Campaign Notes: Unsettling the field

By John Barron

A video released by Sarah Palin's SarahPAC after her recent visit to Iowa

Des Moines, Iowa: Sarah Palin is running for President. Either that, or she is suffering from a personality disorder that requires constant media attention and public adoration for her to have a sense of self-worth.

There is ample evidence for both hypotheses, and it’s just possible both are true.

Palin is certainly behaving as many presidential candidates behave: she is driving around politically influential states like Iowa and New Hampshire in a bus with her name on it. She attends grassroots events, political gatherings, fundraisers and state fairs. She is in demand for interviews and speeches, and she attracts fascination and often adoration whenever she appears.

Palin is also behaving just as you might expect an aging former beauty queen, former mayor, former governor, and former reality TV show star craving for relevance might; like Donald Trump, with his brief but bizarre campaign flirtation, she continues to bat her eyes and toy with running — but will neither confirm nor deny her ultimate intentions.

Governor Palin appeared recently on the second day of the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, steaming like a heavily-guarded icebreaker through the sideshows, farm equipment displays, mobile home exhibits, and countless stalls selling greasy fair food — including this year’s artery-blocking delicacy, deep fried butter on a stick. She drew hundreds of excited onlookers — many more than Romney, Perry, and all the rest who stumped at the fair.

But as Wasilla, Alaska’s most famous daughter waved and chatted from behind a large pair of sunglasses in front of the Pork Producer’s stand, I was reminded of the last celebrity candidate I’d seen at the Iowa State Fair. Actor, lawyer, and former Senator Fred Thompson’s now all-but-forgotten presidential run began and essentially ended here in the summer of 2007. Thompson entered the race late, as Palin still might, but he expected his TV cop show fame to allow him to avoid the sort of retail politics Iowans and New Hampshirites demand of presidential hopefuls.

On a fateful day four years ago, Thompson turned up at the biggest fair in the Midwest and toured the grounds in a golf cart, never once risking scuffing his expensive Italian loafers. Iowans felt snubbed, the media agreed, and from that moment the narrative was set: Fred lacks the energy and commitment to run — or in this case even walk — for president.

Palin did walk the state fair, but already another narrative may be forming; she likes the attention, but lacks the drive and the ability to be President. Presidents are compelled, not conflicted. Her renewed interest now could be little more than pique; she’s spent the past few months seeing her former understudy Michele Bachmann blossom in the role of Queen of the Social Conservatives, and there are growing signs the Grande Dame Palin wants her lead role back — if only to hear the cheers from the peanut gallery again.

In recent days I’ve spoken to two long-time Republican political operatives who claim to have privileged access to the Palin camp. One said she is definitely running for president in 2012, the other was just as sure she is not. We should know soon either way and resolve the matter, but until then the spectre of Sarah Palin haunts those who are running, depriving them of media airtime and potential support.

23 August 2011