What Shall We Do With Sarah?

In the wake of their worst defeat since 1976, the Republican Party needs to make important strategic choices--including their Presidential candidate for 2012.

By Lynn Rene Bayley

On December 12, 2008, arsonists torched the Wasilla, Alaska Bible Church, popularly known as the "home church" of Gov. Sarah Palin. Fire department investigators found evidence of flame-enhancing chemicals ("ignitable accelerants") poured on and around the exterior of the church, clearly indicating arson. The church suffered $500,000 in damages, but more than the physical damage to the structure was the clear message to Gov. Palin: Stay where you are, shut up, and don't run for national office.

The hubris of the arsonists would have been unthinkable in any other election year and, one would think, anywhere else in the United States, but we are no longer the United States of ten years ago. In case you've been living under a rock during 2008, you will have noticed that our society, supported and even pressured by the mainstream media, has usurped the power of average working people to select their leaders based on an objective assessment of their abilities, as well as the power of people to defend themselves against psychological abuse from pressure groups within and outside the media, bullying tactics by minorities who can (and do) claim disenfranchisement, and voter fraud on such a massive scale that the media which "covered" it didn't even pretend to be unbiased. On the contrary, the usurpers, bullies and fraudsters are lauded as Heroes of the People, invited as honored guests on TV news and talk shows while any opposing voice was shut out and dismissed as shrill, unfair, and racist. Indeed, on December 18, I received a surprise e-mail from an angry person who usurped my address from a Yahoo group I belong to: "I suppose you right-wing fascists approved the burning of black churches."

Nevertheless, the failure of the Republican Party to mount any viable opposition to these threats to intellectual and social freedom was not entirely the fault of the Obama campaign and the media that supported it. There were two other major factors at work here: first, that the greatest economic collapse since 1929 happened on the watch of a Republican president, and second, that the party--for whatever reason--pulled back all resources, called off the dogs, and allowed themselves to be steamrolled.

The defining moment of the election seemed not so much to be the collapse of the Wall Street investment banks--though that was an important turning point--but one particularly rally for the GOP's Presidential candidate, John McCain. Frightened voters, panicked that a radical Socialist might be taking over the reins of their nation, screamed at McCain that Barack Obama was a militant Muslim. This particular charge was, of course, untrue, but instead of taking advantage of this opening and running with it to criticize Obama for wanting to dampen individual incentive, ruin the energy economy by shutting down clean coal, give money we no longer have to foreign countries that have not earned our support and promote the largest tax-and-spend program in our nation's history, McCain looked at his audience and said, "No, sir, youre wrong, he's a Christian. And you need not fear an Obama presidency (italics mine)."

At that precise moment, McCain lost the election, although he actually lost his lead a week or two earlier. Suspending his campaign to rush to Washington to come "to the aid of my country" in helping resolve the collapse of Wall Street, McCain did not lead the charge against the bailout, but rather joined Democrats in pushing for it. Taxpayers were calling and e-mailing their representatives at a ratio of 300 to one against the bailout, but Senator McCain went the opposite route. (Ironically, Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich--of all people--was the most vocal opponent of this and later bailouts.)

How different it had been for McCain on August 29, when he announced the most surprising choice for his running mate that could be imagined, is now almost lost in memory. Those two weeks, in which Gov. Sarah Palin, fresh of face and entirely new to the national scene, woke people up and galvanized the working-class base of the GOP, may someday go down in history as the new reawakening of American politics. In the remaining time on the campaign trail, Palin was everywhere: two straight days of interviews on ABC television, an abrupt and cleverly hacked-up interview with CBS's Katie Couric, the most-watched Vice Presidential debate in history, an appearance on Saturday Night Live, and of course, hundreds of campaign stops, attacking Obama and presenting her populist agenda--"I'm not going to Washington to represent them, I'm going there to represent you!”--almost in defiance, and certainly in stark contrast, to McCain's laid-back, foxy-grandpa tactics.

The net result of this was something the media rarely if ever reported on because they had absolutely no interest in presenting a fair image of the campaign. Sarah Palin--not John McCain, and not Barack Obama except in pre-arranged media events--was drawing spontaneous crowds of up to 60,000 people everywhere she went. Spectators starving for a glimpse of the candidate who Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher later praised as "the real deal" woke up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning, drove long distances and waited on line for up to six hours just so they could see and hear Gov. Palin in person. The Obama-Biden camp was freaking out. They could see the Sarah Steamroller coming their way, they couldn't get off the tracks in time, and their political goose was cooked.

