Author,
'The Lies of Sarah Palin'
"God's Will"?: Sarah Palin's Secret Plot to Capture the White
House in 2012
Posted:
03/16/2012 8:27 am
Anyone
who has watched Sarah Palin closely in recent months can only marvel at the
"magical thinking"
she embraces with respect to the potential outcome of the Republican Party
primary for president. It's clear that Palin still has her sights set on the
White House for 2012.
In
an interview with
Sean Hannity in February, she declared: [A] brokered convention, I wouldn't be
afraid of that. The electorate shouldn't be afraid of that. That's a
continuation of the process, and competition that perhaps would be, in the end,
very good for our party, and good for the cause of defending our republic.
In
her widely reported interview
with CNN on Super Tuesday, she openly stated that she would consider accepting
the nomination at a brokered GOP convention: Anything is possible. I don't
close any doors that perhaps would be open out there, so, no, I wouldn't close
that door. My plan is to be at that convention.
It's
a line she has uttered repeatedly ever
since her ill-fated candidacy as John McCain's running mate in 2008. To most
casual observers of the American political process, even Republicans, this
would seem to border on the delusional. Her favorability rating among
the general populace is now staggeringly low. In many circles, she is a laughingstock or
a punch line. She
didn't even bother to enter the primaries. Even Ann Coulter has
now turned against her.
But
a close look at Palin's recent activities and statements -- and, most
significantly, the writings of her acolytes -- reveals that she is still
plotting to take the White House in 2012. Take a look at the video she released
last month on her website entitled "Chords of Memory," which links Palin's
image with those of Lincoln and Reagan.
Palin
has been consistent about four things since she announced her decision not to
enter the Republican primaries last October:
1)
She has strongly and vociferously attacked GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney;
2)
She has embraced the idea of an endless primary season and has encouraged all
four of the remaining candidates to stay in the race -- her sole purpose being
the outcome of a brokered GOP convention in Tampa;
3)
She has continued with her obsessive assault on Barack Obama, positioning
herself as the "anti-Obama" among the conservative Republican base;
4)
And, as noted above, she has made it clear now on several occasions that she is
"open" to accepting the GOP nomination in Tampa.
At
least one source close to the Palin family in Wasilla, Alaska, has confirmed
that Palin "still believes it is God's will" that she serve as
president, if not in 2012 then perhaps in 2016. Every move she has made in
recent months -- every attack on Romney and Obama, every push for an elongated
primary, every speculation about an open convention -- has been issued with
this political calculation in mind.
In
the aftermath of the devastating portrayal of Palin in HBO's Game Change,
Palin's once-close political associate in Alaska, the good-government
activist Andree McLeod, told
me yesterday:
People
can laugh all they want, but she ain't done. She's only developed a tougher
skin through all 'this' and, out of desperation, has to inflict more damage for
reasons only Sarah and her constantly-changing set of patrons knows. She has
become even more dangerous and desperate.
Skeptics may
argue that all of this is really Palin's feeble attempt to
keep the spotlight on her and to boost her brand as a talking head on Fox News
and as a highly paid celebrity speaker. Perhaps. But the lengthy interview she
gave CNN on Election Day was no accident and her follow-up interviews since
then on Fox News were certainly calculated as well. There's now even a Facebook page entitled
"Palin -- Our Brokered Convention Selection." Most significantly, the
Palin-centric website Conservatives4Palin (C4P)
-- with which Palin's inner-circle still maintains direct contact -- provides
considerable evidence of Palin's political intentions and long-term national
strategy.
Conservatives4Palin
was co-founded by Rebecca Mansour, the
controversial Palin sycophant who remains on Palin's Sarah PAC payroll (as
Aries Petra Consulting) but has apparently been sent to the Palin penalty box for
comments she made last spring mocking Bristol Palin. The site, however, remains
the primary Internet locale where Palin's acolytes openly push Palin's personal
and political agenda. It is the site where Palin's Republican
"enemies" -- everyone from Karl Rove to Romney and,
now, even the likes of Coulter and Bill O'Reilly --
are repeatedly trashed or derided. Most importantly, C4P continues to represent
an accurate reflection of the Palin political outlook in advance of the 2012
elections.
When
Palin, for instance, went on Fox with Greta Van Susteren, and declared,
"We need to replace Barack Obama with someone who understands... energy
security," the minions at Conservatives4Palin made sure that
everyone understood that the candidate Palin was actually referencing was -- ta
da! -- none other than Sarah Palin.
But
the most openly articulated playbook for Palin's presidential aspirations was
submitted in late February by C4P contributor Nancy Labonete, entitled "In the Event of a
Brokered Convention, All Bets are Off." It provides a
fascinating glimpse into the Palin mindset and connects all the dots in Palin's
seemingly zig-zag political strategy in advance of the 2012 election.
