Saradice Lost

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Saradice Lost

Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo at 3:00 AM on October 1, 2008.

Palin's "maverickness" may not be maverick at all.



One the most surprising things to me about Sarah Palin is that I had her pegged as someone who was a working cog in the right wing machine --- she's a professional politician, Governor of a rural Red State who comes from the evangelical wing of the party, (Mike Huckabee in pumps although the literal visual there is oddly believable ... ) But the Couric interview shows that she really isn't an engaged member of the Wingnut Right at all. Indeed, she seems more like a casual voter than someone who is professionally involved in partisan politics. It's not that she is a stupid person. Maybe she is, but you can't tell that on the basis of a couple of interviews. But she is dramatically uninformed about current events, history, and even Republican politics.

And what's more interesting is that she doesn't even have the usual Limbaugh-esque, boilerplate talking points at ready disposal or the ability to stay within the parameters of wingnut political gibberish as Bush does. (He was no better informed in 1999 than she is now, but he had the benefit of growing up in a political family and hearing political talk all his life, so he was able to fake the cadences and attitude well enough.)

In fact, it occurred to me today that Palin's "maverickness" may not be maverick at all. It may just be that she didn't know she wasn't supposed to do what she did. It seems entirely possible to me that she thought that going against the oil companies or selling the Governor's jet was a normal thing for a Republican in Alaska to do, not realizing that she was actually doing something that was wholly outside the normal political culture. She just stumbled into doing what she did and everyone thought she was boldly taking on the GOP establishment.

I don't know this, of course. But everything about her screams apathetic, non political person who doesn't even read the newspaper or books --- or even listen to talk radio. That doesn't make her dumb --- a large number of Americans are just like that. But it does make her a very, very unusual politician.

The strange thing is that I honestly think people wouldn't care about that if she were not the first female, from whom more is expected, and if we weren't in such a turbulent time. To me, the fact that McCain is still even within shouting distance of winning with a running mate so dramatically uninformed is some kind of cosmic joke. But I'm not sure that a majority would agree if not for those other circumstances.

Jon Stewart said the other night after one of her bizarre non answers: "Did she win a contest?" I think she did. She won the Hockey Mom contest and got the right to run on the national ticket with John McCain. She was the prototype Republican for the next generation --- someone who knows absolutely nothing about politics at all. I guess they must have figured that Bush's failure was due to the fact that he knew too much.


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