Sarahcuda Unbound

Sarah Palin’s political career has been declared dead on the vine by a bandwagon teeming with armchair pundits and D.C. insiders.  The announcement that she would leave office before the end of her first gubernatorial term has spun the commentariat into a frenzy, their musings equal parts funeral dirge and “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”  Her resignation is widely considered to be career suicide.

Do we really live in a country where a resignation is an act of political suicide, but serving as Klan kleagle is acceptable training for decades in the Senate?

Robert Byrd (D-KKK) cut his teeth as a recruiter for the Klan before becoming the longest serving member of the United States Senate.

Ted Kennedy (D-MA) drove his car off a Chappaquiddick bridge and failed to notify authorities, abandoning his 28-year-old passenger to death by drowning.  He is currently serving his ninth Senate term.

Unlike these men, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has no blood on her hands.  She doesn’t even have dirt on her cuffs, having beaten every charge in the litany of frivolous ethics complaints flung in her direction by the liberal attack machine. If men like Byrd and Kennedy remain successful in national politics, how can Sarah Palin’s resignation possibly be considered political suicide?

As mayor of Wasilla, chair and ethics officer of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin never cleaved to conventional political strategy. Why should she start now?  As The Other McCain observes, “Just because you don’t know what Sarah Palin is doing doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

Sarah Palin is not a tragic case of political seppuku or a casualty of the liberal war on conservative women.  She is a success story unfolding before our eyes.  Assured that a competent lieutenant governor is on hand to take her place, Sarah Palin doesn’t have to sit back helplessly and allow the liberal obsession with her uterus and her daughters to impede the agenda she set forth when she became governor.

Palin is finally responding to the rallying cry heard from her supporters during the 2008 campaign: Free Sarah!

At the end of the month, the shackles will slide off, and with them, the gloves.  Sarahcuda will be unleashed, unbound, and free to speak her mind, unencumbered by the concern that Alaskans are paying for the pulsating red target affixed to her back by the chattering classes.  She’ll be free to take speaking gigs, campaign for conservative candidates, join a policy institute, or start a foundation of her own.

The talking heads have speculated that Palin’s resignation is an implicit victory for the politics of personal destruction, proof that relentless attacks are indeed the way to bring a politician to her knees.  Quite the contrary, Palin has ensured that savvy political strategists and pundits will think twice before working feverishly to intimidate a popular politician into resigning.  Liberal strategists aren’t shaking in their Uggs yet, but they will be once they experience Sarah Palin unrestrained by the formality of office and the boundaries of Alaska.

Amy Siskind, president of The New Agenda, called Palin’s announcement a “dark moment for our country.”  A stalwart Palin defender, Amy saw the announcement as evidence that sexism and the politics of personal destruction had triumphed yet again.  “What am I going to tell my daughter?” Amy wondered.

While Sarah Palin’s resignation may be a reminder of the misogyny and classism that plagued the last election season, it is also a vindication of her resilience and adaptability.  Palin did what all women find themselves wanting to do at some point in their lives: she opted out of playing the game on everyone else’s terms.  She decided to thumb her nose at the critics, plow through the obstacles, and shape her own destiny.

Amy can assure her 11-year-old daughter that Sarah Palin remains the very embodiment of choice and self-determination.  She can explain that a true leader goes where she’s needed most, and right now, Sarah Palin can accomplish far more for our country outside of the Alaska governor’s office.

This is not a day to write Sarah Palin’s political obituary.  Her vitals are strong.  She’s no one’s marionette and conservatives have a newly minted activist to lead their cause.  Sarah Palin will be free to be Sarah Palin.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on July 6, 2009 at 3:43 am

Filed Under Republican Strategy, Sarah Palin

Comments

8 Responses to “Sarahcuda Unbound”

  1. sally on July 6th, 2009 12:09 pm

    wonderfully articulated.

  2. snaggletoothie on July 8th, 2009 2:32 am

    Great writing.
    Instead of the question being why did Sarah resign it really is what possible excuse is there for Murtha, Dodd, Frank, Rangel, Feinstein and so many others to not resigning for the good of the republic.
    I am also hopeful that out of office SP will develop some tactics for dealing with the plague of locusts traveling road show that the dinosaur media have become.

  3. Jenn Q. Public on July 8th, 2009 7:14 pm

    Sally and snaggletoothie, thank you.

  4. Eclectic Radical on July 9th, 2009 6:37 am

    It IS well written. Naturally I disagree with it to some extent. ;)

    I think enough people have raised the issue, both about the silly and stupid stuff that is obviously nasty political propaganda thought up by some blogger sitting in his underwear eating popcorn and about the much more serious and genuine issues. I will just note that the claim that she has ‘beaten every charge’ is not strictly true. The Branchflower report very specifically found that she had violated Alaska’s state ethics laws. It did note that she was not impeachable because of the differing standards of the impeachment requirements and the ethics laws, but she WAS found to have abused her power in a manner incompatible with the ethics code in improperly firing state officers and improperly using influence to get a state employee fired.

