The future is in our past -
Sarah Palin, the charismatic, but controversial, Alaska Governor who was Vice-Presidential running mate for John McCain in last year's American Presidential election has resigned her post. There is widespread speculation that she has resigned to make a serious bid for the White House in 2012.
The Republicans can use some charisma about now, for Barack Obama has stolen the show. Not only is Obama a powerful public speaker, he's actually trying to make the changes he talks about in his speeches.
Not many of us expected a charismatic preacher to deliver. Normally preachers aren't doers. But Obama seems to be bridging the divide between charisma and practice. He seems genuine about his ideas and the need to implement change.
The Republicans could do with a foil to counter the positive effect Obama is having on voters across the globe. The Republicans need charisma. The longer they go without representation the longer the climb back. For better or worse, there's no one in the wings but Sarah Palin.
There was one up and coming star, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. However, he was caught with his pants down visiting his mistress in Argentina on Father's Day, leaving his wife and four boys home alone. That isn't cricket for someone from the 'family values' party. His downfall was dramatic.
Isn't it sad that many of the Republican stars who so love to preach about the morals and values to which we should all adhere are inevitably caught out in situations that reveal their hypocrisy. Now you are going to say the Democrats, too, are hypocrites. You will trot out President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and say they're all the same. You are correct!
Democrats are just as human and subject to the same challenges as Republicans. Yet, there is one huge difference. Democrats don't preach morals and values and expect others to live up to standards that they fall short of attaining for themselves. Democrats try to let others live their lives, knowing we all in the same boat when it comes to temptation.
As well as being criticized for being an upstart, Sarah Palin will be criticized more than most for leaving her post before her term is up. With merely a year to go before the election she will be accused of abandoning ship. But Sarah is nothing if not a shrewd politician. She knows that ambition isn't about staying to complete a job. Ambition is not about doing the job. Obama is an anomaly!
That's the strange thing about ambition. The job is not what matters. What matters is the thrill of the game. It's the play and making the right moves that count. Doing the actual job when the game is finished is a nuisance. That's what makes Barack Obama unique. As farfetched as it may seem to political watchers, he seems to want to do the job.
If Sarah Palin is serious about her ambition, she has to make the move while the stars are auspicious. The time does seem right for her shift back to the national scene. Sarah got her feet wet last year and she seems to be ready to take the plunge into deeper waters.
Whether Sarah Palin has a chance to become the Republican Presidential candidate will be left to the gods. What we do know is Sarah Palin scares people. Even woman in her own party are solidly against her. How can a woman from the sparsely populated state of Alaska rise to such prominence in such a short time? Especially when she is an unknown with no strong family connections to the political elite. Imagine some unknown women from Newfoundland and Labrador becoming Prime Minister! Sarah must be made to suffer!
Times they are a changin'. With the political elite such as it is, it has to be difficult for the seasoned old boys and girls in the GOP, who put George Bush on the throne because of his name and position, to accept an upstart from Alaska. And Sarah Palin is a woman! Heaven forbid!
The irony of the situation in which Sarah Palin finds herself is that she would never be where she is if it had not been for the work of liberals who campaigned tirelessly for woman's rights. How quickly we forget, if we ever knew, that it wasn't so long ago that woman could not vote, let alone run for President.
For such a long time we have been trying to raise ourselves above the mire. Over the centuries people have lost their lives to improve the lot of the common human. Isn't it ironic that whenever underlings follow their stars and are raised above their station the knives come out more vicious than those for the manor born.
Shakespeare said it well in Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141). Cassius: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." For that reason, Sarah Palin, in spite of my aversion to her politics, will get no criticism from me. Can she do any worse than George Bush, the heir?
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