Mission Impossible

Toby Harnden, a columnist for The Telegraph (UK), made this observation, a reflection of Washington's warped conventional wisdom:

"[Sarah] Palin has shown she has enormous political skills and popular appeal. To win the Republican nomination, she’ll need to build on that by offering ideas and policies rather than relying on sentiment, snark and antipathy towards Obama. One of the big questions of 2012 is whether she’ll bite the bullet and do that."

The short answer is no, she won’t.

First, Harnden vastly overstates Palin’s political skills. She is Pandora only because John McCain ill-advisedly opened the Box. Skilled politicians do not decamp from office midterm or burn capital by picking endless trivial fights (See: Palin vs. the “lamestream” media, Palin vs. Michelle Obama over obesity, etc). Skilled politicians foster alliances in their party not opposition from it. (See: La Movement Résistance, led by “Bush’s Brain” himself, Karl Rove.)

Second, public polls strongly dispute Palin’s political sex appeal. Six in 10 voters won’t even consider voting for Palin for president (Post/ABC News). Many more do not think she is qualified. Her negatives hover near the bottom of the Pacific's Mariana Trench. To use a Palinism, the facts "refudiate" the popular appeal of the former half-governor.

Third and most importantly, asking Palin for coherent ideas is akin to having a 7th-grader critique US-China bilateral relations. Only the deeply deluded would expect a credible result. It is impolite to say this, but I'm sorry -- the synapses in Palin's neurotic brain stopped firing long ago. Any fool can see that. And no amount of 11th-hour schooling can help. The McCain campaign tried valiantly -- and failed miserably. Yet, otherwise intelligent people like Harnden keep insisting that it is possible to get blood from a stone.

To be sure, Palin is telegenic. She is (oddly) charismatic. She is appealing to a wafer thin slice of the citizenry. And, like Snooki, she is famous for being famous. Fortunately, none of that adds up to "President Palin." However, it does compute nicely for a long career in reality television, a place where most Democrats and Republicans hopes she remains.