An interview with Shushannah Walshe and Scott Conroy, the authors of some behind-the-scenes reportage about Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy, "Sarah from Alaska."
You try hard to be fair in the book, but you chronicle, fairly persuasively, a large number of what seem to be fairly egregious distortions by the candidate. Why does she do this? Why doesn't she, as you wrote, acknowledge uncomfortable truths?
Palin almost always seems outwardly poised and confident in front of a microphone, but she also demonstrates time and again--often in more subtle ways--signs of profound insecurity. It takes a self-confident person to admit mistakes and acknowledge one's own shortcomings, but Sarah Palin is quick to cast aside people who cross her in even minor ways, and her unwillingness to tolerate much dissent often leads to an infallibility syndrome.
At what point did it become clear to Palin that McCain's staff
distrusted her? Did this contribute to her decision to "go rogue"--? Or
did she decide to veer off message before she was mistreated?
It
must have become clear to Palin very early on that many of McCain's
aides distrusted her, since they would not allow her to speak to the
traveling press, even though she wanted to do so. The acknowledgment of
their lack of trust certainly contributed to her "going rogue"
mentality, especially after she became more comfortable on the campaign
trail and realized that she was the candidate, not them. Throughout her
life, as we demonstrate in the book, Sarah Palin has always trusted her
own instincts above all else.
How thorough was her vetting,
really? Could anyone have possibly given her a scrupulous enough vet?
How much of a problem was it that the rest of the campaign had to
struggle to figure out who she was along with the rest of us?
The
vetting was clearly minimal at best. The McCain campaign's priority was
secrecy, not thoroughness. Palin filled out a questionnaire, A.B.
Culvahouse did a phone interview with her for a few hours, Steve
Schmidt and Marc Salter spoke with her in person, and that was about
it. Though they successfully pulled off the secret mission of plucking
the sitting governor from Alaska unnoticed, the consequences of not
thoroughly understanding their own candidate became clear almost
immediately. It was major problem for the communications shop, since
they were unable to handle media requests and answer questions about
Palin quickly and correctly. They knew almost nothing about her at
first and were given no heads up that she was a serious candidate for
the VP slot.
Why did she force Steve Schmidt to tell her children about her decision to run? What was that about?
It certainly seems odd that Palin would have a stranger announce to her
children that their mother was running for vice president. Though we
can't pretend to know for certain why she did so, one McCain staffer
speculated to us that Palin thought that having Steve Schmidt make a
grand announcement would add to the excitement of the event. Still,
Palin's lack of candor about the event in her interview with Sean
Hannity is a perfect example of her tendency to wildly exaggerate the
truth.
Does she want to run for president in 2012? Who does she think she
represents? Does she acknowledge the perception that Americans don't
think she's prepared?
We both strongly believe that she will at least explore the
possibility of running for president in 2012. She has not been very coy
about her presidential ambitions, saying more than once that she would
"crash through" any doors that might open for her on the road to the
White House. She thinks she represents the deeply conservative
Republican base--the people whom she really does seem to believe
represent the "real America." It does not seem that she realizes just
how polarizing she really is. It's important to remember that she spoke
to adoring crowds of tens of thousands of people who hung on her every
word during the 2008 campaign, and she will do the same thing on her
upcoming book tour. Sarah Palin is someone who is heavily impacted by
perceptions she gains from what she sees with her own eyes.
Run, Sarah, run! I'll support you wholeheartedly in pursuit of the nomination!
I am looking forward to the continuation since it did not go into much depth. Muscle Force Max
Any chance on getting an exerpt of the book reprinted? I would love one of the juicier bits.
Motorcycle Parts Accessories
Please Lord,make her run in 2012....
Couldn't agree more, JoriNY. Let's take this freak show national.
Sarah lives in an accountability-free zone. Her appeal is based primarily on two things - (1) who she is, a small-town mom with heartland values, and (2) the fact that she pisses off "elites". These qualities do not require policy smarts or most of the other skills that politicians are normally required to possess to at least some degree, and are in fact inimical to them. A small town mom can't be expected to know a lot about policy - that's for "professional politicians," which Sarah, to her alleged credit, decidedly is not. Thus, even her most ardent supporters among the far right reactionary intelligentsia (yes, that's an oxymoron) say she has a lot to learn, but most view it as more of a feature than a bug.
