There was a fairly touching story that came out last month called Bayonne's Chuck Wepner, the inspiration for Stallone's 'Rocky,' will have TV special on ESPN and feature film. Chuck for those who are too young to remember him was the last American white guy that even plausibly met the standard of The Great White Hope, originally a term for whoever could knock black man Jack Johnson off his perch as Heavyweight Champion of the World, at the time an obvious affront to white America and depicted as such in the movie of the same title. And in the twenties through the fifties we had any number of white guys winning that title back including great legends like Rocky Marciano. But it was decidedly a mixed bag, for every temporary Max Schmeling (a Kraut to boot) we had a Joe Louis, and Marciano was bracketed by Jersey Joe Wolcott and Floyd Patterson and by the sixties the championship seemed to be out of reach of White America altogether when we entered the Liston, Clay/Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Spinks, Norton era. But in the middle of that we had Chuck Wepner, inspiration for Rocky Balboa and the last actual American 'Great White Hope'. And what does that have to do with Sarah Palin? Well if you care follow me below the crueller.
You can follow the link and introduce, or for some of us old fogies re-introduce, yourself to Chuck Wepner. An interesting guy and by all accounts the apothesis of lovable lug. But unlike Rocky Balboa Chuck didn't get a lot of sequels, he had his moment of fame as the guy who kinda, sorta, got really close to knocking out Muhammad Ali (himself not particularly at the time the well-loved character he became in decades since) and restore the natural order. But despite knocking Ali to the mat, Chuck didn't win, and in fact took some pretty brutal punishment, in that respect Rocky I was close to a documentary. And despite some cameos Chuck sunk into obscurity, in fact his Wiki Biography just jumps from a celebrity match with wrestler Andre the Giant in 1976 to a subsequent job as a wine and spirits rep starting in 2000. Making Chuck Wepner 'The Bayonne Bleeder' (he was literally thin skinned it seems, big fists soft face) the poster boy for What Could Have Been.
Which at long last brings me to Palin. Sarah burst on the scene (and by his own admission down Bobo Brooks leg) like a starbust in 2008. But couldn't pull John McSame over the line after eight years of Bush, quite apart from failings of her own. And in the years since has carved out quite the career for a 'former half term governor'. Not only has she earned millions, she has in the process elevated a daughter with limited visible talents (though cute in a corn fed kind of way) into similar riches. But the question is does she really have any star power BEYOND her role as the Next White Hope? Is there any real 'there' there or is it all about the potential for her to pull off a Rocky and knock Apollo (Hussein Obama) Creed on his butt and take the title in the re-match?
Yesterday Palin passed by her 'drop dead' self imposed target for saying 'yeah' or 'nay' on a candidacy. And for her die-hard fans even the bare possiblity of her pulling off a Rocky seemed enough to sustain reality shows and daughters on DWTS and bus tours and huge fees for speaking appearances. But do those opportunities actually stay open if she bows out, is there enough substance to Sarah Palin to allow her to survive a non-rematch with the current Mohammed Ali/Apollo Creed? Or was her appeal all in the Great White Hope narrative to start with, and having ducked the contest her fate to descend into the same 25 years of oblivian that Chuck Wepner did?
And face it Chuck was a good guy, except for his tendency to bleed all over the canvas there was nothing to disqualify him as a public figure. Except for the fact that when push came to shove and jab came to upper cut he just didn't have the chops to handle Ali or really any of the other premier fighters of his day.
So to repeat the question: Does Sarah Palin qua Sarah Palin and not as 'Potential Future President of the U.S.' have more staying power than Chuck Wepner? And personally I don't see it, to me she was until yesterday and maybe still today just the Hope and the prayer of knocking out the champ and taking the Belt. And absent Hope she has got nothing, her value outside the boxing ring of Presidential electioning being discounted to zero as of the day she officially opts out.
Or to rephrase the question: How long can Sarah retain her fan base on the fundamental basis of 'What Might Have Been'?