Why a Palin presidential run should scare Obama
OPINION - Palin's unimpressive, yet lovable demeanor will help her to secure even more followers than she has now...
I have some news that will either alarm or excite you, depending on what side of the fence you’re on. Sarah Palin is seriously considering a run for President of the United States in the year 2012. During a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, the relatively inexperienced former Governor of Alaska more or less admitted that she has set her sights on The White House. To be more specific, here’s what Palin had to say:
“Or whether there’s nobody willing to do it, to make the tough choices and not care about what the critics are going to say about you…. If there’s nobody else to do it, then of course I would believe that we should do this.”
Yes, that’s exactly what we want to see in our next president: a disturbing lack of ability to articulate meaningful thoughts. The Republicans love electing less-than-intellectual politicians, given that they are the only party who seems to have anything good to say about former president George W. Bush. They also have a disdain for President Obama, in large part because his educational background makes him seem “uppity.”
The most peculiar thing about a Palin run for the White House is that she actually has a chance of winning. She’s incredibly popular with her base, and there’s clearly a reason that she earned over $12 million dollars last year. Palin is loved by conservatives across America, and there are some who even consider her to be a serious political figure. Most rational Republicans don’t see Palin as an officially-sanctioned political heavyweight, but they do recognize that she cannot be ignored.
Palin’s unimpressive, yet lovable demeanor will help her to secure even more followers than she has right now. Few have learned to merge the worlds of politics and entertainment in the way Palin has done thus far. She can sell books, get viewers to watch her TV shows and fill a room with her speaking engagements. I wonder why she would walk away from all that in order to make a failed attempt at becoming President of the United States.
One problem for Palin’s hypothetical run for president is that many of her fellow Republicans would never let her get as far as the starting gate. Behind closed doors, leading Republicans fully understand that keeping Palin off the ballot is not only the right thing to do, it might be a matter of national security. Her serious lack of experience and stubborn, yet misguided, idealism makes any of us shiver at the idea that she would ever have access to our nation’s nuclear aresenal.
I’m not sure who will win the presidential election in the year 2012. Right now, the Democrats just don’t seem poised to take the White House again. The magic that President Obama had in 2008 seems to have dried up thanks to the hum-drum, business-as-usual realities of Washington politics. He might not have millions of young people, poor people and black people volunteering to be part of his re-election campaign, because people believe that he is just another politician. But in spite of all his challenges, I’m sure that President Obama doesn’t go to bed having nightmares about running against Sarah Palin.
Perhaps, he should. Sarah Palin has the ability to capture some Obama-like excitement from her followers. Between now and 2012, I expect that Palin will be campaigning as much as Obama himself: giving speeches everywhere, sharing her message through bestselling books and building up her brand with regular television appearances. In the right environment, her support base could strengthen and the right message could help her re-election bid catch fire. This kind of rise would build multiple colliding forces within the Republican party, as old school Republicans would have to deal with both Sarah Palin supporters and the rise of the Tea Party.
In the end, Sarah Palin’s presidential proclamation on Entertainment Tonight is likely much ado about nothing. Her statement could be yet another misquote from a poorly equipped politician, and I fully expect that you won’t hear much buzz about Sarah running for president. At worst, her words may be a warning shot to traditional Republicans that both she and the Tea Party are expecting shifts in how Republicans do business. I’m sure they heard her loud and clear
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the initiator of the National Conversation on Race. For more information, please visit BoyceWatkins.com>
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