Friday, July 10, 2009

One Governor Stupidly Resigns, Another Governor Stupidly Doesn’t

Palin claims she’s a fighter and not a quitter, despite having quit her job. Painting herself as a victim stirs up the emotions in the base she is appealing to. She says she is summoned by a “higher calling”. I don’t think she means god.

She says she is going to work to change politics from the outside. The reason she is quitting her governorship is because the responsibility hinders her from traveling around the country stirring up the base. Another reason she is quitting her job is she does not want anyone to point at the lousy job she is doing which puts her on the defensive. As I said, she is playing victim to get the base to listen to her and cheer. But I think she sees herself as a conservative hero. Maybe her ego leads her to believe she has enough power to save Republicans and turn America around single-handedly.

She is convinced she can mobilize enough people to bring conservative values back to the forefront of American politics at the grass roots and kitchen table level in America. She thinks she can convince those Americans who may regret having voted for Obama to join her in tearing down Obama in 2012

Her eyes are on the bigger picture when she says she is a fighter. Her eyes are not on Alaska and have not been since her campaign-induced ego orgasm last fall when she began seeing herself as greater than she actually is.

Do I think she will run for president in 2012? Although that remains to be seen, my immediate answer is I doubt she will be able to.

She made big mistakes during last year’s campaign while she was under the control of others. She made mistakes as governor with Troopergate, etc.while she was under the watchful eye of her constituents, the opposing political party and even Alaska Republicans.

Palin is the psychology type who shoots herself in the foot. And she will. Unsupervised and unfettered in her “higher calling”, she will be able to do what she wants. And she will get herself in trouble because her ego’s voice continually tells her she is right and everyone who disagrees with her is wrong.

In giving speeches and appearing at Republican re-election rallies for 2010, as she will no doubt go around the country and she will eventually say or do something stupid and the media will focus on it and focus on it and focus on it. Palin will make the same, tired media elite persecution claim.

Republicans will begin to distance themselves from her especially when embarrassing details of how she governed Alaska begin emerging and/or from the tell-all book from Levi Johnston.

Palin has passed the Alaskan ball, as she said. As she rushes to the basket for the goal, to adopt her metaphor, when the ball is passed back to her, it will be a national ball because the basketball goal is a national political one, especially if Obama is unable to turn the economy around, which may be what she and others are counting on. Obviously he and his guys misread some things.

Palin is a fighter not a quitter. She just didn’t say how and where she would be fighting. And she’s not that great a fighter either.

And I predict…!

I predict when she begins, she will come out strong. But as time goes on (a month at most) she will stumble and falter and embarrass herself and embarrass others and when she has failed at everything she will have tried in 2012, she will be given a show on Fox where she will remain to criticize Obama’s second administration until her embarrassing interview with Joe the Plumber makes them both the biggest laughing stock ever in American politics and she is forced to resign.

Okay, maybe not the Joe the Plumber interview. And she may not resign Fox for reasons of embarrassment. But she will not be important, only annoying.

She isn’t mistaken in her seemingly contradictory statements about being a fighter/not a quitter and leaving the governorship before the end of her term, the media just didn’t ask the right questions.

But speaking of someone who should resign….


Hey, Master of Disaster, a woman has done right by her state and resigned, but you haven’t? What’s the matter, you don’t have the balls she has?? If you don’t resign, you are a girlie man governor because you are don’t have the balls to admit you are wrong and step aside.

Of course, the legislators are no better, but your policy of taking away money from education, the elderly, health care, law enforcement, etc., rather than raise revenue to cover the budget deficit is about to ruin California.

It is reported you want to gut welfare. Sure there is welfare fraud and it should be cleaned up. But is it enough to have any positive effect on the budget now? What about corporate welfare and corporate welfare fraud? Is that in your sights?

You are about to bankrupt, in the minds of voters all across California and America, the fiscal conservative ideology regarding taxes just as you are about to bankrupt California.

By that I mean, when all is said and done, you will have made many Californians realize they were wrong about taxes. But because of your cowardice, not your leadership.

Are you going to spend any money to help the new class of homeless men, women and children and the unemployed you will create with your budget cuts? Or is that not your responsibility? Get government off their backs? Is that your Nixonian-conservative philosophy?

This may be a long, hot summer. Do you have in your budget the extra cost for law enforcement and emergency services with all the civil disobedience that may well arise in protest to your cuts?

I have mentioned in this space that I manage a building with an elderly day care facility. Two days ago they stopped accepting seniors and their space has been without any activity. In fact, it has been empty.

The Tea Baggers wanted to recall you. Obviously Cornyn and Perry are not the only Republicans in their sights. But the Tea Baggers are reactionary, not thoughtful. Their thinking and the whole conservative philosophy of reduced taxation is the sinister culprit behind much of the problem. You only rode the wave of citizen cynicism about Gray Davis. All you had to do was offer movie catchphrases and Californians elected you.

I hope Californians learned their lesson, which is: if we get out of this with any kind of political and economic structural integrity, from now on, Californians cannot just think of themselves. They must also exercise wisdom. Democracy only works if the people are informed and smart, not if they are only thinking about themselves.

You, Schwarzenegger, will forever be remembered as the guy who sank California. Your accent was to your acting as your thinking is to your governing—bad, bad, bad.

Is it too late to deport you back to Austria for having violated the terms of your visa so long ago?