For Sarah, It Begins Anew in Miami
11 November 2008 11:01 pm by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
At least she hopes so.
Matt Lauer interviewed Governor Sarah Palin on the “Today” show before her big speech at the GOP Governors Conference in Miami, scheduled for Thursday. It was the start of her rehabilitation that’s going to take a lot more than one interview or one speech. But it’s a beginning.
“GOP looking for new ‘face’.” They need more than that right now.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is not ruling out a future White House bid, is one of the Republican governors gathering here to plot a way back to the White House and a congressional majority – and to search for a national party face to spar with the incoming Obama administration.
The use of the word “plot” is particularly appropriate in this case.
Palin’s not about to take the blame for McCain’s loss, and instead is pushing back while looking for a way forward. No doubt she thinks it begins in Miami.
“I think the economic collapse had a heck of a lot more to do with the campaign’s collapse than me personally,” she said on NBC’s “Today” show. She recalled there were many times when she “wanted to shout out, ‘Hey, wait a minute, it’s not true’” in response to anonymous accusations against her. It was “pretty brutal,” she said.
The Republicans need more than a new “face.” They need to come to grips that Reaganism, named for the man who opened the door for the religious right, is the past. Some conservatives can’t do that and their inability to walk away from what has been a disaster, including deregulation and the free market wilding that ended in the biggest financial catastrophe in modern times, will make whoever is the face of their failures irrelevant as soon as she or he is selected. Their heroes and the policies they continue to cling to have collapsed completely, though they can’t quite face it and begin to modify their approach in the face of their fall. That’s very good for us.