Happily for them, the biased attack dogs in the media were working overtime to "dig something up" on Palin. The best they came up with was a ludicrous situation which they gave an equally ludicrous name to, "Troopergate." Gov. Palin had supposedly abused her power to fire Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monogan, because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper. Troopergate was milked by the media for six weeks before it finally came out in two separate investigations that she had done nothing legally wrong or ethically questionable. (The trooper had pulled a loaded gun on her parents, and was likewise threatening Palin and her immediate family.) With that down the tubes, they tried to make her look unethical by saying that she "supported the 'Bridge to Nowhere' before she opposed it." This was a question of semantics. Palin personally opposed the bridge but, since her constituents wanted the Federal money for infrastructure, she acquiesced to their wishes until it became an embarrassment.

Throughout all these accusations and smears, however, Palin continued to draw amazingly huge crowds, so her detractors had to turn to other tactics. They had to "Dan Quayle" her, turn her into somebody too stupid to run for office or to be trusted. Thus came a barrage of insults, lies, and threats against her that never stopped to take a breath, certainly they did not stop long enough to question a single one of them: Sarah Palin banned books when she was Mayor of Wasilla. Sarah Palin was a stupid Barbie-doll candidate, indeed a virtual sex doll for perverted Republican men to drool over. She made moronic comments such as "I can see Russia from my house" (actually a quip from her comic impersonator, actress Tina Fey) and that Obama wanted to give aid to "countries like Africa" (a made-up line spread over the Internet by a fictional think-tank representative, Martin Eisenreich). She was stupid and couldn't talk in complete sentences (she has an IQ of 122 and graduated with a major in Journalism and a minor in Political Science from the University of Idaho). She "bilked" the public funds on which the campaign was run for $150,000 in new clothing. (The wardrobe was bought by the campaign for her to wear at the convention hall and on the campaign trail because her own clothes were deemed to be too plain. They were all returned to the campaign plane after the Election and donated to charity.)

Worse yet were the words and images of Palin as an inhuman, malignant, demonic force determined to crush individual freedom. There were images on the Internet of Sarah Palin as a Barbie doll, as a sex doll, and as a vampire with red eyes and slobbering, bloody mouth. Comedian David Letterman has taken every opportunity to promote the lies about Palin, recently adding a tasteless remark about the church burning. Another comedian, Sandra Bernard, apparently thought it terribly funny and not beyond the pale to call Gov. Palin an "Uncle Women," a "turncoat bitch" and a "whore," suggesting that Palin should be "gang-raped by black men if she comes to Manhattan." (On the contrary, the Washington Examiner's Barbara Mackay said that, "in the end, Bernhard's message is positive.") Gov. Palin's private e-mail address was hacked into, her personal messages smeared all over the Net. The media found that funny as well.

Yet even to many Republicans, particularly social moderates, Palin had other issues that bothered them, particularly her adamant pro-life stance. A conservative Christian, she does not believe in abortion even in cases of rape or incest. This has led abortion-rights feminists to attack her as if she were the anti-Christ, a highly ironic and dubious charge. The truth is, as Palin told ABC's Charles Gibson, "I represent a diverse community of people in Alaska. Although that is my personal view, I would at least like to have a dialogue with the other side. I think we can at least agree to reduce the number of abortions in this country; that would be a start." And, ironically, her stance on gay rights is not in lockstep with Christian conservatives either. She fought members of her own party in Alaska to allow same-sex couples the same rights to financial control, property rights and visitation enjoyed by heterosexual couples.

This, then, is a complex and fascinating woman, someone who truly believes that she represents the people she is chosen to serve. Had she arrived on the scene in 1965 instead of 2008, she would have been viewed not as Bernhard describes her, "You whore in your f--kin' cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up," but as a genuine hero, a representative of the modern woman. Marlo Thomas would be drooling to be her, because Pain is not playing an act--she is totally authentic. Hers is not the kind of political game played in most states, nor the kind of political game played in Washington. Sarah Palin made a lot of enemies on both sides of the political aisle in Alaska, and they joined forces during the campaign to try to destroy her. It's sad but true that many of the attacks on her came from within the GOP by jealous competitors as well as McCain campaign staffers who didn't appreciate her trying to win by being open, honest, and on the offensive.

Of course, there were other forces that led to Republican defeat. In every county, city and town, almost no money or effort was put into the campaign. Most people waited weeks for McCain-Palin signs or buttons; many got none at all. There was no money put into canvassers, phone banks, or any get-out-the-vote effort. Contrast that with what the Democratic Party did, what the Obama campaign did by creating a virtual community on the Internet that supported their candidate while smearing McCain and especially Palin, and what the devious and highly illegal practices of ACORN did in registering homeless people, dead people and cartoon/fictional characters to vote. It may well have been that the McCain-Palin ticket had no chance on the basis of political reality, but we may never know. Had Republican pundits and party leaders defended Palin quickly and consistently, much of the damage would have been minimal. In the end, McCain did something no one though he would ever do. He threw Palin "under the bus" and blamed her for his defeat.

