The list of “don’ts” for rising political stars is long and varied. You’re not supposed to offer Thanksgiving greetings before a group of turkeys meeting a noisy end. You’re not supposed to quit your job as governor before finishing three years in office. You’re not supposed to use Facebook as your primary tool of communicating with the public. You’re not supposed to get into public back-and-forth spats with late-night-comedy-show hosts. You’re not supposed to jump into obscure upstate New York congressional races and lend your support to a struggling third-party candidate.
Sarah Palin keeps breaking the rules. Her detractors claim she’s setting a once-promising political future afire, turning herself into a bizarre, polarizing, controversy-driven reality-show star and a laughingstock amongst serious political thinkers. Her supporters claim she’s outfoxing her critics at every step, offering a clear, sharp voice of common sense that the heartland has been yearning for, and biding her time for an eventual near-certain campaign for high office.
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Clearly, Palin is not the best-positioned candidate for the Republicans in 2012; the unfinished term in Alaska leaves her with a short and incomplete demonstration of her ability to manage a government. But those who see her as reduced to a recurring punch line are ignoring the fact that Palin is breaking another rule, the one that says you have to be in elected office to influence the political world. Any event she attends instantly sells out and is guaranteed massive media coverage. She reset the terms of debate in the health-care fight with the phrase “death panels.” We can put a dollar amount on what Sarah’s blessing is worth to a little-known candidate: In the first 24 hours after her endorsement, Doug Hoffman’s congressional campaign in upstate New York took in $116,000, mostly in small donations. What’s more, Palin set off a stampede of additional endorsements and attention for Hoffman.
And now her book is dominating the political news cycle like few others in recent memory — perhaps matched only by the Clintons’ volumes or by Colin Powell’s. She has had a much-touted Oprah appearance and front-page coverage in major newspapers, and her book tour seems likely to attract huge crowds.
What does the future hold for Sarah Palin? The question was put to four smart GOP consultants, all of whom have worked on winning campaigns; some of them worked closely with the McCain 2008 effort, some did not.
Consultant A is a supreme skeptic: “If she didn’t come with the drama of Levi, the intellectual vacuousness of the Couric-Gibson interviews, the message of teen pregnancy, the track record of a job half done, and the price tag of tens of thousands of RNC dollars’ worth of clothes, then maybe she would have a chance of elective office again.” He adds: “Will she be a kingmaker? I suppose there is a certain strain of conservative that responds to her, and somebody needs to fill the void left by Mike Huckabee, Gary Bauer, and Alan Keyes. However, if Sarah Palin is trying to sell me on who to support, I’m probably going to keep shopping around.”
Consultant B, who was close to the Hoffman campaign, observes, “She clearly has a following within what I will call the ‘nonaligned conservative movement.’ I don’t include in this group all the Tea Party folks or the 9/12-ers, though many of them do fall into this mix. And her biggest influence, I think, may be in GOP primaries, if she supports real conservatives who can win. That will require some sound political judgment and the building of a team to vet, recruit, and support those candidates. It’s not clear to me that she has that in place yet.”
B also notes that her preferred candidates have to be ready for the aftershocks of Palin-mania: “Given that she also creates great energy on the left, candidates she supports will have to be ready for the onslaught that will almost certainly ensue from her involvement in a race. That is why a focus on the primary races may be the way for her to have the most influence in shaping the party — on a local and state and federal level — and helping conservatives.”
Consultant C believes Palin will be remembered as one of the most influential conservatives outside elected office: “Palin will forever be a cult hero among conservatives, but I think it is unlikely she will ever hold public office again. In fact, I have concluded that she will never even run. In 20 years she will have earned a spot on the mountain with Buckley, Goldwater, and Limbaugh, but I don’t see her on a ballot again.”
