Is Sarah Palin the Next John Travolta?
This article is not so much about politics, but, rather, psychology, wisdom, and understanding how the world works. More specifically, it’s about an age-old topic — fame is fleeting.
In one of his classic works, The Bridge Across Forever, Richard Bach poetically cautioned, “To be handed a lot of money is to be handed a glass sword, blade-first. Best handle it very carefully, sir, very slowly while you puzzle what it’s for.”
I would suggest that Bach’s masterful words apply as well to fame, which, in most cases, goes hand in hand with money. Thus, we have: “To be handed a great deal of fame is to be handed a glass sword, blade-first. Best handle it very carefully, sir, very slowly while you puzzle what it’s for.”
In show business, sports, and especially politics, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly superstars can fall from grace. In politics, the fall often comes as a result of not being able to keep one’s genitals on a leash — Gary Hart, James McGreevey, John Edwards, Teenie Weiner, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, and Gary Condit come quickly to mind. It goes back to at least the life and times of Thomas Jefferson. (Bill Clinton, of course, got off scot free. Go figure.)
But, regardless of the profession, comebacks are always possible. John Travolta was so big in the late seventies that he created his own genre, but within a few short years he couldn’t get a bit part in Hollywood. He left his Weiner-like body, hip-hop stride, and white disco suit behind and reinvented himself as a legitimate, middle-aged, not-so-skinny actor — and became a star all over again.
In sports, tales of great comebacks are almost commonplace. One of my favorites is Kurt Warner, who skyrocketed from bag boy at a supermarket to Super Bowl XXXIV MVP in 2000. Then, after three sensational years with the St. Louis Rams, Kurt fell from grace, only to rise like the Phoenix and come within seconds of winning another Super Bowl with the Arizona Cardinals at age thirty-seven.
In politics, Richard Nixon made an amazing comeback after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial election to Pat Brown. Nixon just sort of hung around and, lo and behold, Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for reelection and Bobby Kennedy got assassinated. Viola! Nixon somehow got the Republican nomination and beat a Democratic patsy named Hubert Humphrey to become president of the United States.
All this to lay the groundwork for what I want to say about Sarah Palin. I love Sarah Palin. I love her looks. I love the way she talks. I love her penchant for sticking her thumb in her opponent’s eye. But, as I’ve said so often, I’m not sure who Sarah Palin is. I’m not even sure Sarah Palin knows who Sarah Palin is.
On September 3, 2008, Sarah Palin was handed a glass sword by, of all people, Mush McCain. She did not handle it carefully and appeared not to know what it was for. Nevertheless, her beauty, her feistiness, and, above all, the media’s obsession with her carried her momentum for more than two years.
I don’t know what Sarah Palin’s goals are, but if one of them is to become president, it is my humble opinion that she cuts herself far too often with that glass sword. As hard as it may be to swallow, I understand her supporting McCain. That’s a matter of gratitude.
But being intimidated by Greta Van Susteren into saying that the tea party should embrace and work with Orrin Hatch … very disappointing. And a reality TV show? Disappointing. Flitting from primary state to primary state on a bus in a seeming effort to upstage declared Republican candidates? Disappointing. Also, downright embarrassing, like a child desperately seeking attention.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels this way, as a whopping 71 percent of Republicans — and 66 percent of tea-party people — say they do not want Sarah Palin to enter the presidential race. Shades of John Travolta in the eighties and Kurt Warner after his three sensational seasons with the Rams. But, remember, they did make comebacks.
And so can Sarah Palin. But, in order to do that, I agree with the 71 percent who don’t think she should run. I don’t want to see her get hurt. If I were advising her, I’d urge her to stay out of the race this time around, lay off the schtick, bone up on history, economics, and world events, and keep a modest profile until a Republican nominee emerges — then stump for him or her as only she can do.
With some luck, she might get a cabinet post, which would put a more mature, more seasoned Sarah Palin in a much stronger position to run in 2020 — at the still tender age of fifty-five.
But maybe unpredictable Sarah will ignore the polls, take the plunge, and fool us all by overwhelming the Republican field. Anything is possible in politics. And if that miracle should happen, I know one thing for sure: I’d vote for her. Having said that, I still believe her running at this point in time would make a future comeback even harder for her to achieve.
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Copyright © 2012 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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I’ve been giving financial support to Ron Paul, but the possibility of a “President Palin” is exciting too. Like you, I enjoy her feistiness. Her plain manner of speaking, and down-home charm also scores points with me. I’m tired of mushy Republicans who keep compromising and losing ground to the liberals. And what do the leftists give up? Nothing!
