For the longest time, Sarah Palin was leery of Facebook. Some of the
comments left on her page during the 2008 vice-presidential campaign were so
withering and unpleasant that it took months of coaxing by her staff and her
daughters Bristol and Willow to convince Palin that she should give it
another try. So she waded back into the digital fray just after she resigned
the Alaska governorship and as her aides were compiling a new press list.
Her first Facebook post, in August 2009, accused the Obama White House of
creating “death panels” as part of health care reform.
That offhand remark, as inaccurate as it was incendiary, helped incite weeks
of embarrassing town-hall meetings for Democrats, which in turn nearly
brought down the Administration’s top priority. Palin, working at the time
in San Diego on her first book, was surprised by her post’s galvanizing
power. With just a few keystrokes, she discovered, she could ruin White
House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ day, or as she puts it, “I find it a
great way to communicate with people directly without the media filter.”
Palin’s maneuvering has Republicans a little stressed out. Barbara Bush, who
recently expressed hope that Palin might stay in Alaska, isn’t the only GOP
elder voicing concern over a potential Palin run for the White House. “The
same leaders who fret that Sarah Palin could devastate their party in 2012
are too scared to say in public what they all complain about in private,”
wrote Joe Scarborough, a former GOP Congress-man and host of MSNBC’s
Morning Joe, in an op-ed. “Enough. It’s time for the GOP to man up.”
Only Obama seems unfazed by Palin’s game. On Nov. 24, he was quoted as
saying that he doesn’t “think about” Palin, but even if that statement is
accurate, he is perhaps the only person in politics who can reasonably make
the claim.
If anything, Palin looms even larger in the public consciousness now than
she did two years ago, a fact that has implications for the Republican
Party, Obama and the rest of the nation. There is little sign that she has a
master plan to capture the GOP nomination, and yet her moves over the past
year suggest that her political intuition is easily as good as that of her
more experienced rivals. Indeed, her go-with-her-gut
confidence is something many voters think Obama often lacks. “She has
amazing instincts,” says Rebecca Mansour, Palin’s speechwriter. “That said,
they’re never uninformed decisions … She knows what’s at stake.”
See “After Alaska: Sarah Palin’s Year of Living Large.”
See “Back to the Future: Sarah Palin’s Restoration.”
