Conservative intellectuals and pundits are old hands when it
comes to being at odds with grassroots America. Whether it was
William F. Buckley’s opposition to the War in Iraq, Milton
Friedman’s championing of legalized marijuana or Heather Mac
Donald’s defense of atheism, conservative writers and thinkers
have been unafraid to take unpopular stands even if it means
thumbing their nose at the home crowd.
A few of them were at it again this week. Exhibit A is the recent
criticism of soon-to-be former Gov. Sarah Palin. The Los
Angeles Times
noted that while Palin remained the darling of the Republican
base, many conservative pundits harbored reservations about her
qualifications for the nation’s highest office, a charge echoed
by Bill Kristol in the Washington Post. “[M]any of my
friends in … the Republican establishment…tend not only to
dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now
as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?”
What indeed? A constant theme seems to be that Gov. Palin is
simply not the man or woman to rebuild the party. Conservative
intellectuals are wary of populists like Palin, skilled at waving
and winking, but seemingly lacking intellectual heft, and after
eight years defending George W. Bush’s intellectual prowess who
can blame them? What’s more, they remember the apprehension many
on the right felt as Palin went into her debate with Joe Biden,
hoping only that she would not embarrass the party. She didn’t,
but that is hardly a recommendation.
The Times’ piece quoted several “Republican strategists”
who had remained silent during the 2008 campaign due to their
reluctance to violate Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment:
Though Shall Not Speak Ill of Any Other Republican. It seems
Reagan’s commandment has been repealed. Perhaps more important,
conservative intellectuals are speaking out. George Will was one
of the first to express serious doubts about Palin, particularly
her inexperience—experience being the Founding Fathers’ foremost
criteria for leadership. Will acknowledged that Palin was the
most conservative of the four candidates for national office
(McCain, Palin, Obama, Biden), but he remained unimpressed:
Among the four candidates…perhaps only Palin might give a
Madisonian answer — one cognizant of the idea that the federal
government’s powers are limited because they are enumerated —
if asked to identify any provision of the Constitution, other
than the First Amendment, that imposes meaningful limits on
congressional or executive authority to act…. But is there any
evidence that she has thought about such matters?
Will was writing during the final weeks of the 2008 campaign. Now
other conservative intellectuals are beginning to speak out. To
Peggy Noonan, Palin is something of a drama queen who “makes the
party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.” She is a
“ponder-free zone,” who wasn’t “thoughtful enough to know she
wasn’t thoughtful enough.” Palin is a casualty of the self-esteem
movement which raised an entire generation with no proper sense
of its own inadequacy. She “couldn’t say what she read because
she didn’t read anything.” Worse she took the American tradition
of anti-intellectualism to a whole new level. Conservatives once
mocked Dan Quayle because he said it was “hard get through
The American Spectator,” but at least he tried. Palin
couldn’t even come up with the name of a single magazine she had
read. Not even Field and Stream.
David Frum expressed a fear that a Palin candidacy would lead the
GOP into “a 1964-style debacle, accompanied by unnecessary losses
down the ballot…[H]er core group of supporters excuse everything
on the grounds that she is a social conservative martyr, scorned
by her cultural betters.”
Veteran GOP ad man Mike Murphy told the LA Times that
Palin’s popularity rests entirely on the shaky foundation of her
looks, which, at her age, are bound to go soon. “If Sarah Palin
looked like Golda Meir, would we even be talking about her
today?” GOP strategist Peter Wehner, once an admirer, has had a
change of heart. “[E]ven those of us who were disposed to like
her cannot deny that her public appearances have generally ranged
from mediocre to awful. She’s had more than a handful of chances
to show her stuff; what we’ve seen has not been reassuring, and
at times alarming.”
Not all conservatives are so eager to dismiss Palin. Bill Kristol
is keeping at least one foot in the Palin camp, insisting that
she has been treated unfairly, a victim of the liberal media.
Maybe, but since when do conservatives play the victim card?
CONSERVATIVE INTELLECTUALS have been long concerned about the
populist drift of the GOP, a movement that began in the 1960s
with the Southern Strategy. The stratagem has worked wonders at
the ballot box as the GOP has to a large extent shaken off its
reputation as the party of cigar smoking fat cats, while
reinventing itself as the party of NASCAR America. Indeed it is
now the Clintons and the Obamas who are seen as Ivy League
elitist snobs. And yet many conservatives are uneasy with this
state of affairs, particularly when it gives rise to populist
politicians.
Palin’s defenders might point out that John Quincy Adams was the
most qualified, and far and away the most intelligent president
in American history, and yet his presidency was remarkably
unproductive. (James Buchanan is also said to have been the most
qualified president, and is consistently ranked one of the worst
presidents in American history.) Adams was unable to get his
programs passed by congress and was decisively voted out of
office in favor of the backwoods military hero Andrew Jackson.
Palin’s supporters are right about another thing: experience
alone is not enough. What else is needed, writes George Will, are
the three C’s: character, common sense, and constitutional sense.
Charisma, which Palin clearly has in spades, is notably not one
of the three C’s.
Incredibly Palin’s resignation as Alaska governor actually
boosted her standing among the Republican base, according to a
USA Today/Gallup Poll. This hints at what some
conservative pundits have feared, that her supporters are not
only fervent, but fervent to the point of irrationality. They
seem to believe that the more Palin is hated and attacked the
better leader she will be. But the simple fact that the
mainstream media dislikes Palin is no reason to support her for
president. The GOP base might do well to remember that the great
populist William Jennings Bryan failed to win the presidency for
the Democrats three times. Popular as Bryan was, the majority of
Americans still did not want him running the country.
