Thursday, February 4, 2010

Andrew Malcolm on Tea Time with Sister Sarah

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Andrew Malcolm notes that Sarah Palin will embark on the next leg of her political journey Saturday with her keynote address to Tea Party activists in Nashville:
Some pre-convention pushing and shoving in Music City scared off some other Republican speakers. But Palin is patiently constructing her own political base for the next year or two, one rally, one handshake and one signed book at a time.

Which happens to be precisely the hands-on, grassroots way she ousted the old GOP geezers who ran the Alaska Republican Party for so long and thought they could keep Palin in her place. And then she took on a better-known Democrat who'd already been a governor and knew how politics worked. And she waxed him too.

The bigwigs of both parties, who went to fancy Eastern schools and share an insider's understanding about how the usual political game has been played in D.C., don't really know what to make of or do with Palin. The same way they initially felt about the spontaneous explosion of tea parties that have changed the nation's political landscape, expectations and rules in just 10 months.

Looking at Palin, the Democrats fall back on the dummy stereotype, you know, the stupid Republican thing they tried on Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and Bush I and Bush II, who like Reagan beat them twice anyway.

But Palin puzzles, even frightens the Republican Party potentates too. Because Bush II clung to Dick Cheney for two terms, there was a stark leadership void, no VP heir trained on the job. So, now it's jumpball in the Republican Party. And guess who played some physical basketball for an Alaska state champion?
Read Andrew's full post here.

- JP

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