Boston, Massachusetts
One of the striking things about the week since the election is the sheer amount of media Sarah Palin has done. She has sat down with the local press in Alaska, Fox News, NBC and is doing CNN tomorrow. By contrast, McCain is making his first post-election appearance on Leno tonight. Palin has evidently decided that she can’t leave the stage with the impression that she is a “diva” and not able enough for national politics the conventional wisdom.
But these media appearances are a distinctly mixed blessing for Palin. While they may give her a chance to defend herself, they also rehash her various missteps on the trail. The other thing is that they keep her in the news and that is helping to turn her into a proxy in the battle for the heart and soul of the GOP. Those who want the party to broaden its appeal point to exit poll data which shows that 60 percent of voters did not consider her qualified to serve as president if necessary—only 35 percent of independents thought she was. While her defenders point at how enthused the base were by her.
There is, obviously, a long way to go until the 2012 primary season—although, you wouldn’t guess this from the way some on the right are talking—but Palin is clearly determined to keep herself in the headlines and stake her claim to be considered a player in this race. This means that she is going to take an awful lot of incoming over the next few months. I suspect she might have been better served by going back to Alaska and bolstering her record as a reformist governor. Also, and I’m only half-joking here, one wonders whether she can establish herself as someone to be taken seriously on the national stage when Tina Fey is waiting to mock her every move with her uncannily accurate impression.
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