Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

The Gipperette?

I’m not yet ready to anoint Hurricane Sarah as the next Reagan, though Michael Reagan is, but I am reminded of another obvious parallel: liberals initially, and probably henceforth, underestimated her. Liberals never got this about Reagan until it was way too late. Recall Hamilton Jordan, Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff, saying in 1980 that the election "wouldn’t even be close." He was right, of course.

I also have in my first Reagan book a comment someone in Sacramento made to Newsweek about Reagan in 1970: “People who come up against him think he’s a dumb movie actor, and they wind up in pieces.” I suspect we’ll see why she got the nickname "Sarah Baraccuda."

Discussions - 9 Comments

Michael Reagan is carried away. The fact that the woman gave a few speeches in front of a friendly crowd and comes from a small town does not make her the next standard bearer of the Republican party.

It's disgusting (or maybe it just shows our desperation to find an heir), that so many Republicans are ready to crown her Reagan 2.0.

Interested, I think it is a matter of needing hope. It may be wishful thinking and false hope, but we don't know her well enough, yet, to know. She probably doesn't know what she has in herself, either. Who of us really does? Maybe she is all this. We'll find out.

All this audacity of hope is pretty funny. Neocons and evangelicals are 'hoping' enough people will be hoodwinked into thinking McCain is an agent of change, and that Palin will energize the base turnout. Some of the people on this site proclaiming Palin as the future of the republican party are ridiculous. Plucked from obscurity, small-town hot librarian? Word is she will not even have a single press conference before the election. That is not sarah-barricuda, that is sarah-goldfish.

Steve: Did you notice the song choice of Heart's "Barracuda"? Excellent. Some people have a way of living up to their nicknames and their reputations--particularly when there's so much enthusiasm behind them. I liked what you said about the way she grinned as she fought. Her part of the bargain in this wizened mentor meets eager and brilliant student meme may be to teach McCain how to be a HAPPY warrior.

ren, look at this. Nobody here is looking to hood-wink. They are looking to persuade to conservative principles and think Palin is a good persuader. "Word" might be whatever it is, but who knows how that will play out. Honestly, a press conference would be like putting a barracuda in with a whole pool of piranhas. Why would anyone do that to her or her to herself? The media is already trying to kill her with a thousand cuts from a distance. How nasty would that woman have to be to defend herself? Do that and look happy while doing it? That's a big order.

Just heard that the gals from Heart are now calling on the GOP and Palin to cease and desist in using the song "Barracuda" because they don't like Sarah. More proof that artists are the tools of their muses and sometimes cannot even understand their own art.

Palin should not give a press conference, not because it would belittle her image, but because images have overtaken any possible content that would emerge from such an event. Baudrillard was right - They have become like second-level irony exchanges, no longer having anything to do with the exchange of information or truth. They are pre-scripted answers to pre-scripted questions choreographed with pre-scripted images which no longer have anything to do with a post-scripted reality. They derive from a kind of debasement of meaning itself into visceral images and visual motifs like flags and clothes and lapel-pin props. Press conferences are anti-gravity vortexes spinning off youtube fragments and soundbites. They are now so unbearably fusional that their meaning gets reconstructed in phantasmagoric ways (such as in batman motifs and movie trailers). Palin does not even have to be vetted – she was pre-fabricated as a fossil without having passed through the geological strata of time.

Nobody is the new Reagan, and no one is the lone hope of a political party. There are standard bearers to be sure, and they become standard bearers because they show an ability to motivate. More importantly, those they lead are willing to accept their leadership. In this regard Sarah Palin has the advantage over ren's great hope, because no matter what happens in this election Palin in some form will endure. Obama's survival depends on victor, and if he loses, the man will be tossed under the bus quicker then you can drive over a speedbump.

Steve: if she's not Reagan 2.0 she certainly is a Reaganite. Remember that Sarah is 44, meaning that she was 20 in 1984 during the height of the Reagan Presidency, the time when most of us form our basic political ideas. While older politicians may try to imitate Reagan, Sarah seems to have been molded at an impressionable age by Reagan's own demeanor -- bold independence, self-reliance, character, optimism, idealism, and a practical, no-nonsense view of the world. Regards, Tim

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