Commentary by Margaret Carlson: Queen Bee Palin Shows Up Party, Then Splits
bloomberg.com
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- It’s always bracing to go to meetings of the Republican Governors Association, and this year’s gathering in Miami last week was especially bracing.
The Intercontinental was an island of relative happiness in a sea of turmoil, happiness being in short supply in a party that got whopped on Nov. 4 by vote totals not seen since LBJ.
But among the governors, no one lost. And they picked up the statehouse in Puerto Rico. They attribute their strength to being action figures.
The dean of the group, Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, who got national notice for his decisive leadership during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, explained, “What people really care about at the state level is competence. I doubled my African-American vote from 10 percent to 20 percent. Just do the job, I tell people, and the votes will come.”
He has a point. Voters are much less concerned with how a governor feels about guns, abortion and gays than what he’s going to do about crumbling roads, crowded classrooms and natural disasters.
Unfortunately for the shoulder-to-the-grindstone message the governors were trying to convey, the elephant at the event was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who held her first solo press conference. The governors not named Palin who trooped on stage with her seemed surprised that it was all about her. Yet everyone knows a camera is to Palin as cheese is to a mouse.
Now You See Her
After three questions, in an act of male political aggression not seen since former New York Senate candidate Representative Rick Lazio lunged toward Hillary Clinton in their final debate -- ending his career -- Texas Governor Rick Perry took over the microphone and called for the last question. Four minutes start to finish and Palin’s virgin press conference was over.
NBC reported -- and then changed its mind -- that Palin had wanted the exchange to end. CNN quoted one unnamed governor calling the whole thing “odd” and “weird” for sending the message that “she was the de facto leader of the party.”
The truth is that there were many potential 2012 presidential candidates present, all of whom were trying to stick to script, which prohibited talk about 2012.
In her speech, Palin couldn’t help going back to 2008. On her recent activities: “I had a baby, I did some traveling, I very briefly expanded my wardrobe, I made a few speeches, I met a few VIPs including those who really impact society, like Tina Fey.”
Greatest Hits
Then she reprised her greatest hits, including Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder. She exhibited enough self-control not to accuse the president elect of “palling around with terrorists,” but not enough to resist a swipe at Barack Obama for voting “present” in the Illinois state senate. Her few hours at the meeting, most of which were spent in the spotlight, ended before lunch. The vice-presidential nominee didn’t win a seat in the RGA leadership for the coming year.
The worker bees, who might eclipse the queen, stayed on. Florida Governor Charles Crist, who raised air-pollution standards, pushed legislation to expand health care, made himself bipartisan -- so much so that he kept polling places open late in early voting against his party’s wishes -- trailed media wherever he went.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is the party’s Great Brown Hope. Too bad he had to leave early, since he’s the opposite of Palin in that he’s all about doing his homework. The 37-year-old who looks 20 cut taxes, strengthened ethics, reformed education and saw his state through Hurricane Gustav. He’s a rising star the other governors can get behind.
Twinkies, Comb-Overs
South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, perhaps the most fiscally prudent governor in the country, boldly came out against the Wall Street bailout. He called the billions already spent a “truckload of sugar vainly trying to sweeten a lake,” warning that “another Twinkie” of $150 billion will not make a difference. He was elected chairman of the RGA.
Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty, who increased jobs with innovative tax-free zones, got utilities to use alternative fuels and allowed lower-cost Canadian drugs to be imported, was outspoken about changing the party’s image. People, he said, “don’t want to follow cranks” and that the party needed more than “a comb-over.” It needs “dramatic change to win over new voters.”
In their roundtables, the governors agreed that they were going to have to recapture parts of the electorate that now seem lost to them. About 95 percent of African-Americans and 67 percent of Hispanics voted for Obama.
Love of Order
Democrats are much better at soul-searching than Republicans, who value order and orderly change, if any change at all. If the schedule says the Plenary Session will begin at 9 a.m., you can set your watch by it. They are sensible. The decaf runs out at breakfast first. The red velvet rope used to pen in reporters might as well be an Iron Curtain. Nothing is left to chance. A sentimental passage in Governor Crist’s speech includes explicit stage directions: “Point to heart.”
Looking around at their big state dinner on Thursday night, it’s clear that expanding Republican voters is a challenge. From a riser in the cordoned-off area, I couldn’t see one person of color among the guests, only among the serving staff.
You can fault Democrats for wanting every event to look like America. But if they are to expand their party, Republicans might want to stop holding events that don’t.
(Margaret Carlson, author of “Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House” and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: November 17, 2008 00:01 EST |
