The Political Outsider Who's Been Here All Along

Sarah Palin's speech last night left me feeling nauseated. Perhaps it was Rudy Giuliani's introduction that first left me with some discomfort, but it was Mrs. Palin's chosen narrative that made me dizzy from uncontrollable eye-rolling.

Mrs. Palin's speech attempted to make two great claims. First, that she is just your average small town hockey mom. Second, that she has at 44 accumulated governing experience enough to qualify her to run the most powerful nation in the world. In the midst of this confusion, Palin's speech was filled with petty put-downs more appropriate for high school hallways than national politics.

To be fair, I can't really blame Palin for her confused identity. After all, she wants to be "your average hockey mom," but in fact she began a career in politics at the age of 28, when she was elected to city council in Wasilla City, Alaska. She went on to become Mayor of Wasilla city at the age of 32, and was elected to her first term as Governor of Alaska in 2006, the job she holds today.

During her relatively short political career, Mrs. Palin hired the lobbying firm Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh to help secure Congressional earmarks for the tiny town of Wasilla. Her lobbyists did a good job, securing somewhere in the vicinity of $27 million for Wasilla.

So, Palin's not exactly "your average hockey mom." In fact, for someone who claims she's "not a member of the permanent political establishment," she sure has spent a lot of her career in politics.

But while Sarah Palin may not be your average hockey mom, she's not exactly a political star, either. The former beauty queen spent some time as a sports reporter for a local news station before getting married and running for city council. And the town where she gained the vast majority of her governing experience? When she was elected Mayor in 1996, it still had fewer than 6,000 residents. Even the State of Alaska, for which Mrs. Palin has served as Governor since December 2006, has a population of fewer than 700,000 making it 48th in the nation and less than 100,000 citizens larger than the city of Washington, DC.

So I guess Mrs. Palin is partly right: As leaders go, she's probably pretty average.

George W. Bush proudly flew the flag of his average-ness, and brought smug belittling to all new levels in the United States. In many ways, Mrs. Palin last night demonstrated that she more than John McCain is heir to the George W. Bush legacy. The question for the rest of America, can we really afford to have another 4 years of George W. Bush?