When it comes to pissing off the "elites" who are "persecuting" her (as stated in the title of Matt Continetti's book), the lack of knowledge works in her favor because it makes her look bad when she's interviewed by people who expect her to know something about the issues of the day. If Sarah can't answer a question from the dreaded MSM, it's taken as proof of the MSM's perfidy rather than Sarah's lack of knowledge.
Imagine a kid who comes home with rotten grades - most parents would say "you'd better buckle down." In Sarah's case, the "parents" are saying "those rotten grades aren't your fault, but your teachers'." You can imagine that a kid with that kind of parents might not work too hard to improve. If her parents actually applauded her for bringing home Cs, Ds and Fs ("That'll show those damn elitist teachers!"), you can imagine that she wouldn't learn much of what the teachers were trying to teach. To put it the way my parents (and a couple of teachers) did when I fell below their expectations, she needs her ass kicked. But, anyone who tries to give Sarah constructive criticism is not trying to help her, but is instead out to get her, so there's no one who can kick her ass.
Let's compare Sarah to another inexperienced politician who did better than she did in 2008, Barack Obama. Obama wrote two books, the first of which is considered pretty darn good by many people. Even so, he has speechwriters. Sarah doesn't - her rambling resignation speech, the speech in Hong Kong, indeed every speech she's made since McCain's staff stopped writing for her - was the product of someone who is not used to organizing her thoughts coherently, and, more importantly, is unwilling to acknowledge that she needs help to do so. In her accountability-free bubble, no one is able to tell her she needs help and she blithely believes she doesn't.
From appearances, Obama has been thinking about public policy for a long time (hell, he was already learning at Bill Ayers' knee through correspondence courses on the internets before he even reached puberty!), while Sarah mostly has not. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, particularly in the case of a small town mom. But Obama, who already knows a lot about policy, reads more briefing books and policy papers in a week than Sarah has read in a lifetime. He has a phalanx of advisors and handlers - as much as he knows, he knows he needs to know more; however much he trusts his instincts, he still recognizes the need for reality checks and help getting his message across. For all his alleged hubris, he takes advice and guidance from dozens of people every day.
And, for all that the liberal MSM loves, loves, loves Obama, on any day a whole host of left of center bloggers and pundits are taking him to task for one thing or another. A speedreader couldn't digest one day's criticism before the next day's came rolling in. He's been criticized more often than he's been praised on the editorial pages of the New York Times and WaPo. Jon Stewart just did a "half Cramer" on David Plouffe. Obama has to acknowledge the criticism and sort out the valid from invalid critiques otherwise he'd never get his agenda passed.
Sarah, in contrast, can revel in the criticism and succeed by failing. There are no reality checks, just praise. She cannot be held to any objective standards - anything she does is the right thing to do because she did it. If she spells potato with an e, the dictionary needs to be changed. Sarah needs to grow a lot to be a credible national politician, but she won't because she can't. And she can't, because in order to grow she'd need to learn from criticism and her mistakes - the way the rest of us do.
Sarah lives in an accountability-free zone. Her appeal is based primarily on two things - (1) who she is, a small-town mom with heartland values, and (2) the fact that she pisses off "elites". These qualities do not require policy smarts or most of the other skills that politicians are normally required to possess to at least some degree, and are in fact inimical to them. A small town mom can't be expected to know a lot about policy - that's for "professional politicians," which Sarah, to her alleged credit, decidedly is not. Thus, even her most ardent supporters among the far right reactionary intelligentsia (yes, that's an oxymoron) say she has a lot to learn, but most view it as more of a feature than a bug.
When it comes to pissing off the "elites" who are "persecuting" her (as stated in the title of Matt Continetti's book), the lack of knowledge works in her favor because it makes her look bad when she's interviewed by people who expect her to know something about the issues of the day. If Sarah can't answer a question from the dreaded MSM, it's taken as proof of the MSM's perfidy rather than Sarah's lack of knowledge.
