Centrists? You wish. Keep on deluding yourself, fool. The more energy you spend dreaming up arguments like this the less energy you can waste destroying this country with your ignorant, wandering logic.Editor's note: John P. Avlon is senior political columnist for The Daily Beast and author of the new book "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America."
(CNN) -- She was caught red-handed. The surreal scene of Sarah Palin referring to notes written on her palm during a Q&A session after her speech at the National Tea Party convention has validated skeptics even as it's been dismissed by her supporters.
She looked at her hand unflinchingly. She knew people would be aware of it. She also knew sane people wouldn't care.
This disconnect is a real problem for Palin and the Republican Party. Palin's presidential hopes are already confronting the fact that she is the most polarizing figure in American politics.
Disconnect? I don't think so. I'm kinda enjoying watching you and your kind thrash yourselves to death because you can't figure it out or don't want to because you think your readers are fools enough to follow you over that cliff you don't seem to recognize.
She is queen of the conservative populists, and to her supporters she can do no wrong. She is despised by Democrats. But -- and here's the biggest hurdle -- she is disliked and distrusted by Independents and centrists.
Actually, I just want her elected to office so I can see more of her. Maybe I could get her to revive the "Fireside Chat", too. Better yet, maybe the "Bedtime Nightgown Chat". Or the "Poolside Chat". Or the "Tanning Bed Chat". Or the "Bicycle Ride" chat. I suppose I'd better lay off now so I stand a better chance of coming back in a better form in my next life.
| Or more quickly than expected exiting this one, my dear. |
Palm-gate? Please don't tell me that you are at the bottom of your shallow barrel already.
I was in the room when she gave her speech at Nashville's Opryland Hotel. It was well-written and rapturously received by the Tea Party crowd. It was part campaign speech and part state of the union address, focusing on foreign policy for the first 15 minutes -- a subject rarely discussed inside the Tea Party movement -- before she got to the red meat of deficits and debt.
I guess she should have avoided those topics because they are a bit harsh on liberal self-esteem?
It had a string of her patented folksy and sarcastic one-liners, such as "How's that hopey-changey thing working for ya?" It brought the house down. And then there was the one-liner that would haunt her a few minutes later: a dig at President Obama as "a charismatic guy with a teleprompter."
It might haunt you, but Sarah probably just thinks you are a desperate fool who would rather do anything except change the liberal agenda.
Ironically, Palin is a charismatic gal who could have used a teleprompter that night. It would have helped her avoid looking down at her text half the time, and it would have slowed her delivery to the pace she used in her devastatingly effective 2008 convention address.
Note to all Dems: Don't look at the texts of your speeches from now on or you will no longer be fit for office.
But she presumably avoided a teleprompter in part to use that one line -- and the audience loved it. When it came time for the post-speech question-and-answer session, no one announced that she had been given the questions in advance. It wouldn't have sounded very populist.
Presumably? Whose presumption?
But that's the only explanation for why she had written notes on her hand. That such a stunt would get a kid kicked out of a junior high classroom isn't the point -- the real problem is the question that prompted the note-taking.
Yeah. Feeding her the questions beforehand or filtering them so only approved questions get to her is certainly not the way to do things. If you are some kind of liberal who doesn't get what this meeting is all about. Are you telling me you are that foolish? You need to be out of a job until you understand these things. BTW, do I remember certain Democrats filtering town hall meetings that were supposedly "open to the public" in just such a fashion? These Tea Party meetings are one thing, but town halls are another. Shame on whoever corrupts a town hall meeting as was done by the Dems.
Palin was asked to recommend the top three things Republicans should do when they retake Congress. The follow-up was the first three things she would do if elected president.
The first ought to be to put our best and brightest geneticists to work trying to figure out what is wrong with the liberal brain these days.
She wrote on her hand the following notes: "energy"; "budget cuts" ("budget" was then crossed out and replaced with "tax" -- presumably because a call for budget cuts would require sticky specifics); and "lift American spirits" -- the last being a call for more reliance on God in our politics.
Could you explain what you mean by that last sentence, rudderless one?
The questions would have been softballs even if she hadn't seen them in advance. The answers are so boilerplate that a candidate for city council wouldn't need prompting.
You wouldn't be referring to the ludicrous idea of Obumble going in without his loyal sidekick Prompto, would you?
That Palin believed she needed to write them down is the political equivalent of reminding yourself to breathe. The gap between Palin's scripted surgical strikes in her speech and the need to rely on notes for a simple question she saw in advance validates the doubts that nonconservatives have long had about her.
Gee. She winged the whole thing and stumbled on a few words written on her hand. You are running so scared you left reason behind.
A poll taken toward the end of the 2008 campaign found that 47 percent of centrists said her selection made them less likely to vote for John McCain as president. A July 2009 Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 58 percent of independent voters did not believe that she understood complex issues.
Well, she'll be off McCain's leash in 2012. And way more people watch Fox than the rest of the cable news networks combined. We'll see how this scenario plays out.
Palin's Palm-gate only compounds these problems. No one should doubt Palin's appeal to the conservative base -- she is beloved beyond reason, seen as the embodiment of God and Country, the "real America" antidote to the multicultural elitism some Tea Partiers associate with Obama.
And NASCAR fans go gaga over her, too. But they are just another drooling subculture that you and other libs probably will agree are safe to ignore.
Any mistakes she makes between now and the nomination will be dismissed by her supporters as the liberal media playing "gotcha" politics. No other prospective GOP candidate for 2012 can match her fans' enthusiasm, and she will be the biggest draw on the 2010 midterm election circuit.
You mean like Dems play "gotcha" with Lott, but dismiss it with Reid?
That's enough to win the pivotal first Iowa caucus and possibly the 2012 nomination. But in an America where independents outnumber Republicans or Democrats, fielding a presidential candidate with negative crossover appeal is a path to electoral disaster.
Disaster according to you, anyway.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Avlon.
And lovingly placed on a pedestal by CNN for its tiny audience to read in order to feel better about their perspective.