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Post by K-Box on Jul 3, 2009 13:37:56 GMT -8
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 3, 2009 14:38:43 GMT -8
The gift that keeps on giving ... keeps on giving!!!
She is totally not out of politics for good -- unless there is a massive, MASSIVE scandal out there that is days away from breaking. And it would have to be a pretty frakking major scandal to derail the person who kept right on soldiering through Troopergate, Levigate and Babygate.
This whole thing has me speculating wildly. Announcing it on Friday morning, before limited press, on a holiday weekend, says one of three things:
1. She totally, TOTALLY did not think this through. Unlikely. Palin is dumb in a lot of ways, and she's no media maestra, but even she and her staff would be aware of Take Out The Trash Day. 10 percent.
2. She intentionally timed it this way to minimize reporting coverage. Plausible, and most likely, although I don't think it makes a lot of sense. Hell, she's had weeks of bad headlines, but this sure puts the Vanity Fair debacle off the radar. For a person obsessed with national coverage, why try to cut out the media? However, she IS tone-deaf enough to think that by sticking it to the media this way, she's scoring some points, even when the only person who thinks so is herself. 75 percent.
3. This decision was made in a MAJOR hurry. Unlikely, but plausible enough that it has to be considered, especially in light of the Sanford mess. But to be totally honest, I would be hard pressed to think of a scenario bad enough that it would make Palin decide, in a matter of hours or days, to quit the governorship. Hell, her hard-right supporters are so intent on her that she could be revealed to have had an affair, an abortion AND shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, and they'd fall all over themselves to excuse her. (Remember the wild cognitive dissonance that allowed the family-values crowd to view Bristol's pregnancy as both a positive message for abstinence and a postive anti-abortion message, while in no way short-circuiting in their own minds the Palin family values themselves?) But god knows there's bad enough things out there. Especially if they're on videotape. 15 percent.
However -- and I'm writing all this on the fly, so forgive the disconnect -- I find myself wondering if the fallout from the Vanity Fair piece is in fact responsible for this. If there IS some kind of secret, Todd Pardum didn't find it out, but now we've had a week of Palin-haters and Palin-defenders lining up the circular firing squad, and with all the accusations being thrown one way and another, it's entirely possible that this dredged up some kind of secret that had previously managed to stay buried.
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Post by K-Box on Jul 3, 2009 15:41:32 GMT -8
I'm calling it right now:
Another Argentinian mistress.
And Larry Flynt literally drops dead from happiness.
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Post by jessebaker on Jul 3, 2009 16:19:56 GMT -8
Serious dude, SERIOUS..... Palin's leaving of the Alaskan Governorship is NOTHING MORE, NOTHING FUCKING MORE, than sweet Sarah laying the groundwork for her run for the Republican nominee for President in 2012. Quitting now means that she can start dedicating her entire life to two things: 1. Fundraising her little ass off to get the warchest needed to make a serious push for the nominee. It's an expensive thing, running for President and Sarah's going to need to make a shitload of money to make serious bid for the nomination. Which means she can't waste time being governor when she can be out scamming and skirting the letter of law building up her bank account for running for office. 2. Building up her profile to be a credible nominee for President, by way of both fading away from the public eye (since as a private citizen she won't be under as much massive scrutiny than if she was still governor) AND being free to engage in various bits of Republican backslappery as far as campaigning for other GOP folk and generally build up her support within the batshit crazy rank and file as the savior of the GOP. |
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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 3, 2009 16:36:11 GMT -8
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/03/politics/main5131961.shtmlShe's whining about people being mean to a "Trig"? Says we need more Trigs in this country? I don't even know who or what the fuck Trig is, beyond the math course. Why? Because I can't follow every inept governor in the country. Between watching Rick Perry fuck up everything except his hair and Ah-Nuld chain smoking cigars while apparently driving California further into the depths of Depression with this IOU business (how would you like to be getting one of those from the California government right about now? )...I'm done with that business. Good riddance to bad rubbish. If she's seriously expecting to make a shot at the White House in 2012 and this isn't just the precursor to a major scandal popping loose like a breast from a loose bra, well, it'll be fun to watch.
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 3, 2009 17:06:07 GMT -8
Trig is her newborn son, with Down's Syndrome. And yes, every political commentator in the nation is wondering what the hell she's talking about, because while her family has received all kinds of rhetorical hell in the last year, I don't recall a single mean thing being said about Trig. Unless you count that rumor that Bristol was his mom.
The more I think about it, the more I think it really is an enormously ham-fisted way to clear her path for 2012. Hilariously enough, the way candidates are getting knocked down all over the place, there's a really good chance Sarah Palin will be the last one standing. Well, maybe her and Romney. Damn near nobody else remotely has the profile to give this a shot (Gingrich is frakking dreaming if he really thinks he can land it) and I'm pretty sure 2010 is just going to dig the Republicans deeper into their hole without a leader emerging. If there isn't a big scandal on this one, then there's probably not going to be anything left hidden in her closet, not the way everyone's picked through her past already.
