RSS Feed MenuMatthew Dowd, the Republican pollster, in today’s Washington Post offers five suggestions to help Sarah Palin become an electable presidential candidate.
Hey, let’s play a game. Let’s reverse engineer the recommendations to identify the underlying weaknesses that Dowd thinks require correction.
RECOMMENDATION 1
You don’t need to “tweet” quite so much. You don’t need to be at countless rallies and photo ops. Instead, seek out substantive platforms where you can relate to people in a thoughtful, measured way. Appear on Sunday shows every now and then, sit down with Charlie Rose and editorial boards, and give serious speeches on your approach to the world in the 21st century.
Implied problem: The candidate does not talk about national problems in an intelligent way
RECOMMENDATION 2
To be elected president, a candidate has to understand voters’ fears but appeal to their hopes. Ronald Reagan (and Bill Clinton) knew this very well. To do this more comprehensively, I would suggest traveling more to better get a handle on where the voters are on topics related to finances, faith, race, etc. Get out of the bubble of high-profile events. Go to the inner cities, the suburbs and small towns where folks are trying to live their lives through great anxiety. And don’t go to talk about yourself, but to listen to others.
Implied problem: The candidate has little interest in or understanding of the actual problems of actual voters. Also, she’s self-absorbed.
RECOMMENDATION 3
While Reagan is a beloved president who did much for this country, folks want to look to the future and believe in a new brand of leader. Espousing the values Reagan spoke to and represented is fine, but you need to be yourself, not an acolyte for a president who is now in the history books.
Implied problem: The candidate has no concrete solutions to offer.
RECOMMENDATION 4
In responding to controversy, bad press and negative occurrences in general, learn to let it slide off of you with a knowing smile. Maybe even use some self-deprecation. Levi Johnston, your almost son-in-law, has been a thorn in your side. Let it go. Publicly sparring with a teenager is not presidential. Don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself. Voters like candidates who know that they aren’t perfect and can laugh at themselves.
Implied problem: The candidate is thin-skinned and has poor judgment.
RECOMMENDATION 5
Think accountability. Yes, bad things happen to good people, and it isn’t fair. But voters don’t want to hear all the excuses of why an interview didn’t go well or which other person was responsible for a bad decision. Americans want presidents who accept blame when things go wrong. They are tired of their leaders and institutions not admitting mistakes, learning from errors and making improvements.
Implied problem: The candidate is unable to learn from her mistakes. Plus she’s a big complainer.
Fix those trifling flaws – and you have yourself a viable Republican candiate for president! 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, here we come!
MI-GOPer // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Peyote declares: “This is by far the BEST Frum column I ever read. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.”
Your fawning adoration is a bit premature… David Frum has at least another 50 Bash Sarah Palin posts in his notebook. Stay tuned; I’m sure he hasn’t hit his stride yet… nor yours.
ottovbvs // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:48 pm
MI-GOPer // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:40 pm
“She is your worst nightmare, automaticBSer, and all the false bravado doesn’t cover up the smell of fear sweats in your postings.”
…..perhaps you could give us some more of your thought about the “conflicted Jewish elites” who apparently suffer from the same fear sweats as myself
CentristNYer // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:51 pm
ottovbvs // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:48 pm
“perhaps you could give us some more of your thought about the “conflicted Jewish elites” who apparently suffer from the same fear sweats as myself”
Otto, I’m worried that you’re taking too much elitist enjoyment from MI’s Turettian outbursts. It’s not polite to taunt.
Chekote // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:53 pm
MI-GOPer
Please go back to your gulch.
Chekote // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:55 pm
The GOP leadership is not interested in taking on Palin and the electoral deadend she represents. They are not interested in taking a look at where they went wrong while in power and reforming themselves. All bets are on Obama and the Dems screwing up. It might be enough to win again. But once in power, what will they do? Will we get a repeat performance?
ottovbvs // Nov 24, 2009 at 3:40 pm
CentristNYer // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:51 pm
“Otto, I’m worried that you’re taking too much elitist enjoyment from MI’s Turettian outbursts. It’s not polite to taunt.”
