RSS Feed MenuA rising young governor from a state remote from America’s media is given a big national chance. The governor does not perform well, hideously badly in fact. But the governor learns from past mistakes, executing a shrewdly planned strategy to win a presidential nomination and then the Oval Office itself.
That’s the story of Bill Clinton. As Sarah Palin planned her own comeback strategy, she could have learned a lot from it.
Clinton’s big chance took the form of a prime speaking slot at the 1988 Democratic convention: the speech nominating the party candidate, Michael Dukakis. The speech was a disaster, boring and condescending. The biggest applause line was when he intoned, “In conclusion …”
Clinton understood his mistake. He wangled an appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show eight days later. He told jokes. He played the sax. He left host and audience laughing and clapping.
Clinton plunged back to work in Arkansas, winning re-election in 1990 to an unprecedented fifth term in the governor’s office. He honed his credentials as an effective chief executive, and sat for interviews with the country’s toughest journalists. In January 1992, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, a cover story on Bill Clinton proclaimed: “The first primary has been about IQ rather than cash — and Clinton is the easy winner.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Now it’s Palin’s turn. In a recent Gallup poll, 63% of Americans said they would “never” consider voting for her for President. A candidate for president would normally wish to counteract such a negative impression. Palin’s post-campaign actions have reinforced them.
Instead of attending to her job as Alaska governor, she quit halfway through her first term.
Instead of following Charles Krauthammer’s advice to “go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues,” she has cashed in on the paid speaking circuit, always off the record.
She has declined to face questioning from the press. She has been drawn into an unseemly public flame war with the father of her grandchild.
She did no fundraising for the two Republican gubernatorial candidates on the ballot in November. She has had little of substance to say about the huge public decisions of the first Obama year. What she has said has been inflammatory and untrue: especially her accusation that the Obama plan would haul Down’s syndrome children before “death panels” empowered to deny them life-saving medical care.
Now come the book and the book tour. According to an AP report about the book (which hasn’t been released yet), anyone who hoped it would reveal a more thoughtful side to Palin is in for disappointment. The book is a folksy personal story, spiced by score-settling against her campaign colleagues and the media.
Unburdening yourself of grievances can feel good. But given that Palin’s detractors have depicted her as thin-skinned, aggrieved, and vindictive, it hardly seems smart to publish a book that confirms the negative impression.
Bill Clinton was thin-skinned too, but he took care not to show it. When Johnny Carson asked him back in 1988 what candidate Dukakis had thought of the speech, Clinton answered that Dukakis had liked it so much that he had asked Clinton also to introduce George H.W. Bush at the Republican convention. He laughed and clapped at Carson’s jokes at his own expense. No “quit making things up.”
But maybe Clinton is the wrong comparison. Maybe Palin isn’t really running for president. Maybe she is running to consolidate her status as a merchandisable victim-icon: not Bill Clinton after 1988, but Al Gore after 2000.
In the first three years of the Bush administration, Gore gave voice to the rage of the Democratic base. A lifelong centrist Democrat, he suddenly steered hard to the angry left. He equated George W. Bush to Orwell’s Big Brother and damned Bush’s supporters as “digital brownshirts.” He trafficked in conspiracy theories about the Iraq war and apocalyptic exaggerations about the environment.
Gore disqualified himself for the presidency. The candidates he backed — Howard Dean, Ned Lamont — mostly lost. But he made himself first a martyr, then a celebrity, next a global brand, and finally a multimillionaire.
It’s not the presidency. But it may be more fun. Why campaign, when you can tour? Why seek votes, when you have fans? Why be Evita, when you can be Madonna?
Originally published November 14, 2009 in the National Post.
txanne // Nov 15, 2009 at 11:10 pm
My apologies, the link I provided above goes directly to the comment section.
Here is the correct link to this very disturbing look into the soul of Ms Palin.
http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/palins-oily-lies-drip-from-the-pages-of-going-rogue/
Socrates // Nov 16, 2009 at 2:14 am
it is interesting how palin accused the librul media for unfairly attacking her, and now she is on a media blitz to sell her book.
i wonder what she will do after the book. my hunch is that she will try to get a tv gig, but i am not sure if she is cut out for it. while she has the look, i don’t think she is very articulate to be a tv commentator (e.g. beck, hannity, etc.). may be she will move to the conus 48 states, or even to the south, and runs for office. somehow i don’t think the book is her last act.
Hillary Clinton Versus Sarah Palin — Hillary Is 44 // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:31 am
[...] David Frum, who coined the term “Axis of Evil” for George W. Bush, is an example of a Palin right wing enemy: Clinton plunged back to work in Arkansas, winning re-election in 1990 to an unprecedented fifth [...]
DFL // Nov 16, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Well, Sarah Palin sure knocked Elizabeth Lambert out the news.
Bugleboy // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:36 pm
AP has 4100 reporters. Some people want 11 to look as looming as Mount Everest. Given Gov. Palin’s high profile that seems about right. The AP will just help sell more copies of the book as probably she intended.
I’m not a fan of hers, but have to admire her marketing genius. She quit her gig in Alaska and put a book out pronto to capitalize on her fame. How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paris? Goodbye Wasilla, hello lower 48!
Independent // Nov 17, 2009 at 7:23 am
i’ve said it elsewhere: i’m no fan of sarah palin’s. but, then, she isn’t any less qualified to be either president or vice president than are mr obama and mr biden. all three of them grab the limelight whenever there’s an open mic or tv crew nearby.
i do think that many commenters from the far left on this site have been ruthlessly unfair to mrs palin, her family and her contributions and talents.
the question i always ask when i hear one more “socrates” or “txanne” or “teabag” dump on mrs palin: why are these people so scared of someone they hold in contempt? and it is fear, irrational fear.
Independent // Nov 17, 2009 at 7:27 am
“Just cannot help yourself can ya Teabag. Always with the mean spirited, homosexual laced slurs and references. (Man, i hope i’m not a turn on for this nutjob). ” -sdspringy @ 97
teabag is a lonely, bitter troll living under the darkest, dankest bridge in the democrat underground, sdspringy. he doesn’t deserve your fear… he deserves your pity for he is a pathetic democrat hack. gruesome mind, that teabag… gruesome and distorted by hatred and rank political activism.
Independent // Nov 17, 2009 at 9:19 am
“I am quite conservative in some of my views…ergo…my views about Sarah. I just tend to think that we need more parents sacrificing their needs for the needs of their children. And I think babies and children need their moms especially when they are very young. An real old-fashioned ideal, that… which sadly is long gone.” —anniemargaret @ 125
to use your own words, “pure drivel”. and disingenuous. and politically opportunistic, too. you, not mrs palin.
you’ve got a pretty high perch there to be dis’ing moms who work, moms who care for their young children and work, moms who want to have a career and family, too.
if i were playing the game you play here a lot, anniemargaret, i’d wonder aloud what it is about motherhood and the modern woman you hate so much? but i don’t like the games you play here and i won’t stoop to your level.
moms can work. moms can have a career. i bet if we met you somewhere other than on this site and were talking about something other than mrs palin, your oh-so politically convenient position about stay-at-home-mom preferences would be flipped faster than a john kerry policy flop.
it takes some doing, annie, but you were transparently political in your seemingly apolitical stance on working moms and their “duties” to their young children… ever hear of a spouse? ever hear of grandparents? ever hear of a cook to help? or a cleaning lady 1x, 2x week?
your politically convenient and transparently false statements about motherhood & career is at odds with your hardcore democrat activism on most other issues… oh yeah, 30 seconds to the “i’m not a democrat, i voted for bush” lie. spare us, we’ve heard it before, sweetheart.