Time for us to start doing away with the socialist programs created over the past 40 years or so, and to do that we must elect someone like Paul. Palin could do it too, but it would not necessarily take a miracle for that to happen. In 1992 Bill Clinton won the nomination with about 10 million votes, which is less than 4% of the American population and less than 6% of all who are registered to vote (source: “Confrontational Politics”, pg. 40, by H.L. Richardson).
Can Paul or Palin do the same? I hope so. Sarah Palin has been playing the media like a fiddle lately, keeping them guessing as to where her bus tour will go next. She has “star power”, let’s see what she does with it.
“The darker the night the bolder the lion.”….Teddy Roosevelt.
“And a reality TV show? Disappointing.”
And a reality TV show? Revealing. Laughable. I mean, who could forget how Mrs Cupcake stumbled around Alaska like a tenderfoot yelling for her husband…….. Todd! Todd!
Sarah Palin, with her phony outdoorswoman image, is part and parcel of the phony plastic system full of phony plastic people carrying phony plastic swords. If Sarah becomes President, then John Travolta should be her V.P.
Compare Sarah Palin with a real man and a genuine outdoorsman: Teddy Roosevelt. Set aside Teddy’s politics and examine the caliber of the man for a minute—-what he did, what he read, and what he wrote and how he was a man to be reckoned with. He was a Moose of a man.
Yet, here we have a woman who portrays herself as Sarah Barracuda, no less. My god, what a joke …….I mean, she’s another one with a self-proclaimed titanium spine, that’s all. Her slapstick comedy side show never ends. It that what they taught you in college, Sarah?
Who is Sarah Palin by way of comparison with somebody with a real spine? What great words has she ever written or what great deeds has this muskrat ever mastered. When that lightweight, Sarah Palin, is dead and forgotten, The Bull Moose, with all his faults( and they were many), will still be remembered.
The Bull Moose turned his glass sword into an Excalibur………..Sarah Palin totes around a sword of plastic, and that’s all she’ll ever tote. It would take the coattails of Rick Perry to advance her any farther up the ladder politically…..And this is a possibility as she’d fit in well with a kindred phony the likes of Perry..
Sarah Palin and Rick Perry are a demonstration of how low the American people will bend in order to find a leader.
I say that it’s time to stop bending and start reaching…………
Robert-
A FANTASTIC piece of writing!
There’s certainly NO question that her 15 minutes of fame have become intoxicating to her, and she’s desperately attempting to hold on for as long as she can.
We are ALL intimately aware of what “settling” has cost this country in the last 3 years and ‘IF” the Republican’s can’t mount a serious candidate to take on the current clown-in-chief, then we truly deserve what we ALL know we’re going to get for the next 4 years…My only “hope” is that the country can survive, certainly NOT a certainty by any stretch of the imaginations…
As an aside:
A few weeks ago, during my recent trip to The Navajo Nation in Arizona, I was pondering the fact that since 1787, there have been over 750 land cessions that The American Government received from the Native Americans. It occurred (reoccurred in fact) to me that there must have been countless lies told by The American Government to an ignorant, “savage” people. So what’s different now, today, as we listen to and read about a new generation of treaty writers who are making promises to an ignorant, “savage” people i.e. The amerikan People?
Well, I see that Mitt Romney has just released his proposed treaty that he will supposedly enact, if he becomes President. Romney states that he has “59 specific proposals aimed at fixing the nation’s stubbornly high unemployment rate.” I didn’t read all of them, because frankly I don’t have to go very far before I see Romney’s forked tongue and forked treaty pen in action. Here the essence of what he said:
“At best, government can provide a framework in which economic growth can occur. All too often, however, government gets in the way,” Romney wrote. “The past three years of unparalleled government expansion have retaught that lesson all too well,” he added.
So there you are! Now all you good little Indians go ahead and run on out and embrace your new Great White Chief, and then, when you’re done hugging and kissing and voting you can go sign on to the latest jobs treaty.
Really? I mean really, has America changed so little in so long a time as to not recognise that Mitt Romney, had he had sufficient sand to fill an hourglass, would have already built a significant record as a big government scalper.
You want jobs? I’ll tell you how to get jobs and you won’t have to read through 59 specific proposals of new treaty Buffalo sh*t. You won’t have to suffer through Mrs Muskrat’s bus tour or all of the sweet, sweet nothings that Buckaroo Perry is going to lay on all you wanna-be cowboys for the next year.
So here it is, my jobs plan. I call it The Laissez-Faire Capitalism and Individual Freedom of American Jobs Treaty: Scalp the SEC, the FDA, HUD, USDA, DOE, OHSA, FAA, EPA, etc., etc. and don’t stop scalping until you have scalped everything but national defense and a court system.
