Politico apparently has a sadist running its assignments, because he or she sent out reporters to interview a bunch of ‘conservative’ Democrats to find out whether they’d be willing to let that woman campaign with them – and got everything from uncomfortable silences to Congressmen actually running away. At least, that’s what I’m going to characterize ‘lunging for elevators’ and suddenly remembering that they had meetings that they had to get to right now. And why would this be? Because there’s no right answer to that question:
For these Democrats, many of them part of the right-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, Palin presents a quandary: She’s deeply unpopular within their own party, but in the socially conservative, often rural districts or states they represent, the plain-spoken, wader-wearing Alaska governor has a following.
…hence the running away. There are a lot of Democrats who will be relying on both the largess of the national party and the forbearance of their majority-Republican districts to stay in office past next November. Embracing that woman will infuriate the former, but too-vehemently rejecting her (as in, rejecting her at all) will hurt them with the latter. Even if you buy into the professional pundits*’ narrative on that woman, it must be admitted that she is popular with precisely the voter demographic that is currently sending a lot of ‘conservative’ Democrats to Congress. So… well, nobody ever died of shame, right? So Running Away really is the best answer, especially if you’re not actually mentioned by name.
I’m not going to claim that this was that woman’s plan all along. In fact, I actually think that the original story got garbled. But it’s funny to watch them scatter like this.
Moe Lane
*Who also, by the way, were usually astounded about how that man could keep getting his way on the war, not to mention re-elected.
Crossposted to RedState.