The Carrier Goes But Not the Virus

Palin’s self-immolation today may yet do the Republican party more harm than good. Sarah Palin’s supporters are a large and important constituency within the Republican party, but they are not a constituency sufficient for conservative success. Palin may have resigned--but Palinism will continue.

Sarah Palin said today that her decision to resign as governor had been in the works “for a while” and “after much consideration.” In that case, you might wonder why she had not bothered to write out a speech in advance. Instead, the Alaska governor delivered a rambling, angry, and self-pitying statement that praised people who do not give up – and then gave up. Gov. Palin does not seem to intend to end her political career. She quoted Douglas MacArthur, she talked about working for change outside government. She may yet try a run for the presidency in 2012. But if her political career is not quite ended, it now seems headed nowhere positive. Sarah Palin’s approval ratings as governor of Alaska have plunged from over 80% to 55% over a little more than 18 months. Her departure at this time will raise unerasable suspicions that she anticipated still deeper declines. Perhaps some scandal was hovering over the horizon. Perhaps she wished to clear her work schedule to cash in on the lecture and television circuit. Or perhaps she simply wished to be elsewhere when the bills arrived for her reckless management of her state’s finances. Whatever the motive for the departure, the fact of the departure will exact a terrible cost. Should she run for president, she will face the same question again and again: “What happens if the presidency turns out harder than you expect? Will you quit that job too?” If Margaret Thatcher was the Iron Lady, Palin is the Plaster Lady: Under pressure she has cracked and broken. Many Republicans will be relieved by Palin’s decision. As a candidate for vice president in 2008, Sarah Palin suffered what may be the fastest and steepest plunge in voter approval in the history of polling. In the single month of September 2008, her net approval rating (positives minus negatives) dropped by a stunning 20 points. Women especially disliked her: By mid-October 60% of women under 50 expressed a negative view of her. Negative views about Palin contaminated the whole McCain candidacy: By mid-October, 41% of voters viewed Sen. McCain as a man of “poor judgment” as opposed to only 29% who said so about Barack Obama. And yet – bitter irony – Palin’s self-immolation today may yet do the Republican party more harm than good. Had Palin sought and won the Republican nomination in 2012, she would almost certainly have proceeded to a Goldwater-style debacle – and dragged Republican senators, governors and representatives down with her. That would have been a miserable result. And yet it also would have been a clarifying one. Republicans would have got Palin and Palinism out of their systems in a sharp and painful lesson that would have opened the way to the kind of reconstruction that has occurred in, say, the United Kingdom. Now the steady and diligent Mitt Romney now emerges as the far and away Republican front-runner. Romney used to be exactly the kind of presidential candidate the GOP needed: accomplished, intelligent, knowledgeable. But a Republican party that has not learned why Palin was a problem has pressed Romney into turning himself into a Palin replica. If Romney loses in 2012, the same pressures will be applied to his successor. Spared the misery of massive defeat, Republicans will also be denied the lessons of defeat – and the hope of a rapid recovery. Sarah Palin’s supporters are a large and important constituency within the Republican party and the conservative movement, a constituency indispensable to conservative success. But they are not a constituency sufficient for conservative success. There are just not enough of them. The Republican party has to reach further and grow bigger. The one positive effect of a serious Palin presidential candidacy would have been to teach that lesson to the whole Republican party. Friday’s abrupt dereliction of duty has deprived the GOP of even that benefit. Her resignation enables her supporters to continue living under an illusion – to the terrible and enduring cost of their party and their country.