Imagine a kid who comes home with rotten grades - most parents would say "you'd better buckle down." In Sarah's case, the "parents" are saying "those rotten grades aren't your fault, but your teachers'." You can imagine that a kid with that kind of parents might not work too hard to improve. If her parents actually applauded her for bringing home Cs, Ds and Fs ("That'll show those damn elitist teachers!"), you can imagine that she wouldn't learn much of what the teachers were trying to teach. To put it the way my parents (and a couple of teachers) did when I fell below their expectations, she needs her ass kicked. But, anyone who tries to give Sarah constructive criticism is not trying to help her, but is instead out to get her, so there's no one who can kick her ass.
Let's compare Sarah to another inexperienced politician who did better than she did in 2008, Barack Obama. Obama wrote two books, the first of which is considered pretty darn good by many people. Even so, he has speechwriters. Sarah doesn't - her rambling resignation speech, the speech in Hong Kong, indeed every speech she's made since McCain's staff stopped writing for her - was the product of someone who is not used to organizing her thoughts coherently, and, more importantly, is unwilling to acknowledge that she needs help to do so. In her accountability-free bubble, no one is able to tell her she needs help and she blithely believes she doesn't.
From appearances, Obama has been thinking about public policy for a long time (hell, he was already learning at Bill Ayers' knee through correspondence courses on the internets before he even reached puberty!), while Sarah mostly has not. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, particularly in the case of a small town mom. But Obama, who already knows a lot about policy, reads more briefing books and policy papers in a week than Sarah has read in a lifetime. He has a phalanx of advisors and handlers - as much as he knows, he knows he needs to know more; however much he trusts his instincts, he still recognizes the need for reality checks and help getting his message across. For all his alleged hubris, he takes advice and guidance from dozens of people every day.
And, for all that the liberal MSM loves, loves, loves Obama, on any day a whole host of left of center bloggers and pundits are taking him to task for one thing or another. A speedreader couldn't digest one day's criticism before the next day's came rolling in. He's been criticized more often than he's been praised on the editorial pages of the New York Times and WaPo. Jon Stewart just did a "half Cramer" on David Plouffe. Obama has to acknowledge the criticism and sort out the valid from invalid critiques otherwise he'd never get his agenda passed.
Sarah, in contrast, can revel in the criticism and succeed by failing. There are no reality checks, just praise. She cannot be held to any objective standards - anything she does is the right thing to do because she did it. If she spells potato with an e, the dictionary needs to be changed. Sarah needs to grow a lot to be a credible national politician, but she won't because she can't. And she can't, because in order to grow she'd need to learn from criticism and her mistakes - the way the rest of us do.
To Geoff: Very well said, indeed.
Strangely, in citing the "two things" on which her appeal is based, you omitted her obvious physical attractiveness. I daresay that this single attribute explains the absurd obsession she seems to have garnered throughout much of the world (I seem to recall either Zardari or Uribe falling over themselves when posing with her in these highly-publicized first meeting last year).
Best quote I've ever read regarding Mrs. Palin, "If Sarah Palin looked like Golda Meir, would we even be talking about her today?" Article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/opinion/29dowd.html
Dormilon - thanks, and apologies for accidentally posting twice. And if Golda Meir had looked like Sarah Palin, we'd have had peace in the Middle East decades ago!
I was raised in a "world" very similar to that of Sarah Palin's Wasilla: in the midst of suburban sprawl, in a region with a high proportion of evangelical/conservative Christians, most of whom have had little experience of a world beyond their immediate communities. I know something -- quite a bit, actually -- of her evangelical zeal and certitude; I, too, used to suffer from an "infallibility syndrome." In the "world" in which I was raised, similarly to Sarah Palin, "Christians" are to be taken at their word and not questioned.
In other words, Sarah Palin believes she can say whatever she wants and never be questioned or called out on it, because she never has been.
We can't forget, she fought corruption, even in her party, that takes guts! Thank you. Lisa
Please tell exactly what she did to fight corruption, even in her party, because everything I've come across actually throws a taint upon her.