Since ditching her job as Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin’s been on the road, speaking, promoting her book and generally making the kind of money and attention that she never got from that the pesky desk job in Juneau. This week we learned that she’s joining the ranks of the propagandists commentators on Fox News, as well agreeing to be the keynote speaker at the Wine and Liquor Wholesalers of America convention in Las Vegas. Because nothing says conservative family values like liquor and Vegas!
The Harpies weigh in on Palin’s latest career moves:
PilgrimSoul: I don’t know that I can knock her for this, really. I mean, look, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Governor of California. Showbiz and politics have a (albeit recent) history of crossing paths in this country. Like any thinking person I dislike her, but I don’t know that I would call this a dumb move or can snark on it. If anything it’s depressingly clever. She has an audience, and now she’s going to play them like a violin string. And she’ll do it well.
BeckySharper: I just think that it’s hard to go from politics to show business and then back. Being a talking head for Fox is pure show biz–they’re not even bothering to bill her as a political expert or news analyst or anything. Arnie and Ronnie both left show biz for politics, and were able to recreate themselves as politicians. Going in and out of politics with these show biz gigs isn’t going to help her recreate herself as a leader with the gravitas people still want in a president, and which they found lacking in her in 2008.
PilgrimSoul: To be perfectly honest, she was so polarizing that even were she to win a Rhodes at this late stage in her career I am not sure she would be perceived as having the gravitas by those already of this opinion.
PhDork: I don’t think this gig, or the Fox deal, will prevent her from trying to get back into it. Although I expect she’s more useful to the GOP when she’s not pretending to be anything other than a shill.
BeckySharper: Well, shilling has its rewards. I suspect plain old money was a big factor, and I honestly can’t blame her for that. She’s got five kids, a grandkid, and a husband to support, plus staff, lawyers, publicists, etc. And I suppose if she’s planning to go back into politics, she’s really better start feathering her nest now, and this is an easy way to do it.
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: Well, she’s going to be preaching to the choir. It’s not exactly as if her right wing bona fides need any polishing, but there are plenty of GOPers who bemoaned her effect on the McCain campaign. Perhaps she’s hoping to win over those conservatives who dislike her? I don’t know. She’s out of politics at the moment and she has to keep herself in the spotlight. There is a logic to it, and if she plans to go back in, she can say, “hey, I left my job as governor so I could be a voice of the disenfranchised conservatives!” Or she’ll kneecap Michael Steele with a crowbar and take over the RNC Chair position.
BeckySharper: O those poor, disenfranchised conservatives! ::plays world’s smallest violin::
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: Well, of course they’re disenfranchised! ACORN is totally screwing with voter registration rolls!
PhDork: Look, If GWB can get “elected” twice, I think gravitas is a non-issue. Although were Palin to stand on the edge of a cliff, I hope gravity is. Mostly, I just don’t ever want to hear from her again, in any fashion whatsoever.
Palin’s already entered that rarified atmosphere of celebrity where it appears she merely walks through whatever doors open in front of her. Sortof like football coaches. She is a walking example perhaps of Jurassic Park’s original ‘chaos’ theory. Nature will find a way to do anything.
I’m hoping that a steady stream of jabber from her will produce many mistakes and eventually produce a really huge whopper mistake, and take her out once and for all.
I agree that this move seems pretty expected if not smart. I don’t know that it’ll help her make a presidential run in 2012 but after she quit her job as governor I think that ship had pretty much sailed anyway. I have nothing concrete to base this on, but I suspect she’s happier being a public persona and making money rather than making a run at a higher office and dealing with complicated world and domestic affairs. Call me a cynic but I don’t think she gives a crap about “helping” the country through public service.
“I agree that this move seems pretty expected if not smart.”
Meant to imply that I DO think it’s a smart move for her. Sorry for the tongue tied thought.
I think there is a segment of the population, mainly people with their own corporations who begrudge the fact that we little people get to vote at all, for whom Palin would make a perfect President: not too smart, not too engaged, and arrogant enough to let people tell her how in control she is.
@bella: Presumably the segment of the population who voted for GWB, since that describes him perfectly as well.
Actually I think I am wrong to hope for a mistake. What more besides her previous mistakes can there be: exorcisms, creationism, not knowing the diff. between N. and S. Korea, oligarchy, library censorship … etc
Like, if that’s not enough to turn people off, then nothing will
Becky: Agreed.