It was a fascinating conversation – at least to me – and I was at the time the odd man out. You’ll see what I mean by ‘at the time’ in a moment.
We were having a wide-ranging political conversation over dinner, and one of the lobbyists posed this question: “Sarah Palin: is she a viable future candidate for national office, or is she done?” I sat silently as, one by one, the five political pros at the table knee-jerked to the “she’s done” posture.
The reasons thrown out for their dismissive posture towards Gov. Palin were predictable: “Too ditzy”, “doesn’t speak well”, “inexperienced”, “knows nothing about foreign policy”, “shouldn’t have resigned her job as governor”, and perhaps most fascinating of all, “doesn’t fit in around here”. This came from the lone female at the table, a lovely woman who grew up in New York state, educated in private schools and Yale, and who worked her entire life in one government job or another before becoming a lobbyist a few years back. Despite that background, she still possesses some modicum of common sense, although she displays all the lack of understanding of middle America you’d expect from a person of her background.
I asked her what she meant by “doesn’t fit in around here”, and again, her reply was predictable. “Look at her education – some mediocre college in Idaho? And that was after she moved around to several other second-rate schools. You’re seriously going to put someone like that in the White House? Plus, what does she know about Washington? Has she ever spent any real time here? The people in this town would eat her alive.” Heads around the table nodded their agreement, and then they all looked at me for my thoughts on the subject.
“First of all,” I said, “the greatest president in any of our lifetimes did not attend an Ivy League university – he had a bachelor’s degree from someplace called Eureka College. So that whole argument carries no weight with me at all – and I would submit to all of you that it carries no weight with 90% of Americans who don’t live in Washington, DC, California, or in the large northeastern cities. Second, that same percentage of Americans could not care less whether or not a presidential or vice presidential candidate has spent any real time in Washington. In fact, I’d suggest that, for millions and millions of ordinary people in this country, the less time a candidate has spent in DC, the better. Third, the current President spend all of 1 year in the U.S. Senate before declaring his candidacy for the Democrat nomination, so experience is obviously not a factor here at all.” They all looked at me like I’d just stepped off a spaceship – again, a very predictable reaction, given the audience.
But I plowed on, pointing out that Palin has three full years to learn about policy, foreign and domestic, and no doubt had already established a network of advisors to serve as de facto tutors. That’s if she wants to run in 2012, of course. But the reality is that she is very young in political terms, and could wait until 2016, 2020 or even 2024, and still not be considered too old to serve. There will no doubt be many windows of opportunity for her to re-establish some political viability during all that time. Yes, she has what DC insiders consider to be a funny accent, and yes, the political establishment has collectively labeled her as a dim bulb. But remember, George W. Bush suffered from the same labeling by the same establishment, and managed to serve eight full years in the White House.
I went on to point out that the Obama Administration was moving into a full meltdown stage – which caused chuckles and raised eyebrows around the table – and that, along with what I then saw as the inevitable failure of the Democrats’ cap and trade and healthcare reform agenda would help raise the credibility and approval ratings of Palin specifically and Republicans in general in the public eye. At the time, Palin’s public approval ratings hovered in the mid-30s. Today, they’re in the mid-40s, basically equal to the “brilliant”, Ivy League educated POTUS.
Now, I bring this up not to brag about any prescience on my part – everything I said that night was a simple matter of common sense after all – but to point out that Palin is currently doing everything right, if her goal is to become a viable presidential candidate in the future. She is staying in the public eye, but picking her spots in a way that avoids becoming over-exposed. She regularly weighs in on important issues, and does so in a way that is consistent with conservative principles. And as mentioned above, she reportedly has established a network of key policy advisors who are helping her get better up to speed on foreign and domestic policy matters.
Why do I think these are the right things for her to be doing? Because these are the things Ronald Reagan did to raise his own political viability throughout the 1970s. Reagan’s appeal as a candidate was not to Washington insiders, or those with Ivy League educations: His appeal was to the millions and millions of ordinary Americans who make up the great preponderance of the national electorate. Americans who work hard, teach their kids the difference between right and wrong, and just want the federal government to leave them alone.
People who live in the DC echo chamber tend to forget about such people when engaging in exercises in political calculus such as the one the six of us held that early November evening. They have little understanding of such people, and little desire to learn. The Obama Administration is almost entirely populated with DC insiders, and given that reality, no one should be at all surprised by this President’s precipitous fall from grace in the public’s eye.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, truly understands such people, because she is one of them. Interestingly, three of the five people who were at our table that night have sent me emails over the last couple of weeks, acknowledging that they just might have underestimated the former Alaska Governor.
Personally, I don’t know if I’ll ever cast a vote for Gov. Palin in the future. A lot can happen between now and 2012, much less 2016, 2020 or 2024. What I do know is that right now, she is doing everything right, and that it’s a real mistake to underestimate her.
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