Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Palin vs. the Tea Party

cross-posted at Dagblog

Mudflats has obtained e-mails revealing Todd Palin's anger at Joe Miller, the Republican Tea Partier nominee for Senate from Alaska. They also have e-mails detailing Miller's inside-the-campaign response:

I just found this in my inbox. This is what we're dealing with. Note the date and the complete misconstruction of what I said.

Holy cow.

Yes, Joe. That is what you were dealing with. The rest of us kinda suspected.

Here's the deal: Sarah Palin did in fact put serious backing behind Miller to knock off incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski, a long-time political enemy of Palin's. Then, as a nominee running for Senate, Miller got asked on Fox if Palin were qualified for President. Miller, trying to win his own election this year instead of someone else's two years down the road, said that there were a lot of great Republican candidates. Not an endorsement, but also pretty standard campaign-season non-commitment. And that's where his Palin troubles began.

Todd Palin, at least, was enraged that Miller didn't volunteer a full-throated endorsement of Sarah for President, before Palin has even admitted that she is running:

Sarah put her ass on the line for Joe and yet he can't answer a simple question " is Sarah Palin Qualified to be President." I DON'T KNOW IF SHE IS.

That's Todd Palin, master of the aggrieved and inaccurate paraphrase. Give him a hand, folks.

The e-mail indicates that a fund-raising letter and a Facebook post backing Miller will be held back in retaliation. And he urged Miller to feel more compassion for the sufferings of the martyred St. Sarah:

Put yourself in her shoe's Joe for one day.


What's brilliant about this is that Palin now has no horse to back in her homestate Senate race. She's feuding with her own protege, Miller, before he's won. (And if you punish a protege before they get into office, they will always know that they won despite you.) Murkowski is a long-standing nemesis whose career Palin just tried to end. And the Democrat's a Democrat. No matter who wins, Palin doesn't.

And this is Reason #467 why Palin will never be President. She attacks her own allies. Because she and her inner circle see enemies everywhere, they eventually have enemies everywhere.

She has an outrageous sense of entitlement that has nothing to do with sound strategy. This fight is about an endorsement that no politician would expect and which wasn't even worth anything. Palin didn't need Miller's backing at this point. She and Todd simply believe that she was owed it. If Miller wins, he could surely have been counted on to endorse Palin later on, when it actually mattered and when his endorsement was worth a damn. But he won't be making any endorsement like that now. And no one else will, either. No matter who wins the Senate seat from Alaska, they are going to work against Palin. In fact, it's the Republicans who distrust and dislike her the most.

Even worse for a politician, the "put yourself in her shoe's" remark suggests that the people closest to Palin genuinely view her to be suffering like Joan of Arc. That's not a sound or sane view of the world. Palin has attained enormous wealth and fame at whiplash speed, on the basis of very very few qualifications of any kind. She is one of the most fortunate human beings ever to have walked the Earth. If she views that career as a source of grievance and resentment, she will never have a happy day in her life, and she will never cease lashing out at people who have helped her and might continue doing so. That's no way to win anything.

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