CK MacLeod: The Palin Equation

From CK MacLeod at Hot Air:

The manner in which the underestimation, indeed the compulsive derision of Sarah Palin enhances the effect of her successes has been clear to non-Alaskan conservatives at least since her all-eyes-upon-her performance at the Republican National Convention of 2008. The comparison of Palin to Reagan is also familiar on the right. In Fish’s review, it comes across as wholly complimentary on the surface, because it’s explicitly cautionary for liberals, but it may betray Fish’s own partisan bias, since to him as for many liberal historians, Reagan and Reaganism were more symbol than substance, the deceptive offer of a pleasant dream that obscured a deeply flawed reality.

Even if the comparison can be seen in different ways, few Palin supporters will rush to disavow it. Most will prefer to bank it. As for Palin herself, she has directly aligned herself with Reagan, as a fervent admirer and as a would-be heir to his political legacy. When recent interviews have turned to economics, she speaks as a true believer in Reaganomics in statements that could be boiled down to “I’m favor what worked in the ’80s” – her main innovation being her emphasis on energy independence, a topic which in an odd historical turn had dominated American politics in the ’70s, but had all but disappeared by the time Reagan was inaugurated. When questioned in relation to national security, she is fond of quoting Reagan directly, deploying a statement of firm resolve that Reagan first proposed as an alternative to Détente, in discussion with his future National Security Adviser: “How about this? We win, they lose.”

WWTL captures the difference between Reagan and virtually the entirety of the foreign policy establishment of his day. For Palin, it underlines the contrast between her and our current president, a man who seems as put off by the word “victory” as Richard Nixon was by the word “love,” but its larger purpose is to associate what she offers – an indomitable and indefatigable American character in support of conservative orthodoxy – with what for large numbers of Americans stands as the last heroic period in our history.

Read MacLeod's entire article here.