God, I HOPE she gets the nomination in 2012, if only to see the way Obama takes her apart during the debates. I mean, this woman managed to look stiff and out-of-touch next to JOE BIDEN! And as moronic a spectacle she made of herself in 2008, from everything we hear behind the scenes, she wanted to be MORE out front and make a BIGGER fool of herself all the way through, right up to trying and failing to grab the spotlight from McCain at the concession speech.
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jul 3, 2009 19:36:18 GMT -8
I'll chime in on this one,
1) I agree with Jesse on this much; assuming this is part of some grander political scheme, then she is going to huddle down with Bill Kristol and his bunch to raise money and lock the evangelical vote in the South NOW to prep - otherwise, the evangelicals in a Republican primary will split between her and Mike Huckabee (Give Huckabee this; he may be backwards when it comes to a lot of social issues like gay marriage, but he actually BELIEVES in a lot of the socialism of helping poor people with more than words, and this scares the shit out of the economic Republicans who fear his breed of socialism worse than Obama's). Jesse's also right about the fundraising - running for president in 2012 will be a billion-dollar job, and the money to do that is *not* going to be in Alaska, even IF all the oil barons line up behind her. Nevermind that she doesn't want to be seen as the "oil candidate"
2) The Massive Scandal Theory- I have no idea what this could be that could be demonstrably worse than what we saw in the election - the ignorance, the double-standards, the expense accounts for clothing, her husband being a separatist*, her own involvement in fringe christianity, Trig and Bristol, and Joe the Plumber and Drill Baby Drill. The only possibilities that I can dream up are:
-we find out that her entire personal fortune is funded by crystal meth (apparently Wasilla *is* the per capita meth capital of the US)
-she was involved in the Jack Ryan sex club/swapping scandal and almost had a menage a trois with Jeri Ryan (and I've now given Kirk an idea for a Sarah Palin/7of9 fanfic....) or something similar.
-There are pictures of her gunning down endangered animals.
-There are pictures and videos of her and bunch of rich Alaskans who have a RL version of "The Deadliest Game" hunting down convicts on snow machines in the Alaskan wilds
3) The "I'm sick of all this shit and quitting because I can't take it anymore" - you know, I'm going to come out and say this is the most likely story. My reasoning is that her bio shows she's never really been one to stand up to a challenge without having to completely reverse herself and/or bluff to get out of it - and that this hasn't worked too well in a 24/7 video media world.
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Post by Anders on Jul 4, 2009 1:29:34 GMT -8
Ah-Nuld chain smoking cigars while apparently driving California further into the depths of Depression with this IOU business Not to derail too badly, but the problem there is California's constitution and voters. If I'm not misinformed, raising taxes in California requires a qualified majority referendum while allocating tax money only requires a simple majority. That this will lead to problems should be obvious to anyone. |
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Post by jasonlatta on Jul 4, 2009 10:31:44 GMT -8
I have a different perspective on it, but I'll do a little reading about what you said first before I reply. I could be wrong.
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Post by K-Box on Jul 4, 2009 12:14:20 GMT -8
Completely new, utterly random and highly unlikely theory?
The original rumors about Trig were only half-wrong.
Sarah Palin is his mom, as she claimed ... but Levi Johnston is his dad.
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 4, 2009 17:48:38 GMT -8
The only way that story could possibly be better would be if Mark Sanford were the dad.
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Post by K-Box on Jul 4, 2009 22:02:22 GMT -8
Levi as the dad works much better for eventual adaptation into an actual porn film.
MILF-IN-LAW GOVERNOR, STARRING LISA ANN AS SERRA PAYLIN
Although, if you set up a Luke/Darth thing of Sanford being Levi's father ...
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Post by Anders on Jul 7, 2009 7:29:58 GMT -8
abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8016906&page=1Palin said there is a difference between the White House and what she has experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the "department of law" would protect her from baseless ethical allegations."I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out," she said.
There is no "Department of Law" at the White House. ;D
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Post by K-Box on Jul 7, 2009 13:01:52 GMT -8
I can actually imagine President Palin setting up a Department of Law ... and a Ministry of Truth ...
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 7, 2009 13:48:25 GMT -8
Plus, the office of White House Legal Counsel and the Department of Justice -- which are probably the organizations she's thinking of, not only wouldn't automatically throw them out, but they'd hit her harder than Alaska ever did. Clinton went tens of millions of dollars into debt hiring lawyers to defend against his own DOJ.
And just about the second thing any new president learns, right after "don't even think about trying to ditch the Secret Service," is "never, ever forget the office of legal counsel does NOT work for YOU."
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