Our political Quote of the Day is actually two Quotes of the Day on whether former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin — who has seen her unfavorable poll ratings shoot up yet remains among top three candidates preferred by GOPers in a new poll — can actually be elected President.
First, from the prominent Republican blog Powerline’s John H. Hinderaker:
The time has come to put any thoughts of Sarah Palin running for President to rest. I say that not because I dislike her; on the contrary, I’m a fan. I think she did an excellent job as a vice-presidential candidate in 2008 and has been an effective spokeswoman for conservative causes in the years since. But there is no way she is ever going to be elected President, and the sooner Republicans get over that idea, the better.
He cites a new poll and then adds:
No one with a 59 percent unfavorability rating among independents has the chance of a snowball in Hell of being elected President. 2012 will be a vitally important election year; it is no time for a kamikaze Presidential campaign or for a cult of personality. Republicans (and conservatives) need a candidate who has a chance to win against an incumbent who, despite everything, is not particularly unpopular and who won’t be able to do much visible damage between now and then.
One hopes that Governor Palin will see the writing on the wall and devote her energies to helping the conservative movement and other, better-positioned candidates rather than to pursuing a Presidential ambition that can only prove destructive.
This is a fact that many Democrats and Republicans who support candidates who at the starting gate appear to be destined to disaster for their parties often forget in their love for their candidates as they slip into a kind of defense lawyer mode for them: when a political party nominates someone, it is a huge investment on which ride not just the political fortunes of the candidate but candidates running for other offices — not to mention the megabucks the party will spend trying to elect its nominee. As Joe Biden would say (we slightly edit this) it’s a “big…….deal.”
Hinderaker also echoes what I have said repeatedly on TMV, in some of my talking-head appearances on cable and in my Cagle.com column: watch the independent voters. Both political parties need them to not just get over the finish line but to achieve viable working political majorities. Palin so far has seemed to be a candidate who not only does not in her present incarnation appeal to independent voters, but seems to be making no effort to do so.
At the San Francisco Examiner, Mark Tapscott adds this:
Hinderaker calls himself a Palin fan, and his Powerline blog, which features him and colleagues Paul Mirengof and Scott Johnson, has always been among the most thoughtful but tough blogs on the Right. So Hinderaker’s conclusion regarding Palin’s suitability for a 2012 White House run carries a lot of weight among folks who would be crucially important to the former Alaska governor’s prospects.
My thought is that Palin’s rising disapproval has less to do with her response to the Tucson Massacre and more to do with public exhaustion. Between her book, her 2010 campaign prominence, the constant nagging of those on the Left who go absolutely berserk at the mere mention of her name, the dramas of her daughter’s success on “Dancing with the Stars” and the Discover Channel reality TV series, Palin has been everywhere for several months.
There is an old maxim that it doesn’t matter what they say as long as they spell your name properly. But here’s another maxim that particular relevance for politicos in the Media Age – Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing when there is no escaping the good thing.
Fair enough. Palin’s problem is compounded by overexposure. But it can’t truly be blamed substantially due to criticism from the left– the way American politics operates 24/7 rage hammering each other side can be expected now from the left and right since it is now both the 21st century style of political communication and the way many info outlets in print, broadcast, cable and cyberspace get and keep audiences. Palin’s polls and the perception of her beyond her loyal group of supporters is due to either a fundamental inability or lack of desire to aggregate interests — an inability to widen her loyal pool of supporters.
She talks mainly to those who support her (typified by her choice of defense lawyer like Sean Hannity for a big exclusive interview after the Tucson flap) and talks at those who do not. She has even labeled some of her own GOP critics “limp.”
Unlike many, I do NOT agree that she is unelectable. There are a variety of scenarios that could end up with her being in the Oval Office. And since she (so far only) talks with those who already agree with her, she would bring a new brand of divisiveness to an divided country, far beyond some of the polarizing Presidencies we have seen so far.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.