Sarah, oh Sarah
What ever made you change your mind?
Sarah, oh Sarah
So easy to look at, so hard to define!
Okay, it's really hard to imagine any hard-core Tea Party Republicans channeling Bob Dylan, but don't you think this is exactly the feeling that's welling up within a large swath of the GOP faithful now?
"If only Sarah had run! She would have saved us from the succession of impure and unattractive False Idols that we've had to vote for. She would have trounced the Pretender Romney. She's so much more photogenic than ugly Gingrich and Santorum..."
Is it really too late, however? Is there still a chance for a groundswell of Sarah Mania to sweep over the GOP Convention and whisk her to the nomination, by acclimation??
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Mitt is detestable. Newt is unelectable. Ron is psycho. Rick is pathetic.
And yet that's all they've got left, after carving off the even more rancid meat of the Republican Presidential field.
Yet, sitting out there in plain view is the Siren, the Ideal, the Savior, so tantalizingly available, unblemished, pure and angelic.
You KNOW this to be true: If Sarah Palin threw her hat into the Republican Presidential contest tomorrow, she would INSTANTLY rise to the top of the polls nationally, and in nearly every state that has yet to vote. The Tea Partiers and Fundamentalists would dump Gingrich and Santorum like hot potatoes, and many of Ron Paul's devotees would switch to her, too. That would combine for more than a 50% share of the Republican electorate right there.
Look, the myth of Romney's "inevitability" has always been a narrative sold by the GOP Establishment and bought, full price, by the established media. Distressingly, many even here on DKos have been buying the Conventional Wisdom, while the evidence that the Republican majority simply Does. Not. Want. Romney has stared us in the face all along. The excuses have always been that the alternatives are, to the powers that be and to a plurality of voters, simply not acceptable, so the party will reluctantly coalesce around Mitt in the end.
But that doesn't have to be the case, not at all. It is now fully apparent that Romney will NOT cruise into the Republican Convention with an insurmountable majority of votes and delegates. His ceiling is, at best, 35% to 40%. If we give Ron Paul his likely 10% of delegates, and assume that Gingrich's ego will not permit him to walk away, and he gathers another 10%, then all Santorum needs to deny Mitt a first-ballot nomination is about 30%. After yesterday, that seems eminently possible.
This means that, yes, the idea of a brokered convention for the first time in living memory is very plausible. It also means that the Republican Party may ultimately have to turn to someone who can unite its factions, enthuse the base, energize the media, and wash away the stains of the primary process.
Sarah... You're the poet in my heart
Never change ... never stop
So, why am I so giddy about this prospect of Sarah Palin displacing Romney and all the others? Do I secretly harbor a fantasy attraction to her, a longing for the Good Old Days of 2008? Well, yes, sort of. First, yes, as a political junkie, the drama of a brokered convention and Sarah's sudden re-entry would be absolutely fascinating.
But more important, Sarah Palin is the Patron Saint of the Tea Party movement, and with her on the ballot, they would all crawl back out of the woodwork, drowning the so-called GOP Establishment with their fanaticism. "Mainstream" Republicans would cease to exist. And many who have struggled to stem the tide of pure, unadulterated insanity within their party might finally just quit, become independents or even join up with the Democrats.
Of course Candidate Palin would be trounced by President Obama, in a landslide reminiscent of 1964, yielding a new "mandate" that he could perhaps pursue with less, shall we say, distraction. My hope, of course, would be that she would drag down the entire Republican/Tea Party movement with her, as a prolonged campaign would expose their vacuous, hateful, insipid ideas and philosophy.
But most of all, it would just be So. Much. Fun. to have Sarah back in the spotlight again! Wouldn't it??
Sarah, oh Sarah
Glamorous nymph with an arrow and bow
Sarah, oh Sarah
Don’t ever leave me, don’t ever go!