Never mind that the Republican Party strategists examined the Palin family for excessive weirdness. Never mind that the Republican Party bought her wardrobe.
Never mind that the Republican Party ran Palin through the policy and presentation drills until they were satisfied with her performance. Never mind that the Republican Party stage managed her events with all the abilities of a well-oiled machine. Hell, even ignore the fact that the Republican Party kept putting her out front to speak to live humans.
The same Republican Party, who boosted Caribou Barbie up as candidate for the second-most-important job in the US and with a straight face said she was ready, now is going to blame her fully for the loss. Which explains the revelations of Sarah Palin meeting with advisors in a bath towel, or cleaning Neiman-Marcus out of clothing on the Party dime.
(I’m expecting revelations how the party paid for her husband to have a mani-pedi and his back waxed as part of a full manscaping at a frou-frou spa in New York City. I suspect they sprang for her daughter to get a tattoo on an intimate area that reads "Levi’s Ho" in six inch gothic letters. I’m surprised they haven’t released the itemized wardrobe list, as I bet there’s some lingerie in there. It would be fascinating to know if the "Denali Dominatrix" outfit was sized to fit the Vice-Presidential candidate’s form. I salaciously digress.)
The Republican Party strategists are going to be leaking "Palin" stories for the next few weeks to pin the blame on anyone except themselves: The ones that chose her, trained her, groomed her and put the words in her mouth.
This is not to say that Sarah Palin isn’t to blame for some of this. She rose above her level of competence when she became the Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. That Sarah Palin is the Governor of Alaska further proves the theory that only the truly incompetent can rise above the "elitist" principles of merit, skill, intelligence or demonstrated ability.
The disturbing part is how Sarah Palin embraced her candidacy. She seemed to enjoy being the mouthpiece for the race-baiting, mouth-breathing and knuckle dragging segment of the Republican Party.
That those kinds of people still exist is repugnant. That the Republican Party was fully willing to wind them up to support their slate of candidates is more evidence that there is far to go.
RoadDave 