Palin: A cult figure, but she's not going to be presidential nominee (LAT)

[somone]

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/13/opinion/la-oe-mcmanus-column-palin-20110113

Los Angeles Times
Palin comes out swinging, and misses
January 13, 2011 | Doyle McManus

...The Arizona shootings and their aftermath will probably be remembered as the end of Palin's chances of being taken seriously as a Republican presidential candidate. She had an opportunity to rise to an occasion, and she whiffed. Palin's viability as a presidential candidate had already been diminishing. The decline started with her abrupt resignation from her day job as governor of Alaska in 2009. Last year, one of massive success for conservative Republicans almost everywhere, she had the almost unique distinction among major GOP figures of seeing her standing plummet.

That was true long before the tragedy in Arizona revived a once minor controversy over Palin's rhetoric in last year's campaign, when she urged her followers to "reload" and produced a map of select Democratic congressional districts, including Giffords', marked by cross-hairs... Her principal accomplishment over the past year, it seems, has been to alienate more voters. Republican officeholders, fundraisers and political strategists aren't flocking to Palin's side either... That's one reason so many other serious Republican politicians, at least 12 by last count, are thinking about running: They don't think Palin stands in their way...

By "blood libel," Palin also confirmed something that should disqualify the former Alaska governor from ever seeking higher office: She has no sense of proportion. Palin says her words could not possibly have created a climate of violence, but claims her opponents' words are certain to. What was missing in her statement? Any acknowledgment, even implicit, that anyone on her own side had ever stepped over the line as well. Even her own aide, Rebecca Mansour, acknowledged implicitly last week that gun sights on a map weren't a good idea. (Those weren't gun sights, just "surveyors' symbols," she said — even though Palin herself once referred to them as "bull's-eyes.")

Doubtless there are conservatives who will thrill to Palin's pugnacity. But voters in the center, where presidential elections are won, don't like the idea of politics as a blood sport... She's making her mark as a leader of one faction, but only one. She's a genuine cult figure, raising millions of dollars from donors, selling books and starring on television. But she's not going to be her party's presidential nominee.

[Doctor_J]

1. Really revolting

We're discussing her potential as president instead of whether she should be incarcerated.

[DBoon]

2. and that she warrants political commentary in a major newspaper

instead of a front page article in the National Enquirer

[kestrel91316]

3. When the corporate shills at LAT don't even like you, you know you are in trouble.

[TlalocW]

4. Yes, she will be

Her ego won't allow not being one.

1. She's still pissed off about losing to Obama and wants to settle the score.
2. She wants to throw a win in the face of everyone who discounted her from Couric to McCain staffers upset about her being a loose cannon to everyone else who knows she's not qualified.
3. The media have already made her out to be a king maker. Even if she doesn't last past a few primaries, she can still attempt to have the remaining candidates jumping through hoops for her endorsement, meaning the tea partiers will line up behind whomever she chooses.
4. As the primaries and the general election continue, she will get less and less face time as an analyst, and she can't have that.

TlalocW

[nxylas]

5. Her ego won't allow her not to be a candidate

However, she doesn't get to decide whether she's the eventual nominee.

[skepticscott]

10. She will almost certainly run

but she does not have the stomach for all of the hard work that goes into a presidential campaign. Remember she was only on the McCain ticket for 2 months, and his people did most of the heavy lifting. She also does not have the people and organizational skills to create and maintain an effective organization. She wants attention and to have the cameras on her, but she'll quickly find that there's much more to the campaign than that. On top of that, the Republican party will do everything possible to make sure she isn't the candidate.

She'll run, her campaign will fizzle, and she will blame the media, her opponents, the party, her campaign workers, and everyone else but herself.

[swilton]

6. The Republican Party loves to nominate 'empty suits'

ala George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan...

Having said that - there is truth to the question that asks - why give the woman so much publicity?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. That is a pretty good assessment

She can avoid accountability and still make speeches and otherwise rabble rouse. Good gig if you can get it

[Axrendale]

8. It is indeed looking more and more as though any hopes she has of securing the GOP nomination

have been well and truly scotched by her own ineptitude, bad attitude, and hideosouly poor choice of words. Personally however, I continue to hope and pray that her ego will drive her to make the dive into seeking the nomination in 2012. If by some perverse miracle she should actually succeed in securing it, then we are looking at a result on election day that would make the voters' rejection of Barry Goldwater in 1964 look like an open-armed embrace. And if, as would be more likely, she tries but fails to secure the nomination, then she is just about the one prominent conservative crazy and egotistical enough to actually form a third party. If that happened, then the only feasible result would be a twisted version of the 1912 outcome: a sweeping Democratic victory.

[nxylas]

12. Until recently, I'd have said be careful what you wish for

After Reagan and *, I didn't want to fall into the "she's too stupid to get elected" trap. But I do think that her narcissistic and self-pitying response to the Arizona shootings has effectively killed her political career. That and the fact that her crosshairs and talk of reloading has become linked to those shootings in the public mind. Perhaps unfairly so, since there's no evidence that Loughner was a Palin fan, but then there's no evidence that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim who was born in Kenya either, so it's hard to feel much sympathy. For years, Palin and her ilk have been telling us that facts don't matter, that we should listen to our guts and that reason and logic are for elitist girlie-men, so she shouldn't really complain when that comes back to bite her in the ass. But of course she will. Constantly.

[boomerbust]

9. I think Palin

Will get the Puke nomination and become the sacrificial lamb just like McCain. That way they will be rid of her once and for all.

[IDemo]

11. No repug nomination. But she'll be in the mix

There may be a very loud floor fight from her remaining cultists, but there is zero chance of her gaining either the presidential nomination or the vice president slot. Ain't gonna happen.

She will instead run as an independent/Tea/Angry Merkans With Pursed Lips candidate and put her name in the history books next to Nader.

[Jefferson23]

13. Palin won't be the nominee if Jeb Bush has anything to say about it.

Oh and his Mom too. "I sat next to her once, thought she was beautiful, and I think she's very happy in Alaska," Bush said. "And I hope she'll stay there."