it should have been you, hillary
by Cameron Contois
Published: September 23, 2008
If you’ve walked into a supermarket recently, you’ve probably noticed Sarah Palin’s face plastered on the cover of every magazine in the checkout aisle. She’s a cover girl for Time, Newsweek (for two weeks in a row),The National Enquirer and countless others. She and her baby were front and center on US Weekly and People. As Mo Rocco points out, Sarah Palin’s a tabloid star.
Rocco states, ”A tabloid star is a public figure with known foibles. (Public figures without foibles are relegated to the ever less popular broadsheet newspapers.) To be a tabloid star is to be built up, brought down, built up again on a weekly basis. To be a tabloid star means, ultimately, to be an object of affection (Naomi Judd, Kathie Lee Gifford, Elizabeth Taylor) or at least concern (Britney Spears) but rarely to be hated. (John Edwards is an unlikable, and I expect short-lived, tabloid leading man.)”
Americans have a dirty little secret: we love tabloid stars. Admit it. Who among us doesn’t secretly go toPerezHilton.com to see Perez trash Miley Cyrus?
I remember fondly those days when Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, in a never-ending primary battle, dominated the news and tabloids. Lately, Obama is a media side note, only able to draw feeble attention with a faux controversy, the “Lipstick on a Pig” comment (in contrast, Alaskan state law makers investigating the firing of Palin’s public service commissioner has all the makings of a real scandal).
By not picking Clinton as his vice president, Obama single-handedly opened up the Pandora’s box of Sarah Palin. There would be no Sarah Palin right now if Clinton was on the ticket. Because of that anticlimactic Biden pick, McCain and company saw an 18 million voter weakness and capitalized on it like the Green Bay Packers capitalized on the Detroit Lions’ quaterback.
CNN reports, “Biden has seen coverage of his campaign slip from feverish to low-key,” and the press corps traveling with him has dwindled to a “skeleton crew.” As for Palin, she received nine times more media coverage than Biden.
Remember all those critics who derided the idea of Clinton for VP because Hillary was “divisive?” Some were scared of more Clinton shenanigans in the White House. Many just plain hated Hillary. Few realized that, love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Clintons are tabloid stars. Bill and Hillary were headliners nearly every week during the primaries.
Don’t y’all miss that media coverage now? Rocco states, “To be a tabloid star is to become an addiction for a public that ordinarily doesn’t give a damn about politics. Bill Clinton became a tabloid mega-star with the Lewinsky scandal. And his approvals were never higher than then.” As for Hillary divisiveness, Palin is as divisive as Bush but that’s not stopping people from joining the Palin party. Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse and campaign for McCain and Palin. That could have been you, Obama!
Gone are the days when Obama was going to turn red states blue. Now, even my home state of Michigan is toss up and may go to the Republicans for the first time in over 20 years.
Republican strategist Ed Rollins points out,”[Obama] just couldn’t [pick Hillary for VP] and maybe thought he didn’t need to do it. He was wrong. That choice would have meant that McCain probably wouldn’t have picked Palin. And if McCain had picked anybody else from his shortlist, the Republican convention would have been boring.” Rollins asserts that Palin has energized the GOP like no one else since Ronald Reagan. So much for Palin being another Dan Quayle.
This article is not my way, as Clinton supporter, of saying, “I told you so,” but to draw attention to the dangerous situation the Democrats are in right now. Obama’s campaign needs to include Hillary as often as they can to negate Palin as much as possible (which won’t be much since Hillary’s not on the ticket, but it couldn’t hurt). Furthermore, Obama needs to do something to get the Democrats back the media spotlight.
Tell Bill to do something scandalous… just kidding (kind of).
The real solution is for Obama to do something out of the ordinary that proves he really is about change. Right now, McCain and Palin are using Obama’s own message of change against him, painting themselves as reformers. It’s working and the Democrats should be worried.
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September 24th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Cameron, you’re right on. An Obama/Clinton ticket would be pummeling a McCain/Palin ticket. Simply pummeling them. Obama’s going to lose the election because he insisted on punking the Clinton’s.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:13 am
It’s amazing how much the tables have turned since Palin first emerged. Even then so many people were saying McCain had ruined his chances and sealed his fate.
I really never expected this all to be so close.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I don’t know I think the more this drags out you’ll find that Palin isn’t really going to help McCain at all other than maybe shore up some of his base.
The she opens her mouth the more people are seeing just how stupid this woman is. Did you see the interview with Couric about how living next to Russia gives her foreign policy experience. I couldn’t keep a straight face. She’s never been to Russia, never dealt with the Russians, never left the country, and only just applied for a passport last year, and yet she thinks she has foreign policy experience because her state is close to Russia.
By that logic I have foreign policy experience because my state borders canada, and I’m qualified to run the federal reserve due to the fact I made a credit card payment one time.
September 27th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I’m really not interests in starting the tired “experience” debate but I have to just say bashing on experience is a endless argument that can’t help either side.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
as an Alaskan resident I’ve been an observer of the Palin phenomenon for the last two years and more and I have to say that there are signs that this was far more than an opportunistic and last-minute play on the part of the McCain campaign. That Sarah was a likely VP pick has been in the wind here for a year or more, though curiously absent from national coverage…
She brought Rovian politics to tiny Wasilla and has been working closely with Republican operatives on a national level since her election as governor—My feeling is that this is completely scripted and has been for a long time.
All Obama could have done by picking Hillary is to play into the hands of the Clinto-hating legions that have been well armed and armored for the last 16 years
September 29th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I agree with ischuldt that Sarah Palin as VP is not going to help the McCain campaign. When the announcement was first made was there an increase in support for McCain? Yes, however, it has been only one month since the announcement and it’s starting to slip. The more she’s in the spotlight the more she is seen as having no clue what is going on. She didn’t even know what the Bush Doctrine was in an interview with Charlie Gibson from ABC.