Jonathan Bernstein at The Plum Line:
Meanwhile, Palin running creates a fair number of risks for both Perry and Romney. The first is that based on her record, she certainly cannot be trusted to be a loyal party soldier. We don’t know how that might play out in the actual campaign, but if I were running the winning candidate’s campaign I wouldn’t want a candidate around who is known to hold grudges and act on them, and who has shown little respect for party norms and interests. Moreover, since Palin is massively unpopular with the general electorate, having her in the news constantly would remind people why they don’t like Republicans very much these days. The nominee will eventually eclipse her. . . but if she is able to rally her supporters enough to win a fair number of delegates, she could easily create all sorts of unwanted distractions all summer and through the Republican convention. Granted, there’s a risk of that happening anyway, but it surely would be worse if she became a real candidate and the press has that excuse to swarm to her.
[…]
Oh, and one more thing about Palin. The only real reason that she’s not a plausible nominee even now is because she still hasn’t shown that she is willing and able to do the things that nominees do. If it turns out that she is capable – of retail campaigning and working the activists and party leaders outside of her core supporters, and reciting talking points well enough to sound as though she knows the issues — well, it’s unlikely, but she might have a shot at winning. I can’t quite picture her suddenly doing those things.
Sometimes I read posts and articles about Sarah Palin and I have to wonder – do they really believe the shit they write or are they just shilling for dollars?
I’ve been watching and listening to Sarah Palin for three years now and the person I see portrayed in the media is vastly different than the reality.
There are so many things wrong with Bernstein’s post I don’t know where to start and don’t have time to discuss them all. So I’ll just focus on one:
Palin is massively unpopular with the general electorate
If this is true, why does the media obsess about her?
The Crawdad Hole 
In other words, she refuses to kiss the rings of the major donors & kingmakers. Where are her $10,000/plate fund-raisers?
Oh, here’s another reason PDSers might be wee-wee’d up. Aside from Iowa/NH labor day angst, they also are reading about Palin being a speaker at the South Korea World Knowledge Forum in October.
Along with Gordon Brown & European Commissioner for Trade Karel de Gucht .
http://news.mk.co.kr/newsRead.php?year=2011&no=566140
(Past speakers to WKF have included:
Tony Blair, Yukio Hatoyama (Japan’s former PM) in 2010
Dubya, Trump in 2009
Bertie Ahern (Ireland ex-PM), John Howard (Australia’s ex-PM) in 2008
Colin Powell, Alan Greenspan in 2007)
Meh. Probably not as important as the Obamas “official” trip to Bali in November 😉 😉
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/41399
“Like Rio, officially this is not a vacation as he will be attending the 18-nation East Asia Summit in Bali on November 19.
“President Obama`s participation for the first time in the EAS in November,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.”
Historic !
I didn’t realize he was going to that. That’s an expanded ASEAN summit that started in 2005.
It’s only the 2nd yr the USA has been allowed to attend, while Russia has been a “guest” from the start. This year USA & Russia are joining officially.
He’d better not mess up Hillary’s hard work with his boobery. And for the love of all that’s holy I hope he doesn’t bring MO.
Oh my, Pathetico says that must mean she’s not running because she will miss a WaPo debate at Dartmouth to attend that conference.
The World Knowledge Forum somehow seems more presidential to me than another boring GOP debate. I still think she’s running.
Perry & Romney would kill (each other) for an invite to speak there.
Massively unpopular? Where do they get these talking points? Cracker Jack boxes? or is “Cracker Jack” a pejorative racist term now?
Or does general electorate have a meaning of which I am unaware?
“The echo chamber I hang out in.”
I feel kind of bad for the “general electorate.” That is one group of seriously oppressed people. If they aren’t being called racist, stupid, bitter, they’re being called sheep, the walking dead, the ignorant masses. Can’t you just feel all the love?
I can’t seem to link to it directly, but this comment by janet8 on the article does a point-by-point smackdown:
Her so called “weaknesses” are really her strengths. Never mind Palin, I can’t figure out why so many on the left now seem to believe you should be a party loyalist, you should not expose corruption, you should play the political game properly? It’s just weird. I even read a blog criticizing her response to Libya and complaining she wasn’t hawkish enough. It’s like we entered some kind of parallel universe where left is right and up is down and war is good. WTF is the best campaign slogan ever because that’s certainly how I’ve been feeling.