It
begins with a hyperbolic argument that Palin is the only Republican capable of
beating Obama:
If
Sarah Palin's most electrifying speech at the CPAC did not convince that only
she can articulate Americans' concerns and vision for our nation, then Obama
has just been handed his second term. The CPAC event proved that only she can
rouse the unexcited base to their feet. Only she can energize and move voters
to go out to the polls. Only she can unite us to defeat Barack Obama.
Labonete's
polemic continues by arguing that Palin is the only candidate who can withstand
the "Alinksy attacks" during the election; Palin, she argues, is the
lone Republican who has "the smarts to throw the media into a convulsive
tizzy and still have her message ring out loudly and win the argument."
Palin is the only candidate with "the fortitude and fire in the belly to
defeat Obama." Only, only, only.
What's
fascinating about the Labonete posting is that it does not focus merely on the
hypothetical; it urges Palin supporters to become delegates to the GOP
convention in Tampa and provides a link for doing so. "Even if Governor
Palin is not a candidate (yet)," Labonete argues, "let your county
GOP official know that you will vote for the best candidate at that time, but
in the event of a brokered convention, you will be voting for Sarah
Palin." Labonete concludes, "We must coalesce around a
patriot whose message is ingrained in her conservative character." This
is precisely the type of right-wing groundswell and organizing that Palin is
fostering with her recent rhetoric about "open doors" at Tampa.
"Lots of prayers can make this happen," replied one commentator on
the C4P blogsite. "God is listening. Let's make sure He hears us."
In
recent weeks, Palin has used the unflattering portrait of her in HBO's Game
Change as a way to advance herself as
a victim of the "liberal media" -- (C4P posted no fewer than 40
attacks on the film.) While Game Change has likely hurt her
favorability with the general populace, it has raised the ante with her
conservative Republican base, who now commands a significant majority in the
Republican party. Palin remains the base's superstar and is the only Republican
-- Romney included -- who claims a rock-star status on the hustings.
Palin
never could have survived the scrutiny of a prolonged primary season and the
reality-television string of debates it encumbered. In a recent appearance on
"Morning Joe," former McCain senior strategist Steve Schmidt was
asked by Andrea Mitchell if he thought Palin had a "future" as
"a national leader" in the Republican Party.
I
hope not. And the reason I say that is because if you look at, over the last
four years, all of the deficiencies in knowledge, all the deficiencies in
preparedness, she's done not one thing to rectify them, to correct them. She
has become a person who I think is filled with grievance, filled with anger who
has a divisive message for the national stage when we need leaders in both
parties to have a unifying message. . . . The lack of preparedness was a bad
thing and the total disinterest in being more prepared and rectifying that is
something that disqualifies.
But
in the bubble of the Republican Convention, those deficiencies would never even
come close to the surface. Even without the Palinista's organizing efforts, GOP
delegates are most heavily weighted toward the conservative base -- and Palin
remains their darling. She might very well capture the emotional narrative of
the convention like Romney and Santorum could only imagine.
Moreover,
the Republican establishment has lost control of both the party and the process
in Tampa. Establishment leaders were not able to solidify Romney's nomination
during the so-called "silent primary" in the year leading up to the
Iowa caucuses; the establishment will have little control over the majority of
delegates in Tampa. Palin remains a formidable force with the party base. On
the campaign trail, Palin would draw crowds the likes of which have never been
seen before by a Republican Party candidate for president.
As
the film Game Change revealed to a
broad American audience, Sarah Palin is many things: vain, anger-driven, intellectually
lazy, polarizing and dysfunctional. But as I also discovered in researching my
book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The
Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power, she is equally
ambitious, calculating, and sly as a fox. She has no intention of going gently
into that political goodnight.
Pay
close attention: Palin's rhetoric between now and Tampa will continue to be
critical of both Romney and Obama; it will continue to push for a contested
primary; and it will continue to signal Palin's willingness to accept the
nomination of a brokered convention. Palin knows that Romney will never pack
her star power with the base -- and that neither Rick Santorum nor Newt
Gingrich will either.
In
the aftermath of Santorum's sweep of Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday, a
brokered GOP convention is a very real possibility. The Republican Party has
become a fractured mosaic of fringe constituencies -- from Tea Partiers to
evangelical anti-abortion activists, from libertarians who support Ron Paul to
white supremacists who despise the fact that there is a black man in the White
House. It is an unruly lot. The days of a GOP elite framing the presidential
selection process are over. Charisma trumps experience; celebrity trumps
substance; and, perhaps most disturbingly, anger trumps reason. Mama grizzlies,
especially those who have been wounded, don't go down easy.
Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn's best-selling The Lies of Sarah Palin: The
Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power was
published by Macmllan/St. Martin's in May of 2011 and will be published
in paperback this May.
