By Selwyn Duke
Really, there’s precious little
fairness in the world. People tend to be
slaves to emotion, and prejudices often reign supreme even (in fact,
especially) in those who rail against prejudice. This is why we’ll see millions of Americans reflexively
dismiss a politician simply because of the letter following his name; it is why
people will often oppose a position they would otherwise support simply because
it’s being advocated by someone they dislike.
Ah, that troublesome human nature.
This brings us to Sarah Palin,
the Wasilla woman often billed as the best hope of the GOP. She certainly isn’t one of those plain
vanilla characters who inspire blasé reactions, that’s for sure. It’s just so often the case that people either
love her or hate her, believe she is the cat’s meow or the pig with lipstick, a
political sensation or a puerile simpleton.
I’m in neither camp.
Scrape away the emotionalism
and one realizes that Palin isn’t at either extreme. Underestimated by the left and overestimated
by the right, the truth about her lies somewhere in-between. Where exactly? That is secondary because there is a more
important point here, one relating to Palin’s political future.
She doesn’t have one.
I know this will raise the
hackles of many, but you can forget Sarah Palin. I say this not because of her defects in
ideology or lack of competency, but for a very simple reason: She has been Quayled.
Many of you know that I’m
referring to what ensued after former vice president Dan Quayle gave a public
appearance at a school spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1992. His problems started because he’d been given
a cue card with “potatoe” thus written on it and, doubting the spelling but
trusting the school materials, corrected a student who had spelled the word
properly. The media seized upon this,
pounding home the narrative that the vice president was a mental vegetable who
couldn’t even spell his own kind. And it
was easy to make the image stick, too.
Quayle was blonde, attractive and relatively young, so he fit the Ken-doll stereotype. It wasn’t fair, of
course, but the public generally sees only the picture the media paints of
you.
So being Quayled is a version
of being “Borked”; the difference is that the media doesn’t paint you as a
menace but a moron. And while Quayle is
an intelligent man — he shredded Al Gore in their 1992 debate — he never could
live down the label.
Sarah Palin has suffered the
same fate. Like Quayle, she is
attractive and relatively young; she can easily be and has been painted as a
Barbie doll. Because of this, unlike
Hillary Clinton, she actually had to be
the smartest woman in the world (or, at least, in contemporary politics), but she
did nothing to help her cause in this regard.
By her own admission, the now infamous Katie Couric interview was a
crash-and-burn affair. Moreover, if even
10 percent of what has been alleged about her wanting knowledge base is true, we
have to wonder if she was busy going rogue when she should have been paying
attention in the classroom. And what of
her shocking resignation from the Alaska governorship, one of the oddest
political happenings in memory? Oh, that
was just Sarah Barracuda being a maverick?
Good luck selling that one.
Many may protest here, but this
is where quelling that emotionalism is imperative. You can disagree with my estimation of the
ex-governor, but, again, the facts of her saga are secondary. Simply wanting something badly won’t make it
a reality. Fair or not, like it or not,
Palin has been Quayled, and all the GOP’s horses and all the GOP’s men couldn’t
put Sarah’s image together again.
If that seems a bold statement,
understand that being Quayled is one of the worst things that could happen to a
politician. Lamentably, Americans will
elect a corrupt person president, as Bill Clinton proved. They will elect an individual who belonged
to a socialist party and waxes socialistic, as Barack Obama proved, even if
it’s partially because they don’t really understand what socialism is. But people know what stupidity is, even if
it’s only because some have very close acquaintance with the condition. And Americans will not elect a politician who
they believe is stupid any more than they would buy a toothless guard dog or
bet on a legless horse. Emptiness
between the ears, real or perceived, is simply a deal breaker.
Here some will say that Palin
inspires passion and attracts crowds like no one else on today’s political
scene — and she is the rage du jour. But national elections aren’t won by
attracting zealous masses but by capturing the middle. A shallow ocean of support beats what Palin enjoys,
a deep well of adoration. That’s not to
say her supporters aren’t legion, and it is to say that many of them would
follow her to the ends of the Earth. But
she’ll never capture liberals, of course, and elections are swung by that
20-some-odd percent of “undecideds,” those non-ideological voters who make up
their minds — or, to be more precise, their feelings — late in campaigns. They are generally quite susceptible to media
manipulation and emotional appeals, which is why they can vote right in one
election and hard left in another. For
the most part, all they see is image.
And that image is . . . .?
Accepting this truth is hard
for many, as they’ve hitched their hopes to Palin’s star. They will complain about the unfairness of it
all, saying that yielding to media manipulation is to relinquish this
generation’s Ronald Reagan. But is that
really what we’d be giving up? Let’s
look at the image within the image — the picture of Palin as political savior.
Why did we even start talking
about Palin in the first place? Here’s a
hint: It’s related to why people started talking about another erstwhile unknown,
Barack Obama, in the first place. That
is, she fits a profile. But also as with
Obama, many behave as if they’re unaware of this factor. The truth is, however, that most would be
just as unaware of Palin if not for it. And
the “it,” Dear Watson, is that she’s a woman.
Sorry if this bursts some
bubbles, but it’s true: Like Obama, Palin is a cultural-affirmative-action
selection. This isn’t to say she is no
better than Obama, mind you, so try not to ask for my skin. But just as the media glommed onto Obama
largely because of his skin color, John McCain chose Palin mainly because of
her chromosome configuration; he needed to not only invigorate his campaign but
also match the Democrats’ quota quality.
And just as millions rallied around Obama because they wanted to make
history and elect the first black* president, millions of others just love the
idea of supporting a woman because, well, it’s oh-so fashionable. It’s dictated by the New
Chivalry.
This, of course, doesn’t mean
Palin possesses no secondary qualifications.
Sure, she doesn’t look like Janet Reno, she doesn’t require a bigamous
relationship with a teleprompter to string two sentences together, she is
somewhat magnetic and is fairly sound ideologically. But ask yourself this: Would she have been
selected had her name been Scott Palin?
Would she get the Elvis treatment?
Come on, now, be honest. We all
know the answer.
When pondering our time, I
can’t help but think of that apocryphal saying, “When small men cast long
shadows, it’s a sure sign that the sun is about to set.” Where is the sun relative to America? We’ll Bork a Bork, Quayle a Quayle, elect an
Obama and then convince ourselves that Palin is the answer, the next Ronald
Reagan. But she is no Ronald Reagan. In fact, she’s no Sarah Palin.
Don’t get me wrong, if she
were, somehow, the nominee in 2012, I’d still editorialize against Obama. And I’ll give her just due. Having her Down’s syndrome child, Trig, was
not only the moral thing to do, it was also admirable. Moreover, in this world where one-child
policies are respected but Western population implosion is the reality, her
willingness to have five children is praiseworthy. Yet she and her family would be better served
if she stayed home with them. And, if
I’m correct, she’ll have plenty of time to do just that.
This piece first appeared at American Thinker
© 2010 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved
selwynduke.com 
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