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I am a conservative.
I am a Republican.
I am a conservative Republican who can identify with the Tea Party and voted for Ron Paul in the Presidential Primary.
I am not a Sarah Palin fan.
I had the opportunity last night to watch her "debut" appearance on Fox New's O'reilly Factor last night, and as per usual I was less than impressed with her performance.
I admit that after her 2008 VP acceptance speech I was totally and completely smitten with her. I quickly realized however that my initial admiration of her was due more to the fact that she far acceded my expectations of what I was going to see in that speech. However as time went on I came to realize that she was in over her head.
I did not need the TV pundits to come to this concussion for me. It was evident in her debate against Joe Biden. Sure, he didn't score any knockout punches on her, but that was only because she managed to deflect question after question and talk in circles. Frankly, had Biden been less of a gentleman he could have decimated her in that debate. And that pattern continued no matter what the format or forum. She performed the same on ABC as she did on Fox News, but where FOX News gave her an easy pass, ABC pulled the opposite approach and went out of their way to embarrass her. Both networks were bias, just opposite sides of the coin.
Dodging questions did become her pattern, the McCain campaign did the best job they could creating smoke and mirrors around her. I gave her the benefit of the doubt then, because she was inexperienced. No one expected her to be a foreign policy guru, but she did need more of a message than the one she was giving, which was obsessively built around Joe the Plumber.
Now almost a year later Sarah Palin has quit her job as Governor of Alaska, written a book, become the face of the Tea Party, and most recently signed with Fox News as a contributor.
She was playing that role on the O'Reilly Factor last night. O'Reilly gave her the chance to correct some of the accusations about her "brains" or lack thereof that have been readdressed in the new political tell all book about the 2008 election called "Game Change".
When asked if she really did not know that there was a North and South Korea she said, "Oh...yeah...of course I knew."
She was asked if the accusations that she was not at all engaged in prepping for her debate against Biden, she simply responded that she had never talked to those people who had written the book.
Question after question she deflected. Her most common statement was that she had addressed most of these allegations in her new book and that people needed to read that.
Fine, I thought, she does not want to dredge up the past. Let's see how she does as an actual commentator and not a politician. Still, unimpressed. She did not give one well thought out answer for the entire 20 minutes. All she repeated were the same phrases over and over; "there are more important things going on in this country", "I don't see why that matters", "Um yeah".
I hope that the rumors are not true regarding Sarah Palin running in 2012 as the Tea Party candidate. Because she is not viable. She's the flavor of the month, and she has no substance at all. She doesn't even have a trade off like being weak on foreign policy, but a domestic and economic genius. She is a talking head, and a persona, and a symbol. She is not a presidential candidate.
There are far more qualified people out there getting their names out that share her values, but have the ability and the knowledge to run the country.