From www.washingtonpost.com
Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and GOP "It" girl, can warm up the Republican base like a hot toddy in a duck blind. But further inside the party organization, the air is a little nippy.
"Basically, it's just rude," says one political operative who is a Palin fan. "They've been running the great snub machine. That's the reason the boys in the Republican Party are unhappy with her."
For whatever reason -- skittishness, distrust or, quite possibly, executive weakness -- Palin has been unable to make the transition from Alaska politics to the Big Game Hunt of the national arena.
Palin's fiercely independent streak is part of her charm but also may be her undoing. It's one thing to campaign on an anti-inside-the-Beltway platform. But to play in the big leagues, you need people who know what they're doing.
So sad. Sarah Palin never realized that her Cinderella fantasy had actually happened. She was just too blinded by her own light that she couldn't see anything but herself. She was a small town politician with dreams of making the big time. By dint of luck and the right connections (and a little bit of feminine wiles and allure) she managed to go from the mayor of a one-moose town in Alaska right to the governorship of the Frozen State.
And while she wiled away the hours by shooting wolves from a helicopter and trying to keep herself and her kids from getting pregnant, her fairy godmother appeared (no, not Lindsey Graham) one day at her doorstep to tell her that she would go the Ball. And the next thing she knew there she was walking across one small stage and onto the national stage as John McCain's running mate. "What a coup", the Republicans cried. "Look what we have here", they said. "Ain't she a pip!" Not only is she the governor of a state but she also is a wife and mother trying like every other "real American" woman to raise her family. And!...BONUS!...she has a baby with Down Syndrome that she chose not to abort. If you tried to sell it as a movie script nobody would believe it.
But alas and alack, this fairy tale was not to have a happy ending. Cruel fate in the guise of an intelligent electorate kept her from the (Inaugural) Ball. One day a coach and four horses and elegant clothes, the next, back to changing diapers and waiting for her first grandchild to be born.
And as the saying goes, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". So from that day forward she has made sure that no one, no politician, no smartass adviser, no PR person was going to tell her what to do or say or how to act. She made it this far on her own. She would make it to the top on her own. Now this would, in and of itself, not be a bad thing. However, some of the prerequisites for attempting to become the leader of the Free World is that one have the intellect, discipline, restraint, talent, and ability to govern effectively a nation of 300 million people. Uh-oh.
Many in her party had hoped that she had learned a hard lesson during the campaign and its subsequent failure. They longed for that moment of epiphany when she would say, "Yeah, I get it now". I know how the game has to be played. I know I've got to knuckle down and prove that I can be a true leader." But obviously that moment never happened. The next cold splash of reality will come in about two years when the party rejects her as their candidate. But until then she will continue to dream her dreams and spout her nonsensical political, economic, and world views.
And the leaders are glad to have her do it. After all, she sure can get the true believers' checkbooks out.