Should Conservatives Support Palin for President?

The Republican Party needs someone knowledgeable about the issues to lead them as an opposition party, not someone like drama-queen/attention-seeker/quitter ex-governor Sarah Palin. As I had written before, Palin is much like the late Richard Nixon in that she never forgets a slight and doggedly hangs on to her grudges, striking back repeatedly and openly against anyone who she feels “did her wrong”. This includes anyone in the media who ever asked her a question she didn’t like, as well as practically the entire John McCain campaign organization. Her newly released book Going Rogue, rather than mending fences to move forward with her political and/or media ambitions, is employing a different metaphor: burning bridges.

The GOP has plenty of articulate (and even sometimes charismatic) individuals whom their members could follow all the way through to victories in 2010 and 2012, possibly even winning back the White House in 2012; Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, and Mitt Romney are experienced, conservative ex-governors who, besides having extensive campaign experience, served out their terms in office to their completion responsibly and with the view that while in office, they represented their entire states, not just those who voted for them. As opposition leaders, they are now naturally more ideological in their rhetoric. But although a future Huckabee, Jeb, or Romney administration would definitely have a much more conservative flavor than the present Obama presidency, I am confident that they would display the kind of pragmatism that they showed as governors. I can’t say the same for Sarah Palin.

On the other hand, George W. Bush, as governor of Texas, enjoyed wide popularity even among Democrats. Upon assuming the presidency, though, he reverted to being more of an ideologue. So who knows, except that I can easily tell that Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, my differences with them aside, strike me as being much more intelligent and confident in their abilities to lead (instead of passively sitting back and letting their staff and VP do the job for them as Dubya did).

And if people are just looking for someone in the media to represent their conservative views, may I suggest folks like George Will or Charles Krauthammer instead of Palin. Actually, though, even a bomb-thrower like Ann Coulter, who can be quite funny sometimes and has a self-deprecating and wicked sense of humor, is a better “leader” than vindictive, take-it-all-personally Sarah Palin. C’mon, conservatives, wise up!

I think that the McCain campaign made a huge mistake in the summer of 2008 regarding the role that Sarah Palin was to take in the campaign. She initially enjoyed huge, widespread popularity and had a compelling personal rags-to-glory story that ordinary people could relate to. The problems began when she concentrated on attacking Obama and the Democrats instead of focusing on her life and positive values. The Republicans wasted Palin’s initial popularity by relegating her to the role of being the “attacker”. That having been said, it must also be said that Governor Palin seemed to relish this role quite a lot. But that set the Democratic attack machine squarely against her, and in a matter of days she began the object of ridicule, not admiration. And a liability to the McCain campaign.

Sarah Palin has often cited Ronald Reagan as a sort of political role model, but she hasn’t followed his path. But another ex-governor has: Mike Huckabee, who has his own entertaining Sunday night prime time show on Fox News. Like Reagan before him in the late 1970’s, Huckabee has successfully kept himself in the media without whipping up hostility, as Palin has. If you identify yourself as a political conservative, you may admire and agree with Sarah Palin. But you should be concerned if she were to run for president and lead in the Republican primaries. Because there's no way she's going to garner enough support to win a national election!

As a side note, I noticed in a recent nationwide opinion poll (I believe it was ABC/Washington Post) that 53% of respondents said that they would not vote for Sarah Palin for president. But in the same poll, 60% said that she was unqualified for being president. Leaving the implication that at least 7% would consider voting for her, even acknowledging that she was unqualified. Scary!