Barack Obama gave future presidential hopefuls a clinic last fall on how to run for president. You begin by writing a memoir about yourself. Some might say that a memoir is something that is written after you have accomplished something, but Obama has proven that this genre can be bent to be used for the purpose of creating a mythos around your character that can be very useful in an election. Of course Obama wasn’t the first political messiah to write a hero narrative for himself to get elected. Mein Kampf is probably the most notable example from recent history. After seeing how easily this campaign strategy enabled Barack Obama to beat her running mate, it is pretty clear that Sarah Palin is taking the lessons she learned from campaigning against Obama to position herself as a messianic rival to the current chosen one.
Going Rogue
Her memoir, Going Rogue, will have a first printing run of 1.5 million. To put things in perspective, The Audacity of Hope, sold 200,000 copies in 2007. By the time Obama was elected each of his books had finally sold a million copies. Regardless of how you feel about Sarah Palin, her faux memoir is probably going to sell more copies in 3 months than Obama’s 2 books have sold in 3 years.
Selling a lot of books, however, isn’t the only indication of Palin’s rise. Unlike Obama, when she speaks, results follow. For example, how long have we been listening to Obama speak about healthcare. Has it only been 6 short months of incessant, ubiquitous, incomprehensible speeches? What are the results? We have 5? Or is it 6? bills? How many thousands of pages? How many speeches? And where are we?
Palin on the other hand, posts a microblog, and the world listens. Palin gets David Letterman to apologize to her daughter, a feat only matched by his cuckolded wife. And most lately, Palin is determining who wins political elections. Dede Scozzafava was comfortably winning her congressional race in the 23rd district of New York. Then Palin endorsed her rival from the conservative party, Dan Hoffman. Not less than two weeks later, Scozzafava is backing out of the race and throwing her support to Hoffman. Whether you like Palin or not, with her we can at least get a glimpse of what leadership looks like. Barack Obama, on the other hand is throwing the Democrat gubernatorial candidate in Virginia under the bus.
Republican critics from within the party and from outside, have complained for a while now that the party has lost its way, and has therefore become an obstructionist party with no solutions of their own. By going rogue, Sarah Palin might be playing a crucial role in helping the party find its new face, and here it is:
The Bean Counter
I haven’t been following this race very closely, but on the surface I can tell you one reason why Hoffman is a great candidate: He is an ACCOUNTANT. If the trend of replacing Washington’s career politicians and lawyers with practiced and principled accountants can be replicated 100 times across the country, conservatives might have something to look forward to next year. Every district in the country needs a nerdy, conservative, bean counter running with the simple message, “We can’t afford this.”
The fact that Sarah Palin is the one who gets this tells me that Obama better watch out, or we might get a new Messiah in Chief.
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Nerdy Bean Counters! Hilarious and absolutely true! If Hoffman wins it will rock the elites in the Republican party… and that is a good thing.
Wow, I never would have predicted you to be a Palin fan. Also surprised that you didn’t nod (at least critically) to the alternative book, with the same release date: “Going Rouge: An American Nightmare” (outfitted with a comparable picture of Sarah Palin on the cover – I really hope bookstores put them on the shelf next to each other).
http://politicalhumor.about.com/b/2009/10/22/sarah-palin-going-rogue-or-rouge.htm
I would be interested in hearing what about her policy perspectives or philosophy you like?
Also, great anything-you-can-do-to-connect-Obama-to-Hitler nod there, although, by association, I wonder why you didn’t put Palin and Hitler in the same sentence instead?
Interdependent bloghorn, I didn’t say that I explicitly endorse Palin in this post. I was trying to be a disinterested observer, although I did say some positive things about her.
She has policy perspectives and philosphy? I had no idea. I tried to be clear in my post that she is following the Obama strategy. This means you don’t articulate your policy perspective or philosophy. If she is smart, she will start articulating herself in vacuous rhetoric for the next few years. So to answer your question, I like the fact that I don’t have to like her policy perspectives. I would much rather vote for a personality cult, and so would the rest of the country as evidenced by the last election.
I was connecting Obama, Palin, and Hitler together in that they all have written memoirs about their struggles as means (we have yet to see with Palin) to gain political advantage. I don’t recall exempting Palin from the comparison.
“Barack Obama, on the other hand is throwing the Democrat gubernatorial candidate in Virginia under the bus.”
Not sure if that’s true. Last night, during the World Series, campaigns against “big oil” and healthcare were in full force. around the third inning , a very excited obama was stumping for Deeds.
know what i noticed? the commercial didn’t tell me what Deeds stood for. I have no idea what Deeds can offer over McDonnell. It was more or less Obama promising the “magic” that was captured last fall.
I am surprised the World Series was allowed to proceed considering the fact that Obama had something important to say. They should have cancelled the game to make airtime available for Obama.
You have proven my point. If Obama was really putting his heart into stumping for Deeds, the World Series wouldn’t have happened. The fact that he just came out between innings shows he thinks Deeds’ campaign is a lost cause.
You know who reminds me of Hitler? Everybody.
I admit, it’s a kind of a sickness. I see him in everybody, in everything.
As much this might offend some sensibilities, not everything Hitler did was wrong. He did bad things, but just because he did something does not make it definitionally wrong.
We can break down his actions and make value judgments on each of them:
plan to conquer Europe: bad
brushing teeth: good (I’m assuming he had good oral hygene… he seems the type)
killing all jews and gypsies: bad
high sense of fashion: good
Maybe that’s a line dems could use on Republicans: “You know who else loved their country? Hitler!”
