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That Sarah Palin will never be in the position to take that 3 a.m. call is pretty obvious to Mississippi's Republican Gov. Haley Barbour. He made that clear in Miami when he declared that “Anybody here (who is) talking about the 2012 elections has got to get their eye on the ball.”
Perhaps in the eyes of Palin backers, the 2008 election did not, in fact, clarify a trend that became evident even prior to the 2006 mid-terms when Democrats regained control of Congress. A trend that seemed to begin shortly after 2004, when the party's moderate, "compassionate conservative" segment, fed up with the Iraq war's "no end in sight" dimension, with scandals, rampant corruption and just the general "all hat and no cattle" hollowness of Bush-brand GOP neo-conservatism, began to waver from the Rush Limbaugh-inspired core which was basically defining the party's agenda. Soon after, even many dyed-in-the-wool "ditto-heads," taken aback by their party's fiscal irresponsibility followed suit as did many evangelicals who had become disillusioned by GOP and Bush administration faith-based double-speak.
By early 2007, the depths of overall voter disdain for the party could be clearly gauged by Bush and the GOP's horridly negative poll numbers. Of course the climax of these trends was the 2008 elections. Despite the clear economic concerns on the minds of voters, it seems clear -- based on their rejection of divisive negative campaigning -- that they were just as adamant at demonstrating their disdain for the type of hard-core conservative zealotry characterized by the folks now pushing Palin.
In fact, according to pollster Frank Luntz, the back-to-back electoral defeats the party suffered in 2006 and 2008 comprise the two worst consecutive election losses for the GOP since the early 1930s. Do these trends unsettle this shrinking party's growing pro-Palin segment? Apparently not. Perhaps as far as they're concerned, it’s the heck with the winds of change; just drill, baby, drill.
The Thrilla from Wasilla
Whatever the case, this much is for darn sure; there's a sort of perverse guilt derived from observing or listening to delusive Palin boosters enjoying a field day delivering dead-pan euphemisms in their senseless build-up of the person they see as the savior of their party.
"I think Sarah Palin is awesome," proclaimed a Palin supporter who described herself as a "home-schooler."
"She's been a breath of fresh air," gushed another from Virginia during an interview with National Public Radio.
"I think Sarah is doing a fine job establishing herself as a political force in her own right," effused a Palin devotee who operates a draft Sarah Palin blog. "I might even be prouder of her now than I was during the VP run."
From yet another, this assertion: "Sarah's conservative credentials are the only thing that prevented a double-digit (McCain) loss."
Losing "market share"
It's probably important to point out that today's accolades can sometimes have a way of morphing into tomorrow's eulogies and the GOP's Palin boosters perhaps should realize that statements such as those made above may wind up someday in that category. That some do not find this fairly obvious simply boggles the mind, particularly upon witnessing Palin's trademark crude, unpolished public displays. One would presume that her repeated inarticulate performances would instantly provoke a demand for an answer to the question of where she received her education.
"Nuclear weaponry, of course," Palin stammered during the vice-presidential debate, "would be the be-all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period."
"This mission of keeping our eyes on Russia," she clumsily expounded to Charles Gibson during an interview prior to the debate, "and Putin and some of his desires to control much more than smaller democratic countries. His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen."
Now, doggone it, you're left thinking, "Does this woman have a GED?" Eventually, however, you come to understand that even if so, she's clearly been educated beyond her intelligence.
Now, am I overstating just a bit here? You betcha! Palin did in fact, acquire a journalism degree from the University of Idaho in 1987 and subsequently demonstrated the ability to maneuver her way from the legislatively entry-level position of City Councilor to the mid-management level of Mayor, before landing in the Alaska Governor's office.
