House of Eratosthenes

Sarah Palin may be edging closer to a 2012 presidential run, telling Fox News “I would give it a shot” if the American people think she’s “the one.”

The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee was in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday for the Reagan Dinner, a big GOP fundraiser in the heart of water-testing country for presidential candidates.

Palin has remained coy about her ambitions, but she elaborated a bit in an interview with Fox News, attaching several conditions to the possibility of a 2012 presidential run.

“If the American people were to be ready for someone who is willing to shake it up, and willing to get back to time-tested truths, and help lead our country towards a more prosperous and safe future and if they happen to think I was the one, if it were best for my family and for our country, of course I would give it a shot,” she said.

I’ll make a strong statement of my own: I think we who are following stories like this, know every bit as much about the outcome of Sarah Palin’s decision, as Sarah Palin does.

I’ve been in her shoes many a time — with my name offered as a candidate for some position of leadership.

No, settle down…nobody’s asked me to run for President just yet. Nobody in their right mind anyway.

But other, far more modest, positions. Sometimes I say no, sometimes I say yes. Sometimes I say no and look back on that and go “Yeah, that was a big mistake.” It hasn’t happened the other way quite yet.

But I know from whence she’s coming. If I can’t do the job, but people think I can, and there are no other options, I might as well learn as I go…if I can do the job, but people think I can’t, then I better let someone else take this thing. It sucks big green ones, but sometimes the will of the majority must prevail. There’s no point going against it if they think you can’t do it, and there’s little point going against it if they think you can.

And let’s face it: On whether a meaningful consensus of Americans would be receptive to a Palin presidency…that’s a big fat question-mark.

There are a whole lot of people who have no confidence in her whatsoever, and are never gonna. Perhaps that effectively rules her out as a viable candidate. But if so, you’d have to rule out every single President who ever served, clear back to John Adams in 1797. In other words, this means very little. If Palin is sworn in as our next President, she is going to have her “Hurricane Katrina” or “Gulf Oil Spill” moment, sure as I’m sitting here in my underwear right now…as would anybody else. And in her case, there’s going to be a rousing chorus of “I Told You So’s.” Just as there would be, with anybody else sworn in as our 45th President.

Palin needs just as much time to gauge the public’s readiness to receive her candidacy, as anybody else would. In fact, she needs considerably more. Like the incumbent President she would oppose, she has been polarizing, albeit in a more constructive way. Nobody but nobody, it seems, feels lukewarm about Palin.

It cannot be denied that her ideas have great currency. There is, in fact, a burst of energy behind her ideas right now. Which is interesting, because her ideas are rather plain; in fact, they are wholly lacking in any irony at all. They’re of the “up is up and down is down” variety. NOBODY who is eager to brag about superhuman levels of intelligence and nuance, is going to put any capital behind quaint, plain thoughts like these.

That government which governs best, as Thoreau said, governs least.

If you want the economy to be stronger, don’t fight the people who produce our nation’s wealth. Help them.

Every move we make on foreign policy should make it more rewarding for others to become our friends, or unnecessarily exorbitant to become our enemies. Preferably both.

Make it inexpensive to hire people, or to keep them on board once you have them hired. Then, maybe businesses will keep people on board…and perhaps hire some more.

If your idea is bad, I don’t care how smart you are.

You want a “stimulus”? Cut taxes. There, that’s all the stimulus you should want or need.

A mosque at Ground Zero? That’s a no. The relevant rule is called the “don’t be a dick” rule, and yes it pertains to that dick down in Florida who wanted to burn the Korans.

Once I’m in, I’m in. If you don’t do what I say, I’ll fire you. If I’ve fired someone, and you run interference to try to get him un-fired, I’ll fire you too. When I’m elected to an office to deliver a message and set a tone, that message is going to get delivered, that tone is going to be set, and you’d best stay out of the way.

We’ve got some people in what could be called menial jobs, who are doing some wonderful, glorious things and they deserve our respect. Yes, we have ranks, we have pay grades, we have titles…but that only means so much. Anyone who’s doing something you might not be ready, willing or able to do yourself, regardless of what they pull down for an hour on the job before overtime, is deserving of your respect.

If the idea has been tried before a few times, and it hasn’t worked yet, then let’s shelve it until someone makes it work.

Alternative fuels are great, but until they’re on the assembly line, mass production, competitive in total-cost-of-ownership, energy density and ease of replenishment…drill baby drill!

Dads should instill strength and wisdom.

Moms should instill strength and wisdom.

Men should instill loyalty, trust and chivalry.

Women should instill grace, charm and decorum.

