Sarah Palin, did you quit being the real Governor of Alaska so you could be the pretend Governor of America?

More politics, I know.  Bear with me - I really don't have a political axe to grind any more than just as a general observer.  I freely accept that no politicians tell the truth.  They aren't in the business of truth.  They are in the business of persuasion, like me.  Persuasion is something I understand completely.  Unlike me, however, politicians seek their fortune persuading you that their personality, that one single personality rolling around inside of them, can affirm the beliefs of millions of people.  That's a harsh, depressing place to be at as a 46 year old father of two future great Americans, but I am there.  And while I don't consider myself a political cynic, per se, I do view myself as a political pragmatist.

Anyone who is out there telling you "vote for me because I like this, I hate this other, and I just love this same thing you love and am scared of the same things you are..."  well, that person is just selling something.  I have three siblings, all of whom I love dearly, and not one of whom I agree with entirely on everything.  And there are just the four of us...

So I have been reading the headlines for the last couple of weeks and am wondering what exactly the former Governor of Alaska is selling.  She seems to have opinions these days on everything from the Federal Reserve to cookies in Pennsylvania.  My mean-boy reaction to all of the press clippings related to Palin lately is that she must write really teeny to get all of those opinions and issues scrinched in on both her hands.

And the way she communicates, isn't that something? She has honed "snide" to a new level.  Perhaps she leavens it with just the right amount of mean and stirs it vigorously with a backhand lash or two.  Yet it is this person, this snide, mean, bully of a person, who is getting a lot of press on whether or not she could be our next President.  Seriously?

Well...I am not so sure about that.  If past performance is any indicia of future expectations, then what exactly does it say about her that she abandoned every person who voted for her in 2006 by resigning because ethics complaints brought against her had "affected her ability to govern..."  She wasn't forced out.  She just walked away.  When it happened a lot of people said she was "striking while the iron was hot," and moving on to wealth and opportunity.  In fact it is in print pre-2009 (when she quit on Alaska) that she was described by former friends as "an opportunist" so that shouldn't be that big of a surprise.

So is she selling a Palin candidacy, or a Palin insurrection.  I can't much believe she is selling a Palin candidacy, because she is just creating such a record of mean-spirited intemperance that any GOP competitor for the 2012 Presidential nomination will have field day with her public statements, and her track record as the quintessential "mean girl.

A 2008 article in Slate magazine profiled her 1996 run for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, against former family friend John Stein.  According to the 2008 article,

Before Sarah Palin decided to run for the Wasilla mayor's office in 1996 against incumbent John Stein, the Palins and Steins were friends. John Stein had helped launch Palin's political career, mentoring the hockey mom during her 1994 run for City Council, along with veteran council member Nick Carney. Stein's wife, Karen Marie, went to aerobics classes with Palin.


But when she announced her candidacy for Stein's seat, vowing to overturn the city's "old boy" establishment, a different Sarah Palin emerged. "Things got very ugly," recalled Naomi Tigner, a friend of the Steins. "Sarah became very mean-spirited."

The Wasilla mayor's seat is nonpartisan, and Mayor Stein, a former city planner who had held the post for nine years, ran a businesslike campaign that stressed his experience and competency. But Palin ignited the traditionally low-key race with scorching social issues, injecting "God, guns and abortion into the race -- things that had nothing to do with being mayor of a small town," according to Tigner.

newspaper on the desk is from the John Birch Society

As a dad, one of the phrases I use often around the house, especially with my ten year old, is "character counts."  Look beyond the promises, the platitudes, and the political ads.  Look at the fossil record, the artifacts that show the presence, or absence, of character.  The Wasilla, Alaska mayoral campaign in 1996 is in my opinion Sarah Palin's Olduvai Gorge.  The politics of personal destruction are bad enough; but when you consider that they involve a couple that were once close personal friends of Todd and Sarah Palin, well that just shocks the conscience.

Now my "pragmatism" is buoyed by an October 2010 survey that holds about half of all Americans do not fall for Mrs. Palin's folksy, winky, you-betcha load of divisive politics. Of course it was a CBS poll and as soon as you say that, Mrs. Palin or her supporters are quick to drag Dan Rather into the fray and say that it is all about axe grinding.  Well I don't know about that (tips head, winks at computer) I am just a humble small town dad (makes faux pistol out of thumband forefinger and shoots straight at computer screen, "Pitchooo!")

Because of that; because she is such a lightning rod personally, and because of the coast to coast effort to have a harsh, mean spirited, divisive opinion on just about everything, I don't think Sarah is going to run for anything in 2012.  Look at the fossil record; the artifacts - what does it tell you?

She is the quintessential mean-girl.  This is the opposite of a politician who is trying to win elective office.  A politician is, for lack of a better word, more politic (adjective) in his or her approach to issues, personalities, the media, other countries, etc.  Politic is a word meaning:

1. Using or marked by prudence, expedience, and shrewdness; artful.

2. Using, displaying, or proceeding from policy; judicious: a politic decision.

3. Crafty; cunning.

Rather than being marked by prudence, or a capacity for artfulness, hers is a slash and burn kind of politics.  In the campaign for mayor, she capitalized on the fact that her opponent's name was "Stein" by saying she would be "Wasilla's first Christian Mayor."  A backhanded implication that Stein, whom she knew to be Protestant, was Jewish.  She also engaged in a quiet campaign leveraging the fact that Stein's wife, who died in 2005 of breast cancer without ever reconciling with her former good friend, Palin, never took Stein's last name by saying the two were never legally married.

This is a campaign for mayor, mind you.  Forget riding on Air Force One; forget about having your own presidential library someday, forget about laying cozy in bed on a Christmas morning at Camp David or any of the other perks of the US Presidency - this was a game of winner take all for MAYOR OF WASILLA.  Before Sarah Palin, the Mayor of Wasilla wasn't even a household name in his own household.  Yet she pulled out all the stops for power.  Remember, character counts.  Actions speak louder than words.  If you had a friend who did that to another friend, what would you think?  If you had a neighbor who did that to another neighbor, how would you react?

It is precisely this intellectual calculus that leads me to believe Sarah Palin isn't running for anything in 2012.  The only job she has in her sights; the sole position she truly covets, is Rush Limbaugh's.  The shrill, harsh, highly marketable knife-edged voice of the extreme Conservative movement in America.

Is it mean of me that I love this picture?

There is more profit in it than in the presidency; El Rushbo is worth something in the neighborhood of every one of the last 44 US Presidents combined.  He is coveted nationwide by the powerful and power hungry and he never has to run for office. Never has to raise funds for a campaign or beg for votes.  It is, in all likelihood, good to be the king.

My view, from this leather chair at my fabulous writing desk, in the quiet of an early Wednesday morning in late 2010, is that what is happening right now is not a Sarah Palin campaign for President; but rather a Sarah Palin led coup to topple Rush Limbaugh for his position of influence in American politics.  That's just my two cents, anyhow.  it'll be interesting to watch and see how it all plays out, without question.

So thanks for stopping by my blog today.  I hope that wherever you are, whatever you are up to, you find yourself in the company of good people whose character invigorates and inspires you.  Because character, does indeed, count.

Dennis
smalltowndad@hotmail.com