I believe that Sarah Palin has been treated very unfairly by much of America. But that doesn't mean that she is not open to criticism on some points. And Ann Althouse does have some pretty strong criticisms here.
I think Althouse goes too far, especially as her post ends. And she does not give enough credit to the problems a VP candidate would have challenging an organized campaign that has just picked her from obscurity. That said, Althouse is correct that Palin should have resisted the bad advice from the McCain people.
For what it is worth, I think that the correct strategy for Palin was as follows: She should have gradually moved on to the public stage by starting with interviews from friendly media, such as Fox News people, Rush, etc. Her speech at the Republican Convention was magnificent, and it should have been followed up with other positive performances. As she gained additional experience with these type of interviews and had good performances -- that is, after she had made a positive first impression -- she could have moved on to the hostile main stream media.
The McCain Campaign was a train wreck, and so anyone associated with it was always likely to look bad. But Palin could have done a lot more to protect herself.
Palin has taken hits, but she's in nowhere as bad shape as Nixon in 1962, and look where he wound up. I think she needs to emulate him by slowly but systematically addressing her perceived weaknesses and making herself appear more presidential. Following the Nixon model, I think 2016 is probably a more realistic and wiser goal than 2012.
Posted by: mike livingston | November 14, 2009 at 01:57 PM
Whether the decision to appear before hostile media was hers or that of the McCain people, she should not have done it. The MSM and Republicans is like Lucy with the football. A leading Republican who appears on CBS instead of Fox is not merely tactically foolish but also demoralizes conservatives and libertarians without gaining anything among left-leaning viewers. It's the kind of thing that McCain does, which is why I suspect that it wasn't her idea and that she won't do it again.
Posted by: Jonathan | November 15, 2009 at 10:32 AM
"Its the kind of thing that McCain does." Exactly.
Posted by: Mike Rappaport | November 15, 2009 at 01:46 PM
"Its the kind of thing that McCain does."
She is simply McCain-lite, then.
Posted by: Guesst | November 16, 2009 at 05:47 AM