Palin's Future

CNN has already begun girding its loins for a Republican loss, running an extensive article (following on the more bitchy previous columns in many outlets about Palin "going rogue" and "off message") about what Sarah Palin's political future is, should the GOP lose on Tuesday.

The end result comes, again, back to a possible major schism in the party. She's a flashpoint at a moment in the history of our country where the potential rise of a three party system (assuming the Dems win on Tuesday) is really closer than I ever believed possible.

On the one hand, there are the "thinking" Republicans. Your George Will. Your Victoria Jackson. (wait, scratch that) Your Peggy Noonan. Your David Frum. These people are smart. They're not walking, talking You Betcha catchphrases. They are measured and considerate people who happen to slant conservative in their bent. And they have made it clear that should Sarah Palin become the standard-bearer, they cannot bear that standard. (see what I did there)

These people will need candidates and a party in 2012 and even as soon as 2010 conceivably. If Sarah Palin becomes the face of the New Republicanism, these people will see themselves as ballast, no longer required on a foundering ship. People like David Brooks recently took Palin and many of those that find her to be a wonderful breath of fresh air to the party to task, saying that they now supported a "counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices...."

People like this do not want to support a party that paints anyone with an education or who lives in a city or has a job that requires functional brain activity as being an elitist. Mostly because, if so, all these people - staunch, unwavering conservatives with brains - are suddenly elitist and generally unwelcome under the New Republican tent. If this is truly the direction the party is taken, I believe these people will strike out and seek new ground. Libertarians? Maybe. Or maybe they will try to bring disenchanted conservative Democrats into the fold and become a true Centrist party. Either way, I think it would be wonderful for America. But what of the New Republicans then?

Well, there is an entirely different group that think Palin should carry forth her folksy, Wasilla Main Street message, win or lose, and be the shining light that will lead true Republicans out of the post-Reagan era wilderness they current find themselves lost within.

"Palin, as best I can describe it, exudes a kind of middle-class magnetism. It's subdued but nonetheless very powerful," Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes recently wrote. "Whether they know it or not, Republicans have a huge stake in Palin. If, after the election, they let her slip into political obscurity, they'll be making a tragic mistake."

Personally, I cannot imagine a party with Sarah Palin as its standard-bearer. What would be the tenants? What would such a party stand for? The thought to me is equal parts terrifying, head-scratching and laughable. But others clearly are very taken with her outsider, maverick message, whether or not it is true or genuine. However, there seems to me to be a fundamental flaw with the idea of THAT Sarah Palin becoming the figurehead of the New Republicans, and it is this:

But one thing is clear: If Palin wants to mount a serious bid for her party's nomination in 2012, she has a lot of groundwork to do.

She has yet to form relationships with many key conservative groups at the local level, whose support would be instrumental in ultimately capturing the Republican presidential nomination. She knows few party chairman in the key early primary states where the race will likely be decided.

"She needs to get out there and get to know conservative leaders at the national, state, and local level," Viguerie said. "She needs to introduce herself in a way she hasn't had the opportunity to do so far."

Essentially, even Palin's strongest and staunchest supporters concede that in order to mount a serious challenge in 2012, or even to continue to be a national player of significance, Sarah Palin is going to have to meet the people and learn the game. Everyone agrees that she cannot simply go back to Anchorage, hole up and wait for primary season in 2011. She has to meet people, gladhand financial backers, get schooled in media diplomacy and all the trappings of being a successful political candidate.

And therein lies the dichotomy I cannot wrap my head around and that confuses me about considering her to be "the future" of anything. Sarah Palin's primary appeal at this point has been her maverick, outside-the-establishment vibe. She is small town straight-talk. But in order to become a viable candidate, she has to shed that skin and grow a new, slicker one. She has to become an insider when her greatest appeal has been that she is an outsider. And that is what nobody has yet adequately explained to me about the future of Sarah Palin: how do you stay relevant in politics when your relevance is dependent upon you not being part of politics-as-usual?

Good luck, New Republicans.

Follow-up to Bateman's "elitist" posting

I couldn't have said everything you just said any better. But NPR's Sarah Vowell actually managed to make your excellent point more quickly than I could have. In discussing the Republicans' elitism tactic, Sarah told The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, "[t]hey wrap themselves in our attack and then they leave and talk about what snobs we are."

She followed it up with this amazing gem:
"If the East Coast Is American enough For Al-Qaeda, It should be American enough for them."

Followup to WAP's "McCain/elitist" post

(Pat Bateman pre-article warning - it's long. Don't complain. If you have a short attention span, skip it.)

I was going to simply leave a comment on WAP's post about John McCain calling New Yorkers "elitists" but I'm so angry at these statements by McCain that I think it deserves its own post (okay, rant...and a long one at that, I'm sorry WAP). This is something that has always irked me and will continue to always get my dander up, but usually politicians are cagey in their short-shrift to educated, liberal city-folk. But John McCain at least had the gumption to admit it directly, and so let me respond directly.