This, then, brings us to the major question of the day, In which direction should the Republican Party turn in coming years? The subsidiary question, of course, is Who could run and defeat Barack Obama in 2012?

Neither the Democrats nor party-insider Republicans want Sarah Palin to run, but oddly, there are opposing views as to why she shouldn't. One side says it's because her staunch pro-life view is "at odds" with the majority of Americans while the other thinks her pro-gay rights image will offend the religious "base." Apparently, Palin cannot win for losing. All she can be is herself, herself is good enough for millions of supporters, but it's not a "marketable package" in the brave new world that the media has created.

But the RNC, and the media, should take note of something important if they haven't already: her popularity is undimmed. When she attended the Republican Governors' Conference in Florida after the election, she was surrounded by the "stars" of the party, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal among them. The crowds and cameras swept past them to get to Sarah. In Senator Saxby Chambliss's run-off election in early December, numerous GOP stars swooped down to Georgia to stump for him, including McCain and former candidates Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, but it was Palin's appearances the day before the election--four rallies that drew crowds of up to 60,000 once again--that turned a seven-point lead into a 17-point victory. This is not a force to be taken lightly. Newspapers that consistently supported Obama and trashed Palin are now struggling for survival, and the TV news media has lost a huge amount of its viewers. They blame this on "changing news sources" such as the Internet. They are quite naive to think so. You don't tell nearly 58 million voters who supported Palin--and make no mistake, they voted for Palin, not McCain--that you consider them stupid, corrupt and "racist." Most of those who opposed Obama were working-class people. They may not have any power to change things other than their vote, but one power they did possess was to stop buying newspapers and watching TV news that abandoned fair and balanced journalism. They may not have any rights by the standards of the Power Elite, but they did have one ability. They could stop buying newspapers and magazines, and stop watching television news stations, that considered them stupid.

If Sarah Palin does plan to run for President--and, of course, that is a decision that only she can make--she should consider talking not only to her base but also to her opposition: AME church groups, disaffected GLBT voters, even abortion-rights activists. She has tremendous powers of persuasion because she has honesty and truth on her side, and Palin always does well when her message is unfiltered. During the past election, the only two times the bulk of Americans heard her unfiltered were her acceptance speech at the RNC and her vide-presidential debate. At several rallies, when hecklers interrupted her, she pleaded for them not to be ejected from the crowd. "Let them stay," she said, over and over again. "Maybe they'll learn something.' In the future, she should try to restrict her TV appearances to "live" programs such as Meet the Press where she can express herself in her own words and terms.

There are several pro-Palin group sites on the Internet, and they are not only talking her up but planning a winning strategy for her should she choose to run. I think that if any political pollster worth his or her salt should research those groups and look at the kind of people there. It is as wide and diverse a support base as any politician has ever had. There are religious conservatives, of course, but also hundreds of thousands of working women and men in a variety of occupations: pilots, teachers, business professionals, chemists, chefs, stay-at-home moms, musicians, pizza delivery people, old Jews, young Catholics, social moderates and even members of the GLBT community. One of the most active and interesting of these groups are the disaffected Hillary Clinton supports, nicknamed "PUMAs" for "Party Unity My Ass." Following the capitulation of their candidate, they were given tacit consent, if not outright encouragement, to move their loyalties over to Sarah Palin. (On the Sean Hannity radio show of December 18, a Democratic, animal-rights-activist mother called in. Her little girls were chanting in the background, "Sarah Palin! Sarah Palin! Sarah Palin!" The mother thought this horrendous and embarrassing for her image because they also do it on the street, and "People will think I'm Republican.")

Many of the Palin supporters, indeed I would say most, are college-educated members of the working poor. They have jobs but barely scrape by for a living. Several of them are African-American, part Cherokee Indian, or part India Indian. This image does not jibe with the projected image the media wants us to believe that Obama and the Democrats represent "the working people." Most of the Obama bloggers were, and are, exactly the kind of spoiled white people formerly identified with the Republican Party, except, of course, for their political ideology.

The Republican Party does not need to move to the center on economic policy, but they do have to recognize that this kind of social diversity is what made the last election even close, avoiding a true mandate for Obama. Even veteran pollster Dick Morris was stunned, following the election, to discover that the entire undecided vote broke for McCain-Palin. All of it. You cannot discount that for the future of the Party. That is three percent of all voters, a not inconsiderable number in the scheme of things.

Like it or not, Sarah Barracuda will be back. And this time, she has a built-in base.