Boys and girls should possess and accumulate courage, integrity, alertness, innocence, intellect and skill.

The Government should fear the citizens, not the other way around.

When you believe in things like these, you pass up chances to show off how much smarter you are than everybody else. That, I’m thinking, is why Barack Obama & friends don’t believe in them. You’re looking here, folks, at the reason why Obama ideas tend to be bad ideas. When you ascend to “There’s Just Something About Him!!” levels of wonderfulness, you can’t ever be caught peddling a mundane idea…even in situations where the mundane idea is the only one that will net some positive results…or where the mundane idea is the only non-destructive, non-toxic one. You have to peddle poison. You have to do whatever is ironic. Whatever grabs attention. Whatever says “the world is flat and wet is dry and up is down.”

Because extraordinary people do not believe what ordinary people believe. They aren’t allowed to. That’s why the last two years have been so wretched for so many people. Any idea that would really lower our unemployment rate, strengthen our economy, encourage our nation’s friends, discourage our enemies…has been summarily eliminated from the discussions, where discussions count, at the very first stage. Demigods like Barack Obama have a responsibility. They can’t go thinking ordinary thoughts, putting their glorious weight behind mundane, mortal ideas. Might hurt their mojo.

So we have to keep trying “ironic” ideas. Down-is-up-and-up-is-down ideas. Of course they don’t work…and when they don’t, there’s always some wonderful excuse.

Well, the public seems to have tired of this. I believe comment-poster Jason spoke for my nation, when he said:

This is why I laugh at the accusation that Palin is an airhead. If this is what we get when the smartest guy is in the big chair, I think I’d prefer the airhead.

For the last two years, I’ve been debating with liberals on the innerwebz. Actually, it’s more accurate to say I’ve been debating them, rather pointlessly, for two dozen years, off and on. Yeah, really. Well, in recent times I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of watching them become more insecure, more brittle, more agitated, as their Holy Man has spent His goodwill. Now, Palin has become a more and more pivotal force in our nation’s politics, and they’re borderline apoplectic.

Cornered, they are demanding something out of me and people who think like me. They want a simple acknowledgment of the one point they seem to think is absolutely devastating to a Palin candidacy. The last time I was beckoned to grant my approval to this simple truth, was just a handful of hours ago. And the simple truth is this: That Palin is ordinary. There’s little-to-nothing that is special about her.

This is either a Saul-Alinsky tactic to get the opposition pissed off…or else, it is sincere. Lately I have begun to think it is sincere. They really don’t get it.

You see, we’re living in two different worlds. They want Obama. And before Obama, they wanted Kerry. Before Kerry they wanted Al Gore, and before Gore they wanted Clinton. They don’t care about ideas, they want personality. They want a personality that is so remarkable, that it can be associated with any idea…random ideas…poorly-thought-out ideas…messy hodgepodge ideas…bad ideas…harmful ideas. They want a personality that is a balloon, so buoyant that it can be festooned to the weight of an awesomely bad idea, and still achieve lift. That is what they have been wanting for a very long time.

That is all Barack Obama is. Obama is nothing more than His skin color, coupled up with His hopey-changey-charisma-or-whatever. Obama is a gimmick, one so buoyant that it can be affixed to the dead weight of a bad idea…which, in turn, is selected randomly. That is what He represents.

Those of us who live in the other world, don’t care about the personality too much, we’re all about the idea. Because we work for a living, you see. So we want ideas that will work, like we work.

We want ideas that are so good, that they can be carried aloft by any old personality. The personality of Sarah Palin…or of Ben Stein. Yes, she talks like a dotty old Aunt from Minnesota. Her voice has a warbling sound to it, that I confess I couldn’t listen to twelve hours a day — any more than I could listen to Obama’s smugness for that long.

But her ideas are good. They are effective in their simplicity…and in their truth. They are up-is-up, down-is-down ideas. They are the ideas we need.

Obama took charge, and the unemployment rate rocketed up to 9.5 or 10 or so, and just sat there.

Enough is enough. We, as a nation, are ready to vote on some ideas. And whether Palin receives the vote as a candidate, or not, her ideas are the ones that are receiving the support right now. It can’t be any other way, because at this late date we just can’t afford anything else.

Cult of Personality.
- Kini | 09/18/2010 @ 00:44
I loved how in one article the columnist zeroed in on the use of the words “the one”, noting that it was a term used to describe Barack Obama during his campaign.

‘Cause, you know, “the one” has never, ever been used to denote anyone else, like, ever, for anything.

Sheesh.
- philmon | 09/22/2010 @ 20:24

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