……..You’re probably right, one shouldn’t mock the afflicted but then he wouldn’t consider himself afflicted by Tourettes or any other syndrome would he?….. so one is faced with the dilemma of treating him as ill or as, what in fact I think he is, a particularly nasty specimen of right wing malignance such as could be found on street corners in Weimar Germany or 50’s McCarthyite pockets in the midwest or deep south.
ottovbvs // Nov 24, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Chekote // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:55 pm
“All bets are on Obama and the Dems screwing up”
……that is basically their strategy in all it’s nihilist glory………their fundamental problem when it comes to policy making is that they wedded to a series of policy prescriptions which are wrong headed and/or fail to recognize the nature of American society in 2009……..they think the clock can be turned back to Reagan or for many of them……Coolidge
Arch // Nov 24, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Five suggestions for Moderate to become an NBA superstar:
Cracked me up.
ottovbvs // Nov 24, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Arch // Nov 24, 2009 at 4:07 pm
“Five suggestions for Moderate to become an NBA superstar:
Cracked me up.”
…….Definitely today’s superstar
sinz54 // Nov 24, 2009 at 4:33 pm
ottovbs: that is basically their strategy in all it’s nihilist glory
Oh, please.
There IS NO OTHER WAY to oust an incumbent President from a second term–unless that President has screwed up badly. When an incumbent President runs for another term, that election is a referendum on that incumbent’s job performance. Voters don’t change horses in mid stream unless the horse has really stumbled.
Look at all the examples where the incumbent was ousted: Hoover in 1932, LBJ in 1968 (quit), Carter in 1980, Bush in 1992. In each case, the challenger didn’t defeat the incumbent by better ideas. In each case, the challenger won because the incumbent was perceived by the voters as having stumbled so badly that the voters wanted to oust the incumbent.
Obama can only be defeated in 2012 if he screws up. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter if the GOP nominates Romney or Palin or Pawlenty or anyone else.
Fortunately, Obama is bound to screw up badly. After all, he’s a doctrinaire liberal in a dangerous world that isn’t safe for starry-eyed liberals–and their followers.
ottovbvs // Nov 24, 2009 at 4:43 pm
sinz54 // Nov 24, 2009 at 4:33 pm
“Oh, please.
There IS NO OTHER WAY to oust an incumbent President from a second term–”
……So that should be the sole aim of an opposition in congress…..ousting the incumbent president…..not the public good…..not the national interest……ousting the incumbent president…..a good job no one told Tip O’Neill that…….I’m glad to see you admit your priorities
“Fortunately, Obama is bound to screw up badly.’
…..the triumph of hope over reality but then if your sole political aims are the ousting of the current president it makes entire sense……it’s called nihilism
dragonlady // Nov 24, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Frum, you’re veering off into Andrew Sullivan territory. It’s sad to watch. As a conservative woman who is supportive of Palin, but am wary of her qualifications for higher office, I understand lot of people question whether Palin is good for the GOP, or if she’s qualified to run for higher office. All fair Qs, I think. But you’re encouraging a sickness that until now has been confined to the Left and breeding it among moderates. I was shocked at your post earlier where you basically said Palin only had a conservative male following b/c she’s attractive. Besides this simply not being true (I know quite a few conservative married women who like Palin), not only are you getting into the politics of personal destruction (she’s stupid, Evita, self-absorbed, whiner, a diva, thin-skinned, etc), you’re dehumanizing her by sexualizing her. Because if you support Palin and you a man–well, you’re just horny. If you’re a woman who supports Palin, you must be an ideologue. And of course, by stating that Palin is stupid, by proxy, so are all her supporters. It’s no different than the Left’s message about her. You just dress it up in different language so it’s no overt, but it has the same ramifications–it’s the defiling of a woman who is a mother, grandmother, and public figure. It’s really sickening to watch–to take a former governor and make her into nothing more than an attractive piece of arse. And you haven’t risen to her defense on this blog against the rape jokes on the left, or any other of the vile hatred they spew not only towards her, but towards her family.
And for the woman who don’t like Palin–that’s fine. Really, I have no desire to change your mind. But this is another GOP female political figure. Her book tour has not been mean-spirited–she’s taken responsibility for mistakes and has tried setting the record straight. She’s been positive and upbeat in all her interviews–she’s been quite positive in all of them. When you cut her down with such petty personal comments, all I can think of is– catty or jealous much? I mean, I don’t like Hillary Clinton or her policies. But I have no desire to cut her down as a woman, do psychoanalysis on why she stayed with Bill after so much infidelity, or opine about her pantsuits. I cannot say the same for the other female posters on this blog and Palin.
CentristNYer // Nov 24, 2009 at 5:56 pm
dragonlady // Nov 24, 2009 at 5:40 pm
“she’s taken responsibility for mistakes and has tried setting the record straight.”
If this is so, why has her account been contradicted by nearly everyone in the McCain campaign who worked with her, as well as by her OWN record of interviews and emails? (For instance, claiming that her daughter was stalked by a journalist at an event that he never attended. Or describing in detail an encounter with her family to Sean Hannity that she now says never happened.)
