WELCOME TO THE PALINDROME*

she gets skewered by the tabloids, just like us!
(if by "us" you mean insta-celebrity politicians)
Not to get all Lakoff-ian about this but one of the things this current Palin fiasco/distraction/circus reveals is how important a grounded, public narrative has been for political leaders...and how manufactured those narratives tend to be.

What we're seeing in 2008 is nothing new, of course. One of the most incredible touch-up jobs in modern history was Bush in 2000 where the Yale-attending, Vietnam War-skipping, multimillionaire scion of a Maine-based political family was able to remake himself into a good ol' (cow)boy, turning what was once a liability (he doesn't sound so smart) into an asset (he's like one of us!). If it weren't for how horrendous his administration has been for Americans and others around the world, you'd almost have to admire just the sheer moxie of it all (and wish either Gore or Kerry had some sharper handlers on their side but I guess Karl Rove doesn't clone well. Thankfully).

With the current election, both presidential candidates have been subject to considerable narrativizing, to distill their public essence into a simple one-line pitch. Obama = the history-making, biracial next JFK. McCain = former P.O.W. turned straight-shooting maverick.

Let's be real about a few things - there's a lot to both narratives that's complete and utter bull. Any kind of political image is a mixture of careful manipulation, information suppression and whatever else is necessary to preserve the narrative no matter the mountain of evidence otherwise.

But the Palin Problem is precisely that there's been no time in ingrain a narrative for her. Sure, the one we were given on Friday was "hockey mom of five who likes to hunt and eat moose burgers" and you know,- there is something compelling about that narrative in terms of establishing character and right now, that's the main thing Palin has going for her. To that extent, Palin - despite her liabilities - still seems like a savvy choice. Palin is inimitably likable in a way that, say, Mitt Romney never was.[1]

However, as many have noted, none of this establishes qualifications and confusing the two is risky business - not just for the GOP but also for the Dems. I like Obama well enough that I'll vote for him in November but let's be honest - he doesn't have a dense track record and his policies are not exactly progressive left. However, the difference here is that Obama's narrative was begun in 2004, during his speech at that year's DNC and he's managed to parlay that introductory moment into an extraordinary political career that we're seeing rise to (maybe) its zenith this fall. Likewise, McCain has flip-flopped with the best but his narrative was scripted in 2000 and incredibly, he's been able to play that out for eight years since.

So back to Palin: the problem with her narrative isn't that it's not a good one on paper...it's that she's such a blank slate for everyone (Republicans included) that it was unreasonable (if not deluded) to think her story would stick once anyone bothered to start digging. In other words, it's one thing to offer a script but it takes a lot more than just repeating bullet points to make it believable for people.

The level of sheer desperation to make up that difference is evident in the ways in which people are somehow claiming that Palin's qualifications partially rest on how "she's the governor of the biggest state in the Union" (also one of the most isolated and least populated but hey, apparently square mileage = governance) and the ever-popular, "she has foreign relations experience because Alaska is next to Russia." That anyone can speak this with a straight face is a testament to how well-trained political operatives have become.

And the thing is: they're not useful. When you put out such obviously weak claims, they beg to be questioned and undermined as CNN did of Tucker Bounds (see "How to Unspin" below). And the MSM - who, if you recall, were more than happy to play up the Jeremiah Wright story against Obama - are basically taking a similar tack with Palin: scrutinizing and interrogating and trying to suss out what about her narrative rings true vs. what rings false.

The problem for McCain's campaign is that too much rings false. Much too much. McCain's vetting team obviously did not research enough or overestimated public support too much.

I've enjoyed Slate.com's analysis of these issues, especially Jack Shafer's column today on how the delay in announcing Palin's nomination has backfired:

"The press is merely doing on short notice what the McCain campaign's vetting team should have done between March—when he clinched the nomination—and now: properly vetting his vice-presidential candidate.

Like the Democrats, the Republicans created a news vacuum into which they hoped to insert a mock convention that would rubber-stamp the nominee's agenda and send happy vibes to the electorate. The Democrats got away with it in Denver, but luck has shone on the news beasts in St. Paul. Even if an asteroid were to blot out New Orleans today, a giant squid were to topple the Golden Gate Bridge tomorrow, and fire ants were to kill every human on Fire Island by the end of Thursday, the biggest story of the week would still be McCain's cockeyed selection of Palin."

So, five days post-nom, Palin still remains an enigma - an enigma with character perhaps, but by more or less hiding from the press, she's allowing her narrative to get written by others and given the spin cycle tizzy operating now, I highly doubt she'll be able to capture it back. You can bet, tens of thousands of journalists and bloggers are going to be hanging on her speech at the RNC and then meticulously deconstructing it moments after. Right now, they can't help themselves because 1) there's so many blanks that need to be filled given the holes in her narrative and 2) frankly, the media clearly seem to be enjoying themselves doing it.

One second-to-last thing and I promise, I won't use the term "narrative" again for at least, um, until morning...that US Weekly cover is astonishing. I knew once this pregnancy story busted out, the gossip sites and tabloids would be jumping all over this and while I don't know if anyone's ever calculated what impact they can have on a race (note: check with Gary Hart), you can't imagine the GOP can be happy about this kind of coverage in a magazine that mythical Middle America reads. Seriously: "Babies, Lies and Scandal"? In one fell swoop, US Weekly (for whom I have no real love) managed to accomplish what an army of Democratic operatives could never have hoped to.

Speaking of Slate, their recent column on "Questions for a Superhuman Mom" is dead on about what Palin's candidacy says about the challenges facing working moms and how Palin's seeming D.I.Y. attitude is actually a massive step back since it puts the onus of child care on the mother rather than a societal solution. And as the Washington Post reported today, Palin, as governor of the biggest (in square mileage) state in the Union, cut funding for a shelter that works with pregnant teens. Oops, there's another crack in the...(say it with me now...) narrative.

*In all fairness, I stole this title from the Sarah Palin typepad blog.

[1] Lest I seem too taken by Palin's charisma, let's just point out that her politics are completely to the extreme of mainstream America - on the right and left. The new information coming out about her trying to ban books (this needs better confirmation) and trying to fire people for disloyalty (did she used to work at the Justice Dept?) and of course, her extreme, anti-abortion stances, plus creationist views, plus disbelief of global warming as man-made, etc. etc. is beyond the pale. It's no wonder that she's polling real low with Hillary's former supporters, no matter what the more stringent PUMAs claim.

And this actually goes to my point - because Palin was such a cipher, the Left was very easily able to create a counter-narr...um, script for Palin that's become quite easy to pass along to others: "Palin's the crazy anti-choice, pro-creationism, anti-science, pro-abstinence governor with the pregnant teen daughter." It's been far, far easier to stick that on Palin than it has been to create a compelling counter-script for McCain except for "that crazy candidate who picked Palin to be his running mate." The most I've seen accomplished has been to label McCain as "out of touch" but that's not the most damning of scripts compared to Mr. POW (and anyone who saw the RNC tonight knows that they're playing that story up over and over). That's why Palin's nom is such an albatross for him right now - it's creating a really viable, new storyline: "what was McCain thinking?"

--O.W.