The last few weeks have been such a blur what, with the "thrill of victory and agony of defeat" and all that. It's almost difficult to recall the primary season now that we have reaped the fruits of our labors and the sturm and drang of intra-party campaigning and the steady drone of pundits, both friendly and otherwise. For me, the height of ridiculousness was Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," in which he urged registered Republicans to temporarily cross over to vote in the Democratic primary and vote for Hillary Clinton, who at the time was in the midst of losing eleven straight primary contests to Barack Obama. In February 2008, the FatMan thought Obama was ahead, but later re-calibrated his approach when he perceived that the momentum had shifted to Hillary.
It goes without saying that "Operation Chaos" was no more than an ineffectual political stunt and "filler" for the Limbaugh broadcast since it had no perceptible effect on the outcome of the Democratic primary race. It likely did however, leave thousands of earnest dittoheads feeling like the fools they are after going to the effort of re-registering as Democrats and actually voting for Hillary.
In less than four years, the Republican presidential primary race will "rear its head." The usual suspects will come out of the woodwork to wave their GOoPer flags and declare themselves best prepared to take down President Barack Obama. It is a safe bet that Sarah Palin will be among them. In the few short weeks that Sarah Palin spent in the spotlight, the American public (minus the hardcore Republicans that think Bush is great) came to see Palin as a dilettante; a political lightweight. McCain's crushing defeat didn't seem to faze Palin, who in retrospect, likely considers the 2008 election to be a dress rehersal for her own future ambitions.
But Palin will face some stout competition in the likes of Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich, Jindal, Pawlenty, etc. Figuring that she has the edge in both message and personality, Palin will anoint herself the front-runner well before the primary campaign begins. It doesn't take much imagination to realize that Palin will not fare very well in a general election against an incumbent Barack Obama, while many of her would-be competitors could mount a more serious threat to the Democrats.
So here's our big chance to get payback against Rush and his GOoPer machine. What if thousands of us registered Dems were to re-register and vote in Republican primaries to the extent that we could ensure a series of Palin victories? Could we possibly achieve something that Mr. Big-and-Ugly could only dream about? It would be perfectly legal and we have the organizational, communications, and political resources to make it happen.
The side benefit of a Palin candidacy in 2012 is that she would very-likely have negative coatails. A Palin defeat in 2012 would be so potentially humiliating to the GOoPers, and the Religious Right alike, they might never recover. Let's hang them with their own rope.