A Real and Present Danger

The savage treatment of Sarah Palin by the mainstream media is indicative of what a threat she is to the left. I told my own first babe last night the Ms. Palin has a chance to become the most influential politician in America since Ronald Reagan. My wife was skeptical, not because she doesn't see the magic that is Sarah Palin, but simply because it's her nature. A true conservative I married - conservative to the core.

But another great babe agrees with me. Peggy Noonan, in her column today, says:

Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing — who is really one of them and who is not — and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to a future Obama candidacy.

She could become a transformative political presence.

So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.

"A transformative political presence." That's what I was trying to say to my wife last night but I don't have Peggy's vocabulary. If Sarah Palin gives a terrific speech tonight (as I expect), is a hit on the campaign trail (as I also expect), clearly beats the bumbler Biden in their debate (ditto), then it will be Sarah Palin's Republican Party for the foreseeable future. Even without a McCain win in November, she'll immediately become the face and the future of the party. Of course, if she's as big a hit as many of us hope, McCain will win in November and then Ms. Palin will be next in line for the presidency, in four years or eight. In the meantime she can begin the long, hard work of rebuilding the Republican Party as the party of normal Americans, most Americans. But she'll have lots of help - people love her. She has the ability to hold onto the conservatives while grabbing a huge chunk of the middle, and even many Democrats who may be looking at her as liking what they see, and who are as disgusted at the media's revolting behavior towards her as I am.

Not to put any pressure on you Sarah, but tonight is step one. Give 'em hell.