Thoughts on Sarah Palin

So we won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore. Maybe we knew this day would come, but I'm sure few people expected it to come so soon. Now, I'd been feeling that I came to the party too late to say most of the things I wanted to say about Sarah Palin, but she has been kind enough to give me this golden opportunity to unburden myself. This is probably the only time you will ever hear me say this: Thank-you, Sarah Palin.

While I never liked Sarah Palin, I think that she was probably the best strategic choice that the John McCain campaign could have made for a running mate. Sure, there were better qualified, more experienced women in the Republican party (and, make no mistake, John McCain had to pick a woman as his running mate, or so the conservative calculus said.) but none of them could deliver the conservative base the way Sarah Palin could. He needed a woman because he needed cover for accusations of racism. What better cover could you ask for that to be able to counter with accusations of sexism? That she is proudly ignorant of just about all national issues, while a stumbling block for much of the electorate, was clearly not a problem for the Republican base. That her past was rife with possible scandals and even outright corruption didn't appear to temper Republican enthusiasm for her, either.

Now, with her resignation as governor of Alaska, pundits of all stripes are speculating about what her next move will be. Some Republicans seem to want her to run for the Presidency in 2012, others would seem to want nothing to do with her. Some people seem to think that she is going to launch a career in radio or television. I think that she has no future in politics: her early and apparently unmotivated exit from the governorship will be too easy a target for any opponent (in both primary and general elections). She may well be able to parlay her popularity into a media career, but I don't see where she goes from there.

We (in the liberal left-wing of American politics) can only hope that the Republican party is foolish or self destructive enough to nominate Sarah Palin for the presidency in 2012. I doubt it will happen, however: while the Republican slate may be sparse, I think that there are still enough hopefuls to offer sufficient resistance to defeat a Palin candidacy. I'm not sure any of those hopefuls are really any better (or have any better chance) than Sarah Palin, but they can probably beat her handily.

We may not have heard the last of Sarah Palin, but I think we've heard the worst. Nothing she does, from here on out, will ever equal her stint as governor of Alaska, much less her run for the Vice Presidency of the United States. From here on out, she is strictly small time.

preliminaries and prerequisites

So I gave a short list of the kind of stuff I expect to be writing about, but what the hell do I know about anything? Well, I'll have things to say about parenting because I'm the parent of a delightful two-and-a-half year old girl; I'm sure a lot of what I will say will be along the lines of "Oh my god! I did NOT see THAT coming!" or just "She's sooooo CUTE!" but I hope I can say something, from time to time, that is somehow informative or enlightening (or, failing either of those, at least amusing). I also live in the nations capitol, which obviously makes me an expert on national politics (or so you would think, judging by the attitudes of everyone else that lives around here). Finally, I minored in Womens' Studies back in college, and had a serious, long-term relationship with an outspoken radical-feminist, who had some influence on my opinions. 

From all this you might conclude that would know a thing or two about some of the things on which I have strong opinions: this could not be further from the truth; I am, by my own admission, little more than a dilettante. What I do have going for me, if I say so myself, is an above-average brain; what I lack in specific education, I will try to make up for in original thinking; anything else will be covered by self-deprecation and rapier wit (or, at least, sarcasm).

Granted, I a middle-aged white guy with no first-hand experience of race or gender oppression -- I'm sure I've made more than occasional use of my white-male-hetero privilege -- and I'm too honest to simply fabricate radical notions. About the only thing I have going for me is a legitimate family history of far-left politics and genuine iconoclasty. Let us hope that is good enough.

Oh, and I might throw in a picture of my cat, every once in a while, just because: She's soooo CUTE!

Hello World!

Well, so I've got a blog. Whoop-dee-doo!

I have no idea what to write about. Maybe parenting (yeah, I can draw on my wealth of ignorance there), maybe politics (can't keep my mouth shut about that), and probably some radical-feminism (I've recently been reacquainted with some old friends, and I've really missed their discussions). Who knows, wherever my thoughts wander (and do they ever! I should put up fences).