Palin Rising

Remember when Sarah Palin was written off as a joke? Remember when she was regarded as an also-ran in American politics? Neither can I. Especially since she has made her self the front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and is making politicians of both parties quaking in their boots more than scratching their heads.

My fellow Drew alum and noted journalist Karen Hunter has warned that Palin should be taken seriously because of her ability to sell herself as a candidate for national office. I agree. Palin is doing just that right now, with her much-ballyhooed reality show, appearances on Fox News and her promotional tour for the latest book that she "wrote." She 's building a brand - again, I cite my friend Karen - that's meant to be a vehicle for her political ambitions with her folksy appeal to the vast mainstream (read white) masses in the American heartland (read red states). And like other toxic American brands (McDonald's, for example), the goal of the Palin brand is to take over the world. And you thought this was the stuff of Saturday morning cartoons!

I don't know if Palin ever watched Saturday morning cartoons in the seventies, when she was a little girl named Sarah Heath. But she obviously didn't watch ABC, and so missed "Schoolhouse Rock" - especially "How Bill Becomes a Law."

I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I have to return to my predicting that the Democratic party will die after 2012 the way the Whig party died after 1852 and expand on something I said last week. When Democrat Franklin Pierce was elected President in 1852, he was one of the weakest, most uninspiring candidates the Democrats could have put up. When the news came in that Pierce had won, U.S. Whig Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio was distraught over the election results, exclaiming, "We are slain. The party is dead—dead—dead!" Campbell's prophecy came true because the Whigs were unable to rise above their numerous shortcomings and differences and defeat the most defeatable presidential candidate of the previous twenty years. Imagine waking up on the morning of Wednesday, November 7, 2012, and learning that Sarah Palin has just been elected the 45th President of the United States. The obvious conclusion would be that the Democratic party is slain . . . dead—dead—dead! The Democrats would be so bewildered and demoralized by Palin's election that they would break up rather quickly. But then, I don't ncessearliy think Palin will be elected President. Therefore, I don't believe a Palin presidential victory is going to kill the Democrats. I think something else will. But if Palin actually wins the 2012 presidential contest, her election will kill the Democratic party before something else does.

Palin has several weaknesses, apart from her obvious lack of intelligence. Democrats hate her, establishment Republicans fear her, and her rating among independents is shockingly low. Also, as a vice presidential candidate who didn't actually get the office, Palin is admittedly swimming against the tide of history; failed vice presidential candidates become bigger footnotes in the history of American politics than actual vice presidents. Geraldine Ferraro and Palin herself will be remembered as being the first female vice presidential nominees of their respective parties, but, so far, not for anything else. As for other vice presidential nominees who never got the job they ran for, the list of those who went on to bigger and better things - President Franklin Roosevelt (Democratic vice presidential nominee, 1920) U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (Republican vice presidential nominee, 1948) Secretary of State Edmund Muskie (Democratic vice presidential nominee, 1968) and Senate leader Robert Dole (Republican vice presidential nominee, 1976) - is pretty short. (I am open, though, to anyone who wants me to put Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver, the 1956 Democratic vice presidential nominee, on that short list if they can make a sound case for it.)

The odds of Palin making it onto this list are long, and she could be just as easily forgotten as Republican William E. Miller, Barry Goldwater's running mate in 1964. But then, Miller didn't have a reality show. All he had was an American Express card commercial.