#rsrh Sarah Palin runs!

…in marathon: Sarah Palin runs half-marathon incognito in Iowa. (Via Drudge)

It’s actually a very nice human interest piece, which is why it’s kind of a shame that I have to tack on a polite request that the Sarah Palin whatever-it-is stop playing will-she, won’t-she games with running for President and just declare one way or the other.  Mucking about with the regular media or pundits is fine; but this game has been steadily more annoying among New Media types for the last… two months or so, I’m guessing/estimating.  And none of this has been improved by the impenetrable media shield that Palin’s staff has over any and all interactions with their patron.  And when I say ‘impenetrable’ I’m explicitly including ‘light and oxygen’ in that metaphor.  I like Sarah Palin just fine, but if she’s actually planning to get the Republican nomination then this is no way to run a campaign.

And before anybody tells me that she’s not going to run a regular campaign, let me note this: if you’re not going to run a campaign that follows the old rules of media access, and you’re not going to run a campaign that follows the new rules of media access, then precisely what kind of campaign were you planning to run?

Moe Lane

PS: We will now pause while people react badly to the above.  Which is a large part of the problem, frankly.

19 thoughts on “#rsrh Sarah Palin runs!”

    1. Frankly, BG5, that’s part of the point. It’s September 2011: like it or not, but the 2012 election season has started. This is the time where people have to decide whether or not they’re running for President or Vice President (or a Cabinet seat in the new/next administration).

  2. The Old Media campaign to wound Sarah Palin has been successful. Watching it has made others more aware of the tactics and motivated them to find counters, but neither counterfire nor putting on bulletproofs helps the one who’s already been hit by the sniper.
    She knows that as well as anyone, perhaps better. It will be a long time, if ever, before she can get elected; in the meantime she needs something to do to make a living and perhaps have some influence. Think of her as a political version of Lady Gaga, where the PR is the performance.
    Regards,
    Ric

  3. Moe, one of the things that’s making this Palin campaign (and make no mistake, it’s a campaign, even if it’s an unofficial one) so frustratingly effective is that it puts an effective ceiling on support for every other candidate in the field. Which renders folks like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann to something more like “flavor of the month” than a candidate with actual staying power.

    Folks have said many things about Sarah Palin, but I’m sure all will agree that Palin not only knows how to get media attention, but also is a genius at knowing how to leave us all wanting for more.

  4. Brad, it’s my opinion that Palin finds objections such as yours delicious.

    From her point of view, what’s been the most damaging is not so much the media attacks as the acceptance of some of them by many who ought to be supporters, or at least friendly competitors. I’m thinking particularly of the “quitter” and “ignorant rube” memes, which a lot of people who ought to know better, or at least know to keep their f*ing mouths shut about it, have propagated with at least as much glee as any Democrat.

    That being the case, I think she’s having glorious fun being the spoiler for people who ought to be on her side but have demonstrated that they are not. Otherwise why is this woman smiling?

    Regards,
    Ric

  5. Didn’t she say some time back she’d let us know at the end of September? And I think (though I’m not positive) she has maintained that position. It seems to me it’s the media playing games with us – not her.

    1. The problem here, Beej, is that I’ve felt for several months that Palin’s staff are playing games with bloggers and pundits like me, too. And unlike the regular media, I haven’t done anything to deserve it.

      Now, people may just shrug that off as just me/others having my/our own ox being gored. Which is true – but it’s still a problem for her staff, and one that they’ve shown no interest in actually fixing.

  6. Eh, I don’t think she’s running. I think she was waiting to see if a viable non-Romney appeared, and seemingly now one has, so there’s no need.

    I don’t particularly like Perry, and I know that the Texas swagger frightens east-coast wimpy types of both parties, but one thing that he definitely exudes is competence, and not only with a working teleprompter. So regardless of the fact that there are probably fifty or sixty Republicans of national stature I wish were the front-runner instead of Perry, I don’t have a huge problem voting for him.

  7. Ric, when I say “frustrating effective,” I mean that it’s frustrating the rest of the GOP field. I’m not, in any way, voicing objections to Palin’s campaign machinations. To the contrary; I’m impressed at the way she’s able to stay in the public spotlight in the face of a VRWC that, by and large, would like to relegate her to yesterday’s news.

    If they knew how to do it.

  8. Skip, I’m in the back of the room with my hand up to ask a question: Do you honestly think that the American people are in the mood to elect another Texan to the Presidency, four years after another Texan finished his two terms with…rather low poll numbers?

    I don’t care how good the TX economy is right now: The American people will elect Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris President before they elect another Texan.

    1. Brad, at the rate things are going, by next year we could run a ham sandwich and the American people would give it serious consideration. I welcome sorting all of this out in the primaries, but electability is not the burning issue that it seemed to be in 2009. 🙂

  9. Moe

    I remember one of her staff calling a conservative old media reporter and giving him what-for when all he’d done was write a good article and someone else mis-characterized it.

    My memory on details of this incident is so vague I should probably just sit on my hands here, but I just thought I’d say there’s support for your position that her staff is careless about hammering friendly press who don’t deserve it.

  10. Moe, I can picture a question along these lines: ” Gov. Perry, as a Texan, what makes you think the American people are willing to elect another one so soon after your fellow Texan left the Presidency with some of his own people linking him to our current troubles?”

    If I can think up that question, I’m sure Jake Tapper, Bret Baier, and Ed Henry can easily ask said question. It’s the sort of question that makes RomneyCare and Quitting The Governorship easy to defend.

  11. Grrrrr. I remember now. She actually called another reporter over to witness the call. And that move was hers – not her staff’s. A Politico reporter. That was awful.

  13. Tell you the truth, I hope she doesn’t run.
    First, she has more freedom of movement and of speech outside the race than she would inside it: she’s not limited in what she can say or support (or call out in public, like Rick Perry’s Texas Dream Act)by worries about wooing donors or voter reaction the way she would be if she was running; if she really wants to help out the cause of conservatism and of rolling back the damage done by Reid/Obama/Pelosi, she should not kneecap herself by becoming a candidate.
    Second,like it or not she’s such a controversial media figure that the second she declares as a candidate the race stops being about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party’s incompetence and destructiveness and starts being about Sarah Palin and we lose the biggest edge we have.

    I love Palin; I think she embodies the Citizen Executive ideal that’s the best of American politics… but I’d much rather she didn’t run this time around.

  14. Beej, Moe: I think that incident supports my hypothesis that Palin, and even more her loyal staffers and supporters, are at least as peeved at the conservative commentariat and punditocracy as they are at the Democrats/MSM, if not more so.
    If you make that assumption, a lot of the behavior becomes more understandable, including the occasional overreaction like the one cited.
    Regards,
    Ric

  15. Ric – No matter how peeved they are, they still need to engage. If they don’t they will rest in the dustbin of National as well as Republican Politics.

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