    Beyond that I’m not going to go on ad infinitum, because I am honestly not interested in what she does until 2011. At that point, I may or may not say something. It really depends on too many factors to predict.

    I confess to a certain degree of grumpiness about the manner in which the facts seem not to matter to otherwise intelligent and sensible people in this area, but I also understand the strong loyalties political contention creates and remember how many people in the Democratic Party were unwilling to believe Bill Clinton could do any wrong. That’s life.

  5. Jenn Q. Public on July 9th, 2009 6:26 pm

    As always, ER, I appreciate your interest in being intellectually honest. Too many of Sarah Palin’s critics on the left are happy to knowingly spread outrageous lies to accomplish their goal of destroying her.

    Re: the Branchflower report, the Alaska State Personnel Board (the entity actually empowered by the state constitution to enforce ethics laws) later exonerated Palin. It was found that Branchflower used the wrong state law as the basis for his findings and that Palin did not violate ethics laws in this situation. But the political damage had already been done, and of course, that was precisely the point.

    And just in case any of the deranged left are reading, Sarah Palin is pro-contraception, didn’t make rape survivors pay for rape kits, and doesn’t support abstinence-only sex education.

    I can completely understand why you wouldn’t be interested in hearing about Sarah Palin until 2011. I wish I didn’t have to constantly hear about the guy the Dems are running in 2012. :-)

    If I had to guess right now, I’d say Palin is looking at 2020. I think she’ll try to rack up political IOUs by supporting another candidate in 2012. If that candidate wins, she’ll angle for a position in the administration, possibly energy secretary, and she’ll run when that President’s term is coming to a close. (This speculation is obviously just for fun since we can’t possibly know the factors that will come into play.)

    I also think it’s entirely possible she will relish her role as a free agent in conservative politics, and will spend the rest of her career using her considerable fundraising power to help bankroll conservative candidates.

    I don’t have a horse in the 2012 race yet because too much remains to be seen. Where does Palin stand on immigration? Will Hunstman be a viable candidate? Who else will emerge as a possible contender?

    At any rate, people on the right who count Palin out are failing to recognize her history of unconventional strategy, her staying power, and yes, her cult of personality. People on the left are making a grave error if they think she won’t continue to be a huge force in American politics. Love her or hate her, she’s not fading into the wallpaper any time soon.

  6. Julie on July 11th, 2009 1:11 pm

    It just amazes me how many women are so insecure that they would attack an honest, hardworking, intelligent women justs to make them feel better above themselves. I thought we wanted honest, straight talking politicans. When we get one we degrade, mock and ridicule. We deserve the politicans we get. I also agree with the statement up above – alot of our politicans should be resigning. Why aren’t the people going after Sarah Palin going after these corrupt politicans?

  7. boldandbald on July 14th, 2009 11:45 am

    The thing I find very interesting is that no one in the media seems to be willing to take what she said when she resigned at face value. ~She couldn’t possibly be doing this because she feels that it is in the best interest of the state of Alaska and it’s people. There must be some sort of ulterior motive.~ They are just so used to dealing with the typical politician that they can’t bring themselves to actually believe what someone says. I think the media response says a lot more about them and the usual politicians that they cover, than it does about Sarah Palin.

  8. Howard on July 26th, 2010 1:47 pm

    I know this is a year late- but I just found this and had to comment.
    What a bunch of apologists. Had this been a female democratic governor stepping down midway through her term, you’d have been all over her as a quitter, weak-willed, having given in to ‘partisan political attacks’, setting a terrible example for women everywhere, unable to work her way thru a tough situation – the list could go on and on. Or you would have stated that she deserved to go, the damage all this had done to her reputation was damaging to the State and there was no way she could have governed any longer, and she was ethically compromised, we could no longer take her at face value any longer. Instead we get a litany of excuses, she was ethically tarnished- but she is ethical and we can definitely believe her.She can handle tough situations- but in this case she shows she is tougher by quitting, because she refused to play the game. Or my favorite, the martyr syndrome- political strategists will have to think twice about bringing a politician to their knees and making them quit, lest they become the martyr, and are now unrestrained by the formality of office.
    This last one is another way of saying that she had become politically irrelevant and that she cared more about herself and her own personal aspirations than she did her own state. She’s selfish!
    And her way of continuing to be politically relevant is thru gorilla tactics. Go on Facebook, make her political statements and then show up only at carefully selected politically friendly events or on politically friendly shows/networks. You may argue that the “hateful liberal media” completely trashes her reputation and by continuing to stick around she somehow shows how strong she is, but essentially by sticking to the above strategy, she has isolated herself. She doesn’t have to answer to any of her detractors.
    Oh I know, she does answer, on Facebook, Fox News or at a Tea Party convention, but again this is all friendly territory, where no one will actually ask her to explain or rationalize any of her positions. This is not strong. Strategically it may be smart,it’s working, shes still relevant, but if this were a battlefield situation, we would think it cowardly.

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