This is why Sullivan is right to put her odd lies on the table and challenge her to square her claims with the objective record. She has not done this, and to date no journalist has been allowed close enough to her to actually “set the record straight.”
ottovbvs // Nov 24, 2009 at 6:24 pm
CentristNYer // Nov 24, 2009 at 5:56 pm
“This is why Sullivan is right to put her odd lies on the table’
…..She is something of an idee fixe with Sullivan but he nails her every time (sometimes that Oxford education comes in useful) ……Dragon lady’s claim she’s taken responsibilitly for her mistakes is risible…..she’s spent the entire time shifting the blame to others or whining (the Nicolle Wallace made me do the Couric interview because Couric was suffering from low self esteem was hilarious and as Wallace pointed out a total fabrication)
Chekote // Nov 24, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Please Dragonlady, don’t defend the indefensible. Palin wears her ignoranc as a badge of honor. That alone should cause every Republican to dismiss her.
sinz54 // Nov 25, 2009 at 11:06 am
ottovbs: ……So that should be the sole aim of an opposition in congress…..ousting the incumbent president…..not the public good…..not the national interest……ousting the incumbent president…..a good job no one told Tip O’Neill that
If you’re referring to the Reagan administration,
remember that Reagan’s GOP didn’t have a filibuster-proof majority. O’Neill knew that Reagan would be forced to deal with him–and they did. And O’Neill told Reagan that any attempts to cut social programs would be DOA.
The GOP today, with no real leverage to deal with Obama, doesn’t have that luxury. The Dems have the votes to do whatever they want. All the GOP can do is point out failings of those Dem bills.
sinz54 // Nov 25, 2009 at 11:12 am
ottovbs:
One more point if I may:
If the GOP were larger (say 47 seats in the Senate), it would NECESSARILY be more amenable to dealing with the Dems. Why? Because to get to 47, the GOP would have to run moderate candidates in Blue and Purple states. And so a larger GOP would necessarily be a more diverse GOP, a more moderate GOP.
Right now, the GOP in Congress is mostly down to its conservative core, with just a few exceptions like the Maine sisters. And that core is so ideologically opposed to the Dems that any negotiating is really impossible.
it all comes down to the same thing: As long as the GOP is centered in the Deep South and some Mountain states, it’s ideologically too purist and too far from the mainstream. And that makes effective governance impossible.
dragonlady // Nov 25, 2009 at 11:46 am
“Palin wears her ignorance as a badge of honor.” I’m guessing you haven’t read her book–she does no such thing. There’s a difference in being anti-elite vs anti-intellectual and I think you’re conflating the two.
“Please Dragonlady, don’t defend the indefensible. ” What’s indefensible to me is why Frum, you, and others won’t stand up and say the rhetoric defiling her as a woman is wrong. Not liking her as a politician is one thing; standing by silently while others turn her into a sexual object is quite another. First Frum questioned her electability and competence as a politician. Fair enough. Then he launched into personal attacks. Not cool. No he’s turning her into a sexual object with some of his posts. This should be hands down unacceptable. But since you’re silent about it or agree with him, I can only conclude you tacitly approve of watching another GOP female being torn down in such a manner. Talk about tasteless and sexist.
dragonlady // Nov 25, 2009 at 12:03 pm
It’s the oldest trick in the book–men will use sex as a weapon against a woman to assert power over her. Any woman knows this is good old fashioned sexism. It’s a metaphorical way to “rape” a woman without participating in the physical act. It was Andrew Sullivan who so-called CentristNyer calls “objective” who wrote “Palin’s vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy.” He’s also into the crazy conspiracy that Trig is really Bristol’s son. This man is completely unhinged over Palin and has shown he cannot be objective at all about her.
What’s less talked about is the darkness in women. It’s the tendency to revel in emotional excess and make everyone around her either happy and joyous, or miserable. And this sort of insecurity is why some women take great pleasure in watching another woman she does not like being humiliated, or a willing accomplice. They take even greater pleasure in it when she happens to be attractive. Women at times are their own worst enemies.
CentristNYer // Nov 25, 2009 at 12:46 pm
dragonlady // Nov 25, 2009 at 12:03 pm
“It was Andrew Sullivan who so-called CentristNyer calls ‘objective’ ”
First of all, I never called Sullivan himself “objective.” He clearly can’t tolerate her and what she stands for. What I said is that he’s willing to use objective standards to measure her words and that seems perfectly fair. When she says “X” but the record shows “Y,” and she does it REPEATEDLY, he’s right to call her out on it. (How is it that nearly everyone in the McCain campaign disputes her account?)
