Palin Proves Bright Novice Beats Dull Veteran

Rock star Sarah Palin needs no more time in any office, excluding the literal space where she writes books and signs on to social networking sites.  The Black-Friday-in-Walmart’s-parking-lot response to her book demonstrates her greatest appeal, namely how strong ideology trumps vast experience.

Set aside her cheerless, zealous haters, namely the impossible sorts who will emit tears of joy when Barack Obama gets his Nobel.  Instead, the focus here is on the pockets of conservatives and fair-minded independents not yet sold on her as a presidential candidate.  Many who would agree with most of her political stances if they were written on a nameless sheet nonetheless think she needs more seasoning before she sends the incumbent back to community organizing.

But more time working in government perversely doesn’t help one run the government better.  Even noble souls can be worn down by Washington to the point where they’re rubber-stamping bills like an assembly line worker.  Meanwhile, good ideas remain the same no matter how long one holds them.

Consider the present president as a rather negative example.  Obama and/or his staff have committed ample dismal fumbles such as incessant bowing, the willingness to brush off buddies while kissing up to vile enemies, and a startling unwillingness to Google names such as “Van Jones” and “Kevin Jennings.”

But his lack of time served in the government isn’t Obama’s essential drawback: it’s his ideas that are sinking him.  Two more decades in the Senate wouldn’t help Obama formulate wiser opinions on security, taxes, or the overwhelming desire to have Washington run everything.  In fact, he’d just reinforce bad habits.

That applies to many semi-permanent Washington fixtures.  As for man who’s comically second in command, Joe Biden is qualified, if spending the vast majority of his adult life as an elected representative counts.  And yet most Americans wouldn’t feel comfortable having him be in charge of an Elks Club raffle.

And Robert Byrd just set a record for experience.  Meanwhile, he’s one of those politicians people from 49 states find embarrassing.  It’s not to bash voters in the great state of West Virginia, as my home jurisdiction has inflicted even worse examples upon the Senate.  And there are at least 155,000 or so West Virginians who didn’t want to see Byrd break the record.  But the point remains: it’s better to have a novice with worthwhile ideas than a nine-term senator whose extensive background includes both support of every liberal idea and a stint in the Klan.

Instead, Palin should pattern herself after a role model who spent eight total years in government before he won the top job.  Not to bring up the obvious comparison for every single conservative, but Ronald Reagan’s chief strength was offering a broad vision as opposed to being a long-time policy wonk.  Underlings within the administration can address technical details.  It’s the president’s job to make unbelievably bold statements on freedom’s behalf such as, “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

She thankfully possesses a similarly clear vision, as displayed in both her Republican Convention speech and each of her Facebook posts.  Also, she’s obviously willing to flaunt her independence.  That fact is best shown by the title of a new book you may have heard that she’s authored.

Palin has most famously been willing to appraise the entirely critique-worthy John McCain.  It’s refreshing if for no other reason than she’s not eternally sucking up to someone who offered her a job.  Besides, she’d be classified as a subservient lapdog if she nodded, smiled, and announced she was just happy to have been part of Team McCain.  It’s almost as if she can’t make the media happy.

Her foes confuse clarity with idiocy.  Let them keep spectacularly misunderstanding her, especially because they despise her for more than her “You betcha” manner.  Namely, she’s both successful and admired in crimson states, which provokes endless infuriation among shrill leftists.  Only abortion-embracing, male-despising, womyn-spelling females are supposed to climb as high as she has, a fact which will happily grate on them eternally.

Spending a few years learning senatorial parliamentary procedures won’t help her exasperate the right people any more completely.  Such service also won’t be an asset in whatever her next career may be.  In fact, Palin would see her influence diluted if she won election to the stodgiest of venues.

There’s the practical problem of whether she would run in a primary against Republican Lisa Murkowski next year or try to beat the incumbent as a third-partier.  And she wouldn’t get to knock off Mark Begich until 2014.  More importantly, she’s not the Senate type.  Palin is better running a state government than being one of one hundred at the national level.  She’s too executive-minded to join a committee.

Of course, she kind of bailed early on her last position as a chief.  But she’s striving to do more for more people than she could while running a fascinating yet non-adjacent state.  Plus, she can now influence national politics in a way she couldn’t while being bled dry after paying lawyers to shoot down patently false ethical violation charges.

Her present unencumbered schedule is thus mutually ideal, as she can help lead us out of the Obama morass via speaking and writing.  There’s a radio program or Wall Street Journal column waiting for her, unless she wants to keep her book tour going until it morphs into a campaign tour.  Meeting an army of supporters, discussing small-government policy, irritating MSNBC: what’s not to love about what she’s doing right now?

She stands in blunt contrast to the current president, who would be a wretched leader no matter how long he spent padding his résumé.  If there’s one thing to learn from Tea Party Nation, it’s that we’re instinctively averse to being led by a person who never wants to leave the District.

As for our next leader, it’s too bad there’s not an outsider who happens to be an indomitably charismatic woman; ideally, she’d be a thoroughly genuine person in possession of George W. Bush-style folksiness, only she’d actually be thoroughly conservative.  Wait. . .

Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in Western New York.  He blogs at http://thebuffalobean.com and tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.

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