An odd thing is happening in the UK media and I doubt it’s anything to do with Killer Cucumbers. After nearly three years of dismissing Sarah Palin as airhead homophobic racist religious bigot with a brain the size of a pea and the political savvy of a semi literate ant she is suddenly being treated as a human being with a claim to be considered as a serious operator in the lead up to the 2012 election.
Websites like The UK Spectator Coffee House and ConservativeHomeUSA (run by former Bush staffer Ryan Streeter and thought to be financed by UK multi millionaire Lord Ashcroft) are no longer equating her with Britney Spears.
But the proverbial biscuit must be taken by the flagship of the liberal left, The Guardian, where Richard Adams manages to write a full length article on her sans snark or snigger – indeed it could well have come from the pen of Dan Riehl or Robert Stacy McCain who, though not Palinistas, have always treated her with respect and defended her against weasels and mountebanks.
With the bus tour and hagiographical documentary, I think at this point we can assume Palin is going to run for the Republican nomination, unless tourists at Gettysburg start pelting her with tomatoes (unlikely) or her bus runs over a cute kitten named Mr Mittens live on Fox News (improbable).
I’ve said it before: Palin would be crazy not to run for the Republican nomination. Just look at the rest of the field. Since evangelicals’ sweetheart Mike Huckabee declined to run, the path is clear for Palin on the Tea Party/Christian wing. The three identikit Republican ex-governors running – Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman – squabble among themselves and split the centre-moderate-establishment vote. Palin crushes them all in South Carolina, the traditional Republican bellwether. Game over?
That scenario was sketched out for me by a Virginia Republican who is tepidly backing Romney – “Because there’s no one else.” He, like a lot of Republicans, is still waiting for a knight on a white horse to sweep into the race, Rick Perry of Texas being the most common name given to the knight, although Jeb Bush is also wistfully mentioned. The trouble is, time is running out and knights are in short supply.
Who the hell cares what a bunch of pansy Brits think (as one C4P reader once wrote about a post I did centuries ago on Palin and the UK media)
My thoughts exactly when reading US comments on our own election last year.
But our UK hacks never waste shoe-leather on researching the American political scene themselves. They take their cue from their US counterparts in New York and Washington and the gossip at Tina Brown’s media elite bunfights – and the message coming out from the salons is it’s time to treat Sarah Palin seriously.
Welcome to the club, guys, better late than never, as Wyatt Earp said to the Clanton brothers at the OK Corral….
