Jonathan Freedland: Palin won't go away | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk Quote:
Sarah Palin has provided some of the best sub-plots to the extraordinary soap opera that has been Campaign 2008 – including the latest flap about the cost of her costume and, coming soon, the release of her medical records – but there is none more intriguing than the question that could be left hanging when the saga officially concludes on November 5: what happens to Palin next?
Of course, if John McCain wins she'll become the vice-president of the United States – where she would doubtless continue getting feverish media attention from now till 2012. But what if he, and therefore she, loses?
On this, there are two camps. The first says Palin will slink back to Alaska and obscurity, her reputation trashed for ever by the clear evidence that she served to drag down the Republican ticket. Palin's most vicious critics go further, predicting that, once back in her home state, she will face a bitter homecoming – perhaps even impeachment proceedings following the verdict of abuse of power delivered by the independent investigation into the Troopergate affair (a verdict that was unambiguous despite Palin's Orwellian insistence that she was "cleared" by the investigation).
The other camp, however, sees a much brighter future for Governor Palin – one focused on the Republican presidential nomination of 2012. In this view, Palin will emerge from 2008 as the frontrunner to be the party's candidate next time around.
This seems much more likely to me than a quiet exit from the public stage. After all, the jockeying for 2012 is already under way: indeed, in a signal of collective resignation to defeat on November 4, much of the conservative blogosphere is currently consumed with discussion of the 2012 race and Palin's probable place in it. In a very revealing remark to Rush Limbaugh the other day, Palin herself stoked such talk when she told him she had "nothing to lose" by going hard after Barack Obama – audibly calculating her own interests, separate from those of the McCain-Palin ticket.
Here are just some of the reasons why she would begin out in front. First, whatever the rest of America thinks of her, she has clearly excited the Republican base – and they are the people who vote in Republican primaries.
Second, she has powerful backers among one faction at least of the conservative intelligensia, namely the men who marked her out as McCain's VP in the first place. They don't mind her obviously limited curiosity or qualifications: they see a willing vehicle for their own ambitions, a woman who has the single quality that no politician can learn or acquire – star power. Besides, she can use the next four years to mug up on, you know, facts and things.
Third, there will be a wave of anger in a post-defeat Republican party and much of it will be directed at the "Washington establishment" types who sided with Barack Obama (from Colin Powell downwards) or at least criticised McCain (such as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan). Palin will be a perfect receptacle for this anger, because she is the reason so many elite conservatives have broken with McCain.
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I'm of two minds on this. One, I want to SHUDDER and groan at the thought that Palin is the best the GOP can do for 2012 - if that happens, they obviously haven't learned a THING from this campaign, and can look forward to many many more defections to the Democratic party and many more election losses until someone gets a farkin' brain and realizes how much they've abandoned the center of the electorate.
Two, that could be a good thing if you don't mind the two-party system being eviscerated like this. Which is actually a bad thing.
Three. I don't ever want to see this woman's face in election news again as long as I live. Not even if she wins re-election to governorship of Alaska. I want her to be a footnote in history and go back to her designer dogsleds.
Sadly, I'm not sure that's going to happen. Brace yourselves, folks. This may not be the last we've seen of the Eskimo 'ho.