Per Gil Smart’s column, “This is why Sarah Palin will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. Never in my years of observing politics have I seen a constituency that identifies so strongly with a candidate. Her fans are welded to her psychologically; it’s identity politics in spades. And the more you point this out, the more slavish their devotion becomes.
She represents the culmination of the politics of backlash and the politics of resentment mined so skillfully by Republicans since the Richard Nixon era. And if she runs, which she will, how do any of her primary opponents overcome this? They can’t take shots at her, for in criticizing her they criticize her base. And what candidate can afford to alienate them?…”
WATCHDOG: Two wags of the tail. The less people have the time or the inclination to study history, economics, anthropology and current events, the greater the appeal of simplistic approaches such as Palin’s. Of course there are some well informed individuals who share her views.
