Saturday, July 4, 2009 1:05 PM
An 18-minute infomercial for professionalism in politics
Bruce Anderson
There are lots of reasons to want an end to "politics as usual" and, in the last decade, lots of people vying to be the champion of that cause.
Sarah Palin is anything but common. But God help us all if she truly is the best the Republicans have to offer as an agent of change.
Friday's performance by the Alaska Governor was as pathetic a demonstration of political communications as we've seen in a long, long time.
Amid distracting background sounds and images, she rambled without conviction around the question of why she was quitting. She tried to make the case that being out of office was going to make her more influential, while stressing how badly she wants to avoid the heat that comes with influence.
She embarrassed her party yet again, a faction of which maintains a powerful celebrity-type affection for her. In a week in which South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford established some kind of new benchmark for weirdness, Sarah Palin swept his whining and pining out of the news hole, saving whatever small portion of his backside is still intact.
In so doing, she reminded us - and maybe we all needed reminding - why professionalism in political communications matters. Its easy to go too far in trying to manage politics, over-craft every line, over-stage every event, remove the spontaneity, avoid the real human moments. But now we've got an 18-minute tape to remind us of what happens when we lurch too far in the other direction.
During her unsuccessful run alongside John McCain last year, Palin was fond of dismissing criticisms of her approach by saying she was a maverick. Some dictionary definitions of maverick suggest someone of strong independent thought. Yesterday might have been independent, but strong and thoughtful are not words that come to mind.
