Wednesday, November 25, 2009

It occurred to me...

...while I was watching Bill O'Reilly's interview with Sarah Palin that she reminds me of a modern-day George Wallace. He was also a populist former governor who ran for president and appealed to the worst in rural, white Christians. Wallace railed against the "liberal" media (or the "lamestream media," as Sarah Palin has taken to calling it), the Ivy League (see about 7:40 into the interview) and the Eastern "elites," whom he called "pointy-headed intellectuals who can't park a bicycle straight." (Bill O'Reilly refers earlier in the interview to the "pin-heads in New York and D.C.")

Wallace ran for president in 1968 as the candidate of the American Independent Party. During the campaign he famously said (among other things), "I've read about foreign policy and studied--I know the number of continents." Who does that sound like? He carried five states, cannibalized the Democratic vote in the South and handed the election to Richard Nixon. It was to be his high-water mark on the national stage.

If Palin should somehow get the Republican nomination in 2012, I would expect her to carry those same five states and another handful or so out West. But the result would be the same: crushing defeat.

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