Palin Profile

Ken AshfordElection 2012Leave a Comment

Vanity Fair has a whopper of an article on Sarah Palin, full of inside-the-McCain-campaign insight from those within the McCain camp (who, shall we say, are not Palin fans).  If the Vanity Fair piece is too long, you might enjoy these excerpts from USA Today:

On the campaign: "… (M)ost made it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: they can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be."

On Palin's CBS interview: "By all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare. In the run-up to the (Katie) Couric interview, Palin had become preoccupied with a far more parochial concern: answering a humdrum written questionnaire from her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman."

One Palin as a candidate: "I saw her as a raw talent (says one key McCain aide). Raw, but a talent. I hoped she could become better.”

On Palin's striking good looks: This "reality has been a blessing and a curse. It has captivated people who would never have given someone with Palin’s record a second glance if Palin had looked like Susan Boyle. And it has made others reluctant to give her a second chance because she looks like a beauty queen."

On Palin's future: "(S)he has the good fortune to have traction within a political party that is bereft of strong leadership, and whose rank and file often demands qualities other than knowledge, experience, and an understanding that facts are, as John Adams said, stubborn things."

I, for one, would not mind seeing Palin stay on the political scene for the next election.  It'll be interesting to see how she pulls of a presidential campaign when so many "establishment" Republicans are against her.