QUO VADIS PALINI: or GET THEE BEHIND ME SARAH

26 July -- Sarah Palin resigns as governor of Alaska and gives the thankless job to Sean Parnell, who certainly has his work cut out for him post-Palin.

The question remains as to just exactly how many real friends this woman has, and if she can find any of them in her family. If I were Bristol Palin, I would be so ticked at her mama. Thanks to the way her mother handled Bristol's situation, people will tend to remember Bristol now as the most famous poster girl for unwed redneck mothers -- ever. And the father left her to fend for herself as well. Smart boy. I doubt that her family like her much after all the horrors she required them to endure for the sake of her political ego.

If I were Palin, I would not in the long view count John McCain as a real friend. He took her from Juneau up to the mountain top and showed her the Kingdoms of the World, not really out of friendship but as some sort of political stunt. Many vice presidential candidates have started as stunts and wound up as vice presidents – but not Palin.

As a stunt, she takes herself way too seriously as a conservative commodity. Unfortunately for Alaska, her experience as a campaign star ruined her as a governor. The minutia of governing a place as big and tedious and dull (from a sophisticate point of view) as Northern Exposure obviously bored her after November 2008.

The history of the American presidency is a long history of sweet-talking, charismatic wise-guys with sharp tongues and the gift of gab convincing the yokels to elect him President of the United States after a couple of years of political experience, usually in California or New York. I find it hard to take Palin seriously as the latest incarnation of this model of leader,

For starters she ran – badly – a state that has less people than a third of the counties of California. I will admit for the sake of fairness that she does not need to shoulder all the responsibility for her dismal leadership record. Any governor finds Alaska hard to lead or even manage. The feds situated the capital in the south east corner of the state: the dullest corner, too. Imagine the entire Confederacy as one state with its capitol in Hialeah. However, other governors have done splendidly under the circumstances and did not bail before the end of the term.

Next, her performances as a politician leaves much to be desired. She entertains if not convinces the converted, but who else exactly takes her seriously for more than a minute and a half at a stretch? Compare her to the Roosevelts (all three of them) or Thatcher or Reagan. They could articulate themselves well enough to attract converts among people who may not have actually liked them. Palin cannot claim Inexperience as an excuse. Reagan could persuade even in his younger years – he served as a successful influential union president, corporate spokesman, and political commentator when young. Furthermore, all those presidents and presidential candidates who ran after one term or part of a term as governor of New York or California did not resign because of boredom and bad karma. Someone should tell Sarah if you ain’t for bad karma, you ain’t for American politics.

Since Palin got to see much of the lower forty eight last year, I suspect that she will move somewhere on the mainland soon. Some place with warmth, no glaciers, palm trees --- and a big base of electoral college votes.