John Fund's column at the Wallstreet Journal provides metrics for what has been apparent as soon as Palin was declared McCain's running mate--raw, naked fear among Democrats has resulted in a concerted effort to destroy this woman by any means available.
This situation developed because Alaska's transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable. Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy. Since Ms. Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, some 150 FOIA requests have been filed and her office has been targeted for investigation by everyone from the FBI to the Alaska legislature. Most have centered on Ms. Palin's use of government resources, and to date have turned up little save for a few state trips that she agreed to reimburse the state for because her children had accompanied her. In the process, though, she accumulated $500,000 in legal fees in just the last nine months, and knew the bill would grow ever larger in the future.
None of this changes the analysis--the utility of Palin's governor ship was at an end, and she was both morally and strategically correct in resigning. She in effect has created for herself a modern legend of Cincinnatus--a Roman given dictatorial powers who then relinquished them after a mere sixteen days after defeating the Aequians.
Still, in spite of my personal approval of Mrs. Palin, I worry about her presumable candidacy in 2012. I've heard a lot of people laud her for her "true conservativism", which is code for "she's one of us...", but not much analysis on why that's a winning formula in 2012.
Let me relate an observation I've made.
I was in Moab this past weekend with the lovely bunny, and in the cottage next to mine, was a nice young couple from North Carolina with their two very young children. What struck me was how indistinguishable this young Christian couple was from the similar young Mormon couples staying at the camp site. Their values, outlook, appearance and even speech, were nearly identical and yet Mitt Romney can never win the Presidency because Evangelicals hate Mormons.
Two contradictory realities which illustrate something important about politics--the slightest differences can and will be exploited by political rivals to divide and conquer. Sarah Palin is already an extremely divisive figure, which is less her fault than a predetermined outcome. How does a polarizing figure win? How does a polarizing figure unite a country actively being segmented into feuding factions for the benefit of the cynical power elite?
With a significantly large enough crisis, you can do it, if temporarily (as George W. Bush demonstrated), but what the country needs is an object lesson. I just don't see Sarah Palin teaching the country that lesson. She doesn't have the experience, and most importantly, she isn't sufficiently articulate to really make use of the President's bully pulpit.
Reagan was, so the legend goes, a "true conservative", but politically that was less important than his skills as a communicator. He articulated conservative principles in an attractive and compelling way. People didn't hear conservative rhetoric, they heard explanations that made sense to them. Governor Palin, for all her virtues and talents, is more Dubya than Reagan (although Bush certainly got better with time...).
In my view there is only one candidate who can address the economic crisis engineered by the Democrats--Mitt Romney. Not only does he have the experience, political and leadership skills, he can talk to the country about economics--walking and chewing gum at the same time.
Palin has promise, but she need schoolin'.
