As a Republican, I have been here before.
In 1998, we were almost dead certain that Bill Clinton's sexual dalliances with Monica Lewinsky were going to be his undoing. Movement Conservatives had been looking for the Magic Bullet that would be Clinton's undoing since shortly after his inaugural in what is now regarded by most conservatives as a myopic, personalised campaign that played into Clinton's hands. By the time the Midterm election rolled around, the idea of impeachment was so unpopular that Republicans actually lost seats that year and Newt Gingrich, the House Speaker, was forced to turn in his resignation as Speaker. Clinton had won.
Andrew Sullivan and other subscribers to Barack Obama's Cult of Personality are pursuing the same campaign of personal annihilation against Sarah Palin. Their problem, of course, is that they are preaching to an ever narrowing universe of liberal believers in Obama's version of the Radiant Future. They have bought so far into Obama politically and psychologically that they can't let go, and they have decided that they must destroy this woman, her family, and her career to protect Obama.
The Nation, however, is making its' own judgements about Obama. During his speech to the nation about the BP Crisis, the President rolled out, once again, his desire to pass the Cap and Trade tax regime. Subsequent to his speech, reports began to circulate that Obama was intent on passing the deeply unpopular bill during the Lame Duck session of Congress. Normally a resolute supporter of the Administration, even Professor Robert Reich is beginning to show some misgivings:
Furthermore, given the unprecedented power of large corporations to call the shots in Washington aided by unlimited campaign contributions and platoons of lobbyists, surely the only way to advance the public interest these days is to rally Americans to a cause. Closed-door conference committees, back-room deals, and lame-duck sessions keep the public out. And when the public is shut out, the big guys have even more clout.
Yet hard-boiled Washington hands I talk with disagree. They point to the $80 billion back-room deal that bought off Big Pharma for health care. They claim there’s no other way to do business in Washington now because public opinion is too easily manipulated.
They say Machiavellian (more accurately, Emanuelian) deal-making behind closed doors ain’t pretty but the public can’t be counted on. The only way to get close to a carbon tax or anything else that’s good for America is to buy the bums off.
The picture that Reich paints is of a Democratic Political Class that is divorced from the concerns of average working people and will force their desires upon the country come hell or high water. Palin has been going across the country painting this picture of a Regime in power, cut loose from any accountability to the electorate, bound and determined to do as it wishes. The Left hates Palin because the picture she paints of Washington now, like the picture she painted of a corrupt Juneau and Anchorage before it, is both troubling and accurate. And the people are catching on.
The always brilliant Jay Cost brings down the hammer in this post in his Horse Race Blog. Paydirt graphs here:
For somebody who seems detached from the details of policy and largely uninterested in legislative wrangling, Barack Obama sure does come across sometimes like a political bully. But this is not bullying some obstinate backbench legislator. Instead, this is bullying the American people. With health care reform, he basically told the country that he didn't care what it thought. The fact that people opposed the bill was proof they didn't know what they were talking about. Now, apparently, the evolving strategy on energy is the same. Don't like cap-and-trade? That's your problem, not his. Plan to vote out Democrats in favor of the idea? Like he cares. He'll pass it anyway.
The President had better tread carefully here. There are political issues that divide the parties, then there are "valence" issues that cut across party lines. Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions became a valence issue in 2000, sufficient to prompt Al Gore to nominate Joe Lieberman for the vice-presidency. It didn't matter what party you belonged to, what Clinton had done was wrong and gross. Ditto Republican chicanery with Jack Abramoff. It didn't matter what your politics were, you thought that had to stop. The Foley scandal went hand-in-glove with Abramoff. It crystallized the sense back in 2006 that there was something deeply dysfunctional about the Republican caucus.
Passing health care reform over howls of popular protest then jamming energy reform through a lame duck Congress might solidify the impression that this President is a bully who doesn't care what the people think. That would hand the Republicans a great valence issue for 2012. Nobody likes a bully, after all. And just as the Democrats worked hard to connect Abramoff and Foley to enhance the impression of a broken GOP, Republicans will try to make these connections for the voters, too.
One of the reasons that the attacks by Sullivan, McGinniss and others on Palin are not resonating with voters is that registered voters are looking at Obama and seeing what Jay Cost and Robert Reich are seeing: bullying mixed with incompetence and Second Raterism. Aside from the fact that the attacks on Palin are obsessed and overwrought, voters don't care about Palin's uterus and what she did as Mayor of Wasilla. Voters want to know why the stimulus bill failed to stimulate, why Obama passed National Socialist Health Care over the objections of voters, and why he wants to raise taxes in the middle of a Depression. They are uneasy that Obama is all about Centralized Power in the hands of the Democratic Party and Benefits for him and his Democratic cronies and patrons (such as his political godfather, George Soros). It is in this obsession that today's Palin-hating left, led by the likes of Sullivan, Geoffrey Dunn, and Joe McGinniss most resemble people like Linda Tripp, the old American Spectator staff who sponsored the Arkansas Project, and Lucianne Goldberg.
Or as Marx is said to have remarked, "History repeats itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
The Left who obsessively attack Palin are akin to King Canute in their attempts to turn back the tide. Palin's popularity rating remains low, but all of the potential Republican 2012 candidates are polling low right now. It is enough for Palin that Obama's failure as a leader and as a man are now beginning to be recognized by the American people.
There is nothing the Left can do to stop that. That is a failure of Obama's character. That was built in from the beginning. Palin herself tried to warn the nation in 2008 about Obama, but the nation wasn't in a mood to listen. Now, things have changed, and that is why the Left is more and more frightened of Palin. There is this yawning notion in the back of their minds that the people could decide that she was right all along, and they were all terribly, terribly wrong that motivates their anger and their hate.
That is why they will fail. Conservatism works. Like Reagan before her, Palin knows this. And in the deepest, darkest recesses of their minds, so do the people who hate her.
Above all things, the Left hates Sarah Palin because they fear that she could be right. But there's one problem: Hate doesn't win Presidential Elections in this country. That is why the Left will fail.