It becomes clearer and less confusing when the light bulb goes off, and you realize that all the vaunted “principles” espoused by many (not all) on the left are fluid ideas that are mere interchangeable stand-ins for their real passion: Which is Me, and people just like me, IN POWER and expanding that power.
Once you realize this, you realize that there is no cognitive dissonance at all. They are actually being true to what actually drives them. Principles don’t matter. “My people” (we who are smarter and better than the rest) winning and ruling is what matters. And they can and will flip on a dime, and switch “principles” like the costumes to a vaudeville skit, in order to achieve that.
You perceive contradiction, because you are looking at their slogans as being representative of what drives them. It isn’t. It’s something else entirely.
It’s odd, but I’ve deal with plenty of left-leaning people over the years with considerably advanced degrees that I believe truly do believe the garbage they spout. The confusing thing is that for all their advanced degrees, they seem completely out of touch with everyday events at times.
Now, I could easily blame that on a biased media filter but I’m not even sure these people are getting any news at all of any kind. Left or right leaning. What the heck is up with that?
These are the people one worries about when a hurricane or tornado is heading their way. because their heads are so far into academia that they can’t come up for air. Seriously.
And that’s who we have running the country right now because they’re brilliant. Uh-huh. o.O
This is the meme of the journolisters:
“Everybody hates her, nobody likes her, Sarah might as well eat worms.”
Of course… nobody believes them. And especially not Sarah. So… let’s just hope they keep up the nonsense. As we have seen it only makes her stronger.
One thing that’s kind of cool, she’s transformed all that “worm eating” into making a good living.
The journolisters are the worms.
Why you wanna insult worms like that?
I’ve been watching this blog for a couple of weeks now and really enjoying it. Finally can’t resist commenting. 😉
Sometimes I read posts and articles about Sarah Palin and I have to wonder – do they really believe the shit they write or are they just shilling for dollars?
I think they believe it. Well, at least some of it and at least some of them. I’m talking about right-leaning pundits as much as left there. At this point, at times, it doesn’t make all that much difference where Sarah is concerned.
I’ll tell you something else that I mentioned on a thread on C4P this morning. I’d never actually noticed it before but Perry and Romney look like clones of each other if one is only glancing at them side-by-side on the screen.
Which is why it suddenly hit me why the GOP pundit class keeps trying to lump Palin in with Bachmann. In many ways, the GOP is as bad as the left about identity politics. They simply dress it up in different words but there’s a Cocktail Party sameness to everything when one gets right down to it.
Or at least there used to be until the TEA Parties came along. Now, the thing they’re terrified of more than anything is that bears, especially mama bears, are extremely territorial and not exactly known for being highly social. 😉
Both party establishments are east coast centric. If you don’t have the right pedigree they’ll treat you like an outsider forever.
(Bush had a Connecticut pedigree, Obama was adopted by the Kennedy family)
I saw that comment. LOL. Huntsman almost has the same look, except for his nose.
Welcome to the madhouse, bev.
He does? I’ll have to look up a picture of Huntsman because I honestly can’t remember what he looks like. Boy, he really made an impression. Not. Heh.
Come to think of it, doesn’t Pawlenty look a lot like one of the other ones that’s still in the race? Or is he the one that’s still in. Yikes. I can’t keep them straight. Anyway, I forget which but I definitely remember I kept getting two of the beanpole types confused. Still do, apparently. (How’s that for “identity” politics? Snort.)
Oye, I’ll be glad when Sarah decides to thin this herd some so I can tell’em apart. This is ridiculous. 😀
Amen to that!
Oh, just caught a video of Huntsman and I do remember him. Need to see him side-by-side with the other two but, yeah, he fits the mold, too. Except he hasn’t been to the stylist for his dye-job yet. 😉
Pawlenty looks different because he’s losing his hair. If he got a wig he would fit right in.
Hm, maybe if he’d gotten a wig he would have won the Iowa Sstraw poll. After all, Bachmann has the best hair of the current bunch.
It’s all about the hair! Just ask Trump!
😀
You nailed it votermom.
Oye, Trump. Did someone have to mention Trump? 😉
I say that because I almost scared myself watching a little of Greta last night before going to bed. She was interviewing Trump and he was making so much sense! I could never vote for him for President but, dang, he makes a lot of sense at times. (Okay, maybe as “anyone but Obama” but that’s it.) Still, compared to some of the professional politicos who are so scared to say anything that hasn’t been polled to death, he does make a lot of sense. And PC, he most certainly ain’t.
Talk about the winds of change. Heh.