How The Left Went Wrong By Not Getting It Right About Sarah Palin

by Melissa Clouthier | December 8, 2009 10:00 am

Sarah Palin turns out to not be the mindless, soulless creature the left painted her to be during the 2008 election season.

The liberal press, the leftist bloggers, and the activists who hate Sarah Palin succeeded in turning Sarah Palin into a cartoon during the election cycle and many people were inclined to believe them. Sarah Palin interfered, at the time, with what voters wanted at the moment: young, hip, new, black. If she was turned into a moose-killin’, baby-making, no paper-reading, dummie, then people could justify a decision they already wanted to make. And that strategy also worked only as long as the man they elected, Barack Obama stayed young, hip, and new.

Reality hit President Obama who had the misfortune of having to live up to sky-high expectations. But don’t feel too sorry for him. They were his own creation and they came at the expense of women like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. As his star fades, people look around and see what they passed over.

Sarah Palin is looking better[1].

Her new book Going Rogue has sold 2.7 million books and counting. I have it and continue to read it and the more I read it, the more I like Sarah Palin. And that’s the whole point of the book, really: to get Sarah Palin back to neutral public perception ground; to humanize her. She was a cartoon. Now, in her own words (and after reading it, I don’t know how anyone could capture the cadence of rhythm of her rhetorical and prose style, it’s so unique) she’s saying who she is. And she’s believable. And she’s not stupid.

And she’s normal.

The bar was set so low for Sarah Palin, that she’s surprising everyone, including the press[2]. People are even rethinking the Katie Couric interview and Ms. Palin made a really good point: Why not release all the tape, unedited and uncut? If Sarah Palin comes off as such a complete moron, it should harm Sarah Palin worse, not make her look better. A win-win for the left and the press, but Katie Couric won’t release the tape. Too bad, it makes Katie Couric look more like a partisan hack, if that were possible.

Over the next year, I’m guessing that Ms. Palin will just be not scary. In the mean time, she’s hopefully boning up on foreign policy, philosophy, etc. There are hints in her speeches that she’s doing just that.

The press and left will still call her stupid. They did that with Ronald Reagan (doddering grandpa) and Gerald Ford (fumbling moron) and George W. Bush (blathering idiot). Why? Because anyone who disagrees with leftist conventional wisdom is, by definition, stupid. So, once again, the bar will be set so low, even a McChimpyhaliburtan can leap it.

President Obama (dithering on Afghanistan) and the Climategate folks and the Congressional Dems cutting of grandma’s healthcare, have destroyed any reverence for pseudo-intellectualism. Pointy-headed smart looks ineffectual and maybe even evil.

Americans like a pragmatic, action-oriented politician. Smart enough, but not waffling (Obama), haughty (Kerry), and humorless (Gore). By over-selling intellectualism and reducing enemies to mindless dunces, the press and left are themselves, the caricature.

Sarah Palin is turning into a real, fleshed-out human being. Now that she’s established a bare minimum, she can turn toward policy questions. And she has. She has been a fearless critic or encourager depending on President Obama’s policy choices. And if the President keeps making poor choices, her criticism will look genius.

The Left made a big mistake scorning Sarah Palin. They created a solid core of adoring fans and created an image so cartoonish, that she is bound to exceed expectations.

Endnotes:
  1. Sarah Palin is looking better: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/07/cnn-poll-palins-popularity-on-the-rise/
  2. including the press: http://www.melissaclouthier.com/2009/12/06/sarah-palin-is-funny-barney-frank-is-boring/

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