The real tragedy is that such a monster has been drained of all potency by the grotesque overuse. I yawn when I hear the word. I don’t even think of 6 million slaughtered Jews and one of the bloodiest wars in history. I think, “oi, again with the Hitler.”
Chuckles
(P.S. pssst Jake, it’s Charlie… from the block. how you been?)
Charles, you and Jake had been MIA. I thought “how could I reach them?” Then it hit me, write a post that praises Sarah Palin and makes a Hitler reference.
Hitler reference aside, you have to admit that writing a memoir is something that is normally done at the end of successful tenure in something. Those who write memoirs at the beginning of their careers bespeak an odd brand of megalomania that in my opinion should be questioned rather than embraced.
Jake, why are people so attracted to megalomaniacs? I assume there are some psychological theories that explain this.
I guess Nailin Palin wasn’t the cinematic success so while a book usually comes out before a movie, I guess this was the exception?
Maybe she will continue down the Hitler/Obama path and hire prominent film directors to create propaganda videos.
Leni was good with the camera angles. Palin publishing an autobiography… a little premature I agree.
Charlie and Ben, are we really going to dispense with our pretentious blog names? That would be a shame, because it is much easier to engage in personal attacks on someone with an ambiguous, depersonalizing title that marks no personal connection to oneself.
Regarding political philosophies and policy perspectives and memoirs, have you read the Audacity of Hope (Admittedly not the best title)? If you have, then I challenge you to convince me that it isn’t much more of a statement of political philosophy and asserting a particular interpretation of the constitution and recent political history than a memoir. He certainly does engage in self-reflection and some personal history, but as I recall, the vast majority of the book is spent laying out his take on political history over the past several decades and where he thinks the future trajectory should be directed. So, I guess I disagree with the assumptions of your argument here.
I can’t wait to see what is laid out in Palin’s memoir/manifesto. And, I would say I disagree that Palin has expressed no policy perspectives. She seemed pretty clear that she would pretty much do anything Israel wanted her to do and that we should really, definitely, and vigilantly “keep an eye on those Russians” (for which her home is particularly suited to do so).
Messrs. Bloghorn, Independent and Otherwise
I’m thinking of changing my name to the Co-dependent Bloghorn.
I thought you might be interested in this:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/10/25/secret_diary_sarah_palins_ghostwriter/
It is the diary of Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter. Quick spoiler: I am Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter.
I’m home sick from work today, but the tea partiers are down on the National Mall protesting health care. Would that I were well enough. I usually go to all of these events. Sarah Palin has made it cool for the frumpy and the middle-age to protest, and for that, I love her.
No more do you have to worry about going to a protest and hear starry-eyed hot but unwashed, vaguely liberal protesters talk about things they don’t understand in their best “dazed and confused” intonations. NOW, we get to go, and see our grandparents playing the same role. Instead of leaving these protests smelling like sandalwood and patchouli oil, I leave smelling like ensure. It’s certainly different, but at best it’s a lateral move.
Independent: I think Obama found a clever way to introduce himself to the public. But in a world where John Gossling will soon have a memoir, you’ve got to admit we have a low bar.
And I’m with the Interdependent on this. Palin’s very existence is her policy position. It is taking literally the Buckley statement that he’d rather have the first fifty names of the phonebook running the government than the faculty of Harvard. She counts herself one of those random names. It takes no special skills, no special insights, and that, by itself, is her political philosophy.
I have no fear of her gaining power. The men who love to hear her speak about how women shouldn’t be empowered will not give her the top job ever. And I can see her winning office anywhere anytime soon.
Dreams from My Father is a memoir. Audacity of Hope, like all second installments in a trilogy is a lot more broody and focused on issues and themes rather than plot and character development. I can’t wait for the third installment of the Obama autobiographical trilogy. I don’t know if it will be more Return of the King or Rise of the Sith, but it will definitely be epic.
Where Palin has articulated policy perspectives, it has gotten her in trouble. Better to keep it abstract and vague using words like hope, dreams, change, rouge, rogue, present, and “we are the ones we have been waiting for.”
I laughed when Tina Fey did her Palin impersonation and dropped the Russian line. I am surprised SNL hasn’t ripped Clinton and the Obama administration apart for the diplomatic meeting where Clinton brought a plastic reset button.
*****I laughed when Tina Fey did her Palin impersonation and dropped the Russian line. I am surprised SNL hasn’t ripped Clinton and the Obama administration apart for the diplomatic meeting where Clinton brought a plastic reset button.*****
You have to remember that most everybody funny associated with SNL campaign 2008 is gone. Tina Fey and Amy Poller in particular. Recently SNL tried to rip Obama for not having accomplished anything (“jack and squat”) but it just wasn’t that funny. I saw by that sketch that they weren’t averse to mocking the administration, just somewhat inept.
And here’s where I come out and say I’m an obama fan who hasn’t read the books. I’m waiting for the movie myself. It’s what I learnt doing an abortive MA in History: don’t read books, read what OTHER PEOPLE have said about them. Skim and then read reviews by people who shape discussion.
I hang out at Politics and Prose here in DC and let people tell me about their books. Lots of discussion and interaction, not a whole lot of quiet time under a desk lamp. At least now that policy is a hobby rather than my job.
Cheers,
Chuckles
I believe the “reset” button was translated wrong and said “overload” instead. Indeed the only truth from the Obama admin. Well, should have said “Laydown” instead.