...or How to Woo A Recalcitrant Party.
It's occurred to me: we've seen this movie before. The reality is that before McBush can woo over those feisty Hillary supporters, he has his own party unity issues to address. And how perfect that Sarah Palin happened to answer the call. But perhaps not in the way she thinks.
For a party that values spying over privacy, it's almost mind-boggling that they would eagerly accept an unknown. This is a party where pedigrees matter. And given the rigid wait-your-turn structure of candidate selection, it's more mind-boggling still.
Republicans as a species have a decidedly low tolerance for ambiguity and risk - one of the many reasons they just don't get Democrats. They like order, which is why you'll never see an Obama type - a young, rising star - ever jump to the head of the line. It's just not how they roll.
Yet Sarah Palin was thrust into the national spotlight as the #2 in line to be not just the commander-in-chief, but leader of the free world. So why pick this Judy Tenuta look-alike?
Because she's expendable. She's Harriet Miers 2.0. She comes from a state with a population smaller than Memphis, Tennessee, and was a part-time mayor of a town that has a smaller population than many public universities. She brings no new states - Alaska was a foregone conclusion - and barely one demographic. As such, Palin has zero influence on the political landscape, so there's nothing to lose, no repercussions, no backlash for propping her up and then knocking her down.
Already, party insiders are grumbling about her. Many who thought their turn was next for either the Prez or Veep slots are more than a little insulted that McBush is implying she was truly "the most qualified" in the GOP.
So for the next week or two, the media and blogosphere will shove her under a microscope with Klieg lights, with a scrutiny that just doesn't happen in tiny Alaska towns. Like Bush with Miers, McSame will defend her mightily. The drama will consume media air time, web pages, and magazine covers, essentially sucking all the air out of any attempts by the Obama camp to maintain media exposure. All of this will save the McBush campaign millions in advertising.
The rest is speculation, but a viable scenario if you remember Harriet.
In that media glare, something will give. It may be "exhaustion," a sudden and well-publicized shift in family priorities, it may be something major that's 'questionable', or it will be something minor that can be blown up out of all proportion. What exactly doesn't matter.
What matters is that McBush will show compassion, judgment and loyalty to both the party and to her in a grand, staged gesture of seeming to simultaneously bow to the wishes of his party, and releasing this beleaguered and media-persecuted mother of 5 to the waiting arms of her family. What a gentleman. What a hero. Bad, bad media!
And, having already won over more of the reluctant base, he'll make a show of vetting other candidates like no one's ever been vetted before. He'll put in someone he really wants - and the base will be grateful it was someone "experienced," someone who they consider "next in line." They'll accept pretty much this pick no matter who it is. (Except, perhaps, unless it's Lieberman.) Even if it's not the social conservative they want, he'll at least show he cares.
There's precedent for this. Bush threw the evangelicals Terri Schiavo to make them shut up and go away. He delivered nothing else he promised them - anti-gay marriage amendment, end to RoeVWade, school prayer, etc - and even his SCOTUS appointees are more in place as future cover from all things prosecutorial than to advance the evangelical electorate's social agenda.
The Republicans are neither truly clever nor original. Like the ancient Romans copying the Greeks, they're notorious for repeating themselves. And we've seen this movie. Except then it starred Harriet Miers. The remake has a younger starlet from the pageant circuit.
The sequel is rarely ever as entertaining, though I could be wrong this time.