I don't care, like WAP points out, if this is provincial pandering. Probably is - chances are John McCain does not think everyone he's served with in Washington for two decades is an un-American elitist. But to say it, no matter for what possible political benefit, makes me want to waterboard him.

Ah, John, you don't like those unpatriotic American elitists in New York in their Ivory Towers much, huh? Those un-American citizens from those elitist cities, who burn the flag every day upon rising and lay down to sleep on Socialist sheets... they aren't what America is all about, right John? Guess what John... on behalf of New York, you are hereby restricted from ever discussing September 11th, 2001 again. Ever.

On that day, John, this elitist watched in horror as his hometown burned, and wondered if there were more attacks on the way. This elitist had his office building evacuated when they found anthrax across the street and wondered if he was going to be killed in a biological attack. This elitist knows the names of men - nay, truly they were still boys who never had the chance to fully become men - with whom he shared beer (domestic beer, John, don't worry - no elitist imports) and baseball who lost their lives that day. You, John, are never - ever - allowed to invoke that day for your political benefit again. No, more than that - your entire party is hereby banned. Collective punishment. I'm tired of it, and I think I speak for most of my fellow elitists when I say "this far, no further, John. You have now crossed the rubicon. You have gone too far, sir."

Perhaps this is simply my snooty elitism shining through in rational thought, but I just continue to find it so interesting that those Socialists who worked in the World Trade Center (I can only imagine from your description of New Yorkers that the real business of most who worked there was the overthrow of Capitalism itself) were the ones who died when America was attacked by terrorists and us elitist New Yorkers continue to be the Americans on US soil under constant threat of attack. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I haven't seen any security alerts or evacuations in Wasilla since... wait, ever. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Were the terrorists just stupid, John? Did they intend to attack Peoria and just say "screw it - that's too far. You have to connect, like, six times to get there from Saudi Arabia. What US city has a lot of connecting flights from abroad? New York? Uch, I mean, can't we do better than that? America doesn't care about New York. Uch, and Washington DC? Praised be Allah, even worse! But for convenience sake, let's just stick with those and see how it plays out."

Silly terrorists - all they did was kill a bunch of elitists. Perhaps if they'd gone to school more, they'd have understood the difference between "real" America and those unpatriotic elitists in New York and DC that the rest of the country despises. But, of course, the paradox arises that if they'd gone to school more, they'd probably have been elitists too (it's spread, like mono, mostly during freshman year of college through close contact. Mostly through germs on well-used copies of The Communist Manifesto), and thus too busy sodomizing each other ironically with baseballs and Mom's apple pie to martyr themselves.

It's one of those things that is so laughable that if you discussed it in the context of another country, it would be so nonsensical that you would not believe it. Imagine if the residents of some tiny, provincial outlying desert town in Israel claimed that residents of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were elitist and "anti-Israel" and unpatriotic, despite their choice to live somewhere under constant threat of attack from enemies. You would wonder what had gotten into their hummus. "What could be MORE patriotic than refusing to leave your home town, city or country despite the threat to your family or your very life? Refusing to submit or change in the face of danger - those are the true patriots," you would think to yourself. Reminds you of that ragtag but spirited band that drove the Brits out of Dodge, right? (Just not the Founding Fathers though - those guys were totally elitist douchebags. All doctors and lawyers and scientists and writers. I'm surprised the non-elitist "Joe homegrown rye whiskey" Colonists didn't burn them at the stake, frankly. I mean, John Adams went to Harvard. He's was practically Muhammad Atta.)

"How's the view from the cheap seats?" you'd think to yourself. "Must be really easy to criticize those who have to wonder if their bus is going to explode from hundreds of miles away from the bombs and blood." You would call these people cowards, lobbing explosive words from their position safely behind the front lines - their own front lines at whom they toss their poisonous verbal missiles.

Refusing to change your way of life under threat of bodily harm - these are the true patriots of any country. They love their country so much that they will not be cowed. They will not move their homes, their families or themselves. They will not submit to violence and terror. They will resist by continuing to live in the face of aggression, perhaps afraid but ultimately unmoved in spirit and courage. They will risk their lives every day by the simple act of living somewhere under fire. But their way of life is too important to be compromised. Their daily lives are a testament to the definition of patriotism. If that is elitist, I am guilty as charged - and would never want to be anything but.

Yet when we face that same situation here in America, it is somehow acceptable to paint the only American citizens who have ever been in real, actual danger as un-patriotic, un-American elitist snobs who thumb their noses at this country and then wipe it with the Stars and Stripes. I was never mad at you, John. Disappointed? Sure. Saddened? Yup. Never mad though.

But not now.

Now I'm angry, John. Not to put too fine a point on it, without using those snobby elitist SAT words that us city folks throw around, let me be plain: go fuck yourself.