Well, crap.
I had prepared an eloquent post comparing Gov. Palin to Ulysses S. Grant. It was pure brilliance, comparing the sorry state of Republican leadership to the sorry state of Union generalship during the Civil War. And as a proud son of the South and graduate of her finest military institution, you’d better believe it killed me to say that.
The historical analogies were pretty clever. Or they would have been, except that she’s just announced that she won’t be running for President.
I won’t begrudge anyone for doing what’s best for their family, but it was really looking like she’d run. I was hoping she would, but that interview on Greta last week planted the first seeds of doubt in my mind. It’s hard to imagine what more the media could do to her and her family but that was certainly a major consideration. No doubt she also has some private polling data that showed her chances would’ve been a real long shot.
There’s much work ahead to bring our country back to its founding principles and restore some semblance of sanity. It’s about so much more than replacing Obama and his band of merry Marxists. Hell, a broken mop with a bucket for a head could do a better job than the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
We not only have to defeat the Democrats, we have to continually fight a rear-guard action against the country-club establishment within our own party so we don’t have to endure another Leftist onslaught like this in our lifetimes. She was hands-down the best person for that task, though perhaps too much damage was already done to her reputation. And that’s a crying shame.
So who else is out there? There’s a lot to like about Cain, but maybe not enough. Perry’s too much of a blowhard for my tastes. Bachmann is dead-on right about a lot of things but hasn’t really explained what she’d do so much as what she’d not do. And she definitely jumped the shark on the vaccine issue. Romney would be okay in many ways but is downright terrible in others. Either way, he’s certainly not the man to straighten out the party.
Despite the Governor’s expressed intentions to work for change from outside the political structure, it’s hard to see how she will have the same clout going forward. Now that she’s removed herself as a threat to the other candidates, and especially the party establishment, exactly where is her leverage? The power of ideas and being on the side of truth is sometimes not enough. Although I will say this: if she endorses a particular candidate, I’d be much more inclined to take that person seriously.
The hard work continues.
UPDATE: Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection nails it:
It disgusts me that a candidate of such quality cannot run as a practical matter, and that we are left with second and third choices. But reality is reality, and it would have been a tough road to overcome the past three years.
Palin had the opportunity to be a game-changer in the direction of this country; someone who really understood at a gut level how far down the road we are on the path to a country we will not recognize; someone who understands that the political class holds the country by the throat, and that removing the grip is necessary not just changing who holds the grip.
Precisely.
The Chiles Files 