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McCain's revenge? Sarah Palin: The Gift That Keeps on GivingBy Rick Horowitz She won't go away, will she? She won't shut up, will she? Not to be too conspiratorial about it, but what if it was all part of the plan? Here's John McCain, already meeting with Barack Obama to see how they can work together. And here's Sarah Palin, still flapping her gums to every journalist with a microphone handy and five minutes to spare. But what if Sarah Palin is Johnny Mac's revenge? One final flip of the bird to the wing of the party that's been flapping at him for years? The wing that's been a continuing frustration to him, when it hasn't been an outright embarrassment? Unlikely, you say. Sure. But any more
unlikely than that someone with Sarah Palin's background and...skills
would be put just a heartbeat away from something really important?
Any more unlikely than that someone who went in just 10 short weeks
from "hot new thing" to "major drag" could suddenly consider herself
-- and be considered by various delusional others -- to be an actual
contender four years from now for the actual presidency itself? Of the
United States?!! So we're already in the realm of the peculiar. So hear me out: What if John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was his clever vengeance on the Republican right? Put yourself back in the moment. It's late summer, and you're John McCain, about to become the Republican presidential nominee in a year that's absolutely terrible for Republicans. Two wars, an economy already sputtering (and about to shut down completely), a Republican incumbent with subterranean approval ratings, and a country sick to death of all the squabbling and desperate for change. An awful year to be wearing the banner of the GOP, Y-E-S? You've got one chance and one chance only: Shake things up. Do something totally out of the box, something that makes voters take a second look. Choose Sarah Palin as your vice president? Don't be silly! Choose Joe Lieberman! Lieberman's a pal. An experienced hand with national-security credentials, which helps you make your case against Obama. More important, he's a Democrat (more or less) -- he was the Democrats' own vice-presidential nominee just eight years ago! Talk about shaking things up! How cool would that be, to put Joe Lieberman on your ticket? "Not cool at all!" said the Republican right when they heard the rumors. "We'll fight! We'll walk! We'll stay home!" One chance and one chance only, and they were insisting he couldn't do it. He was cooked. Also furious. Enter the lady from Way Up North, with the big smile and the hot boots and the cool story. But also with the yawning gaps in her knowledge, with the "us" and "them" worldview, with the unusual way of expressing herself. ("Unusual" being polite for "incoherent.") At the time, John McCain probably didn't even know about the big Alaska earmarks, or the questionable travel reimbursements, or the pregnant daughter, or the husband with the sudden urge for silk underwear. All that was still ahead. But from what John McCain did know, he had to realize that, eye-candy considerations aside, Sarah Palin was an embodiment -- hell, a caricature! -- of everything he couldn't stand about the right-hand end of the Grand Old Party. Put her on the ticket, and let her implode. Let her take the blame for scaring off the moderate Republicans and independents he'd have needed to have even a shot at winning. And if she should decide to spend the weeks after the coming debacle still blabbing away, so much the better. Every time she opens her mouth, she'll make the Republican right look more and more wrong. "They'll be ruined for a generation!" he's thinking. "That's exactly what they deserve!" Just a theory. Would you rather believe he picked her because he actually thought she was qualified? Posted 11/30/08.
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Rick Horowitz