The thing that really drives most of Sully’s Palin-related posts is not even so much that she’s doing it — it’s that she’s not being called out on it. She hides from real journalists, giving interviews to softies like Oprah or shills like Hannity. She calls any efforts to probe her policy ideas or thoughts on the world “gotcha questions” or she deflects them with winks and “I’ll get back to you on that” and never does.
As for Andrew’s fixation on the facts surrounding Trig’s parentage, he’s only observed that there are many odd and unexplained parts of the story and asked that these be addressed. Does asking questions make you “unhinged”? Compared to the Obama birthers — who have produced lawsuits, submitted legislation and produced multiple fake birth certificates — Sully sets the standard for sanity.
Reason60 // Nov 25, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Dragonlady:
“the defiling of a woman who is a mother, grandmother, and public figure”
There it is again…Palin is a MOM…and a GRANDMOM to boot.
Apparently Hillary is not a mom; or Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, and on and on.
How come none of these women are ever described this way? How come Hillary’s supporters never went around holding out her MOMness as a singular acheivement?
Like I wrote yesterday, how odd it would have been had we went around in 1979 saying that “you should respect Ronald Reagan because he is a DAD, and a GRANDDAD, and he likes to chop wood, and ho by the way, he is a DAD!”
Sarah attracts such personal venom, dragonlady, because she herself IS her policy, her vision, her position.
Her actual talking points are so bog-standard GOP positions, that they aren’t worth talking about, even among her supporters. No one is making a big deal of her energy policy; no one really cares about her foreign policy. Her supporters support Sarah the person, the mom, the grandmom, the hockey mom, the hunter mom, the Everymom.
The more she and her supporters run with this line about how unfair her coverage has been, how mean and vile it is, the more we want to say, “put on your big girl panties and deal with it”.
All politicians get bad press, but whining and sniveling isn’t theway to turn it around.
What people often forget is that politicians have the ability to write their own headlines. During the 80’s, the media largely detested Reagan; one issue that the intellectual left was fond of was the Nuclear Feeze (anyone remember that?). Support for The Freeze was a standard prerequisite for being a Serious Intellectual for most of academia.
Then one day Reagan announced that he was pursuing, not an arms limitation agreement, not a freeze on expansion of arms, but a Nuclear Reduction, an agreement to actually reduce the number or arms.
Overnight the Freeze disappeared, and Reagan was seen as a wise peacemaker, not the mad bomber of liberal fantasies. He wrote his own headlines, and created his own personna.
I am oversimplifying history, but only slightly, to make a point. The 24/7 new cycle needs to be fed information; Sarah feeds them nothing but gossip, easily disprovable lies, and absurd positions. If she were to find an issue, and stake a firm positon, one that serious people could talk about and discuss, she would be taken seriously.
anniemargret // Nov 25, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Dragonlady: No other female politician has used her kids to prop herself up as Sarah Palin has. No other female politician has used ‘lipstick’ to describe herself, or blows kisses and winks as Palin has. No other female politician has posed in running shorts (not that I know of anyway), and then complains if the media uses it. What did she think when she posed? Is she really that naive, or just sly as a fox? Which is it? She knows what’s she doing and most women knows what she’s doing, (and why her poll numbers are low with women in general… ) but then she pretends otherwise.
You say she is being treated unfairly and in a ’sexist’ way. Not true. She has created her own monster, Dragonlady- see above why . She alone created her image- not the media, not the Democrats, not McCain’s handlers, and not David Frum.
Have you also noticed how she constantly puts Trig in the spotlight? Every chance she gets, she has that little child in the klieg-lights, holds him up to ‘prove’ what a ‘great Mom’ she is, then hands him off to an aide. Her fans drool. The rest of us gag.
I would have a lot more respect for her if she dropped the flirtatious winking, blowing kisses, The Lipstick- Schtick and keep Trig away from the front of cameras and screaming fans. Her kids shouldn’t be props.
Chekote // Nov 25, 2009 at 9:05 pm
dragonlady
Did you see Palin coyly “My bad” when she was talking to O’Reilly about the Couric interview? Give me a break! This woman is a pest that represents everything that is wrong with the current GOP.
gnt // Nov 27, 2009 at 1:46 pm
It was Andrew Sullivan who so-called CentristNyer calls “objective” who wrote “Palin’s vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy.”
I don’t want to claim that Sullivan is neutral on the subject of Sarah Palin, but that sounds a little extreme for him. Can you cite a reference for that comment or are you just manufacturing a source of outrage?