Palin redux
The first thing I note in The Weekly Standard insta – piece from William Kristol on Sarah Palin’s resignation…
… Hey! Finally The Weekly Standard is looking to someone besides Reagan as a historical model to connect. Margaret Thatcher!Â
Which is good, because otherwise I’m stuck with Kristol’s clever “unconventional thinking”. Sarah Palin is off and running for president.
I suppose she’ll take a hit for leaving the governorship early – but how much of one? She’s probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor.
I will now farm out to an Alaskan the question of what it is Palin has accomplished.
I will give Kristol this: We do live in a system which rewards electoral mediocrity. A presidential candidate has to step aside any political controversy that may undo him/her. And avoid leaving a record to pick apart.  It looks like the future lies with single-term Senators and governors who can step away before the effects of an economic down-turn force harsh decisions.
Palin may also be truncating the Nixon approach, I suppose. Out of office, you shore up a “machine” and obstensibly campaign for the party in the mid-term. It strikes me as a debased version of that, but then again the “Experience versus New face” campaign of Clinton versus Obama bama versus Clinton as a reprise of Johnson versus Kennedy seemed kind of shaky — Clinton’s tenure of Senatorial experience matching the “new face” Kennedy.
All in all, it’s going to be a high-wire act. The odds are against her pulling it off. But I wouldn’t bet against it.
I would.
In other news, Palin is threatening to sue for libel irresponsible rumor mongerers.
The type of rumor which stems from trying to make sense of puzzling mid-term resignations.
Wait. This is another clever Nixonian ploy!
Palin… will… be president. Just you watch!