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Sometimes NOT winning an election is the real path to victory. Al Gore, for example, translated his narrow, court-ordered loss to George W. Bush into a successful career as Captain Planet's alter ego. Sarah Palin, Vice Presidential nominee on the failed McCain presidential bid, is trading policy debates for speaking engagements and a brand spanking new career as a television pundit.
From Fox News:
2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is joining Fox News as a contributor, the news channel announced Monday.
The former Alaska governor, whose book, Going Rogue: An American Life, became a bestseller weeks before it was released and remains No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list, has signed a multi-year deal to offer her political commentary and analysis across all Fox News platforms, including Fox Business Channel, FoxNews.com and Fox News Radio.
She will also participate in special event political programming for Fox Broadcasting.
Palin kicked off her gig with a featured appearance on Fox's the O'Reilly Factor. Forgive me for the heresy against conservatism I'm about to commit but...um..."uh oh."
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Sarah's continued success, partly because I enjoy the inevitable reaction, and like Nice Deb, its not as though I didn't see this coming.
This was bound to happen sooner or later, I was counting on it. Who could be a better fit for Fox News? She’s got the looks for t.v., and conservatives love her. I’ve said for awhile that I think Sarah is finished as a candidate for high office. But I do think she’s been, and will continue to be extremely effective as a pundit.
In fact, from Palin's perspective, I think its a genius move. She's out of the political game, and its highly unlikely she sees any future run at public office. As Kim Priestap at WizBang explains:
I don't see her running for elected office any time soon. She resigned as governor of Alaska because she couldn't govern due to all the nuisance and bogus ethics law suits from her hateful critics. If she runs for any office again she will just be targeted, again, by those same people. She made it clear the best way for her to affect change throughout the country is from outside elected office. Her deal with Fox News will help her do just this by giving her a significantly larger audience.
At the helm of the conservative grassroots and as a voice for the conservative "everyman," Palin can become a kingmaker. Where goeth Sarah Palin will goeth the crowd, and that's not necessarily a bad thing...in some respects.
Sarah stands for the basic principles of conservatism - less government, lower taxes, power to the people - and those principles seem to have a heavy, almost visceral appeal with mainstream America at this very moment. Conservatism has failed repeatedly, however, in practice.
As P.J. O'Rourke would say, Republicans campaign on the premise that government is the problem and then get elected and prove it. With a career behind the microphone and not behind the podium, Sarah has all of the benefits of being a candidate and none of the reality.
Where I get all worried is the whole "adding another voice to the cacaphony of conservative entertainment" thing. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin might be popular and by-the-book conservative, but they lack a certain intellectual substance. Its that meat-and-potatoes, that true ideology, that has to be developed, marketed and understood in order for the ideology to survive; if conservatives don't make a rational case for their beliefs to moderates, independents and young people, the longevity of this "conservative revolution" is seriously in question.
Okay, okay, maybe that's not really Palin's job. After all, no one's arguing that she's eminently qualified to take the reigns of the intellectual conservative movement. But I can't help but believe that something very...important...is missing.
Oh, well. Rita from BumpShack wraps this up quite nicely.
It seems like everyone is happy! Sarah gets the publicity she wants, Fox gets the ratings but who wins is the audience at home, who will get a chance to hear it like it is from the fierce Alaskan citizen. It will be entertaining for sure!
Now THAT I can promise.