Bravo, Seeker! You’ve hit the nail on the head! We need a second American Revolution…The Ron Paul Revolution!
The advice to wait on the shelf and get some experience could and should have applied to Jimmy Carter and the present excuse we have for a “national leader.” And Hillary “Rodham” Clinton, too, might have taken that advice, when she was just getting beyond the “First Lady” syndrome – and been nowhere, now.
These people just jumped right into the fray and did quite well. Middle-aged women, especially, do not have the luxury of aging 10+years in deference to “the learning curve.” Ten years from now, or even four years from now, no one will be falling all over Sara Palin’s good looks.
To put Sara on ice now, would be to give the snippets from Hell on the other side of the aisle yet another character-assassination victory. I say let her run and my guess is she would be at least an asset if she winds up on the bottom-half of a ticket topped by Perry or that other attractive female candidate. Doubtful she can save Romney, if he gets it, from stumbling all over himself with a “McCain Lite” campaign.
Ok, let me get it straight – it’s Sarah Palin and Sara Evans – two women who have no trouble beguiling men of all ages, starting here in my home.
Puhhhhhhleeze. She’s cute and feisty and down-home, and we love her! So Ringer suggests that before she runs for president, she should get educated–on everything–and then get some experience–and then she’d be a cute, feisty, down-home, educated, experienced dufus.
You could say the same of Sponge-Bob Square Pants. Or George Bush.
BTW, Robert, if she were ever truly educated, you just might not like the new educated views she’d adopt…. She’d be a thinking person capable of uttering more than silly sound-bites.
Jean Davies O’Connor Schmith etc.
One would think, what with all the “reality TV” like crap involved in today’s American politics and so many people claiming to want a better future for the country, that the entire so-called “Tea Party” would be solidly behind potential candidates like Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. But, they’re not. Why is that?
The platforms Paul and Johnson stand behind seem to be the closest to what this country was founded on and what made her great. I just don’t understand why neither of them seems to be able to garner the full support of most everyone to the right of Saul Alinsky.
Instead, politics has become a popularity contest, based on looks and personality. Two VERY important qualities (NOT!) for the leader of the free world and the one designated to save this country while it’s still only swirling around the bowl.
It’s all such a sad state of affairs.
Response to Paul’s question:
“I just don’t understand why neither of them[Ron Paul & Gary Johnson] seems to be able to garner the full support of most everyone to the right of Saul Alinsky.”
amerikans love Pantomime, that’s why, Paul. They love to be hustled by the Janus-faced politicians. The entire field of politics has become—as Ayn Rand so aptly described it— nothing more than a bunch of hard-core political hypocrites who are “standing on two feet on both sides of every fence.”
Of course the ignorant masses act no better as they stand there, confused and rather absurd looking, acting like the serfs that they are, just standing there with their government issued rice bowls in hand, waiting for the government to provide more rice and circus. Of course, lets not forget that some of the largest rice bowls are given to those who live in states like Alaska, where the population of so called rugged individualists receives the highest per capita in federal earmark spending compared to any other state.
Let me tell ya, if Sarah Palin ever became President, she’d never take away the rice bowls from all her welfare pets up there in Alaska—little pot-bellied pigs that they are—because, if she did, the little piggies up there in Alaska would oink so loud that the sound waves would cause a massive earthquake that would be felt as far away Washington D.C.
Then, furthermore, the worst of all reasons why amerikans won’t vote for Ron Paul or Gary Johnson is because you have got these guys, as Henry David Thoreau pointed out, who have a “patriot-maggot” stuck in their head. That’s right, the ignorant masses want war, or at the very least, they think they need it. War is peace to them, that’s what they’ve come to believe. They’ve utterly failed to achieve a simple, rational conclusion in their own minds which would free them from having their pockets picked and their sons and daughters use as cannon fodder; namely, as Gerald Celente so aptly put it: “All these guys want you for is so they can pick your pocket or use you as cannon fodder; why don’t you grow a brain and GROW UP an start acting like a responsible adult.”
Good luck with “scalping” the S.E.C. That would take the equites markets down the same path as the Forex market nightmare for investors. No real oversight in the Forex market has seen countless trusting investors around the world bilked out of the funds they invested with the belief that they would, somehow, be given a fair shake in an unregulated market.
Fact is, losers in this unregulated market are not cheated, but winners are subjected to five different types of chipping away at their profits, starting with being charged double-leverage on a losing trade. So that if you opt for 100-1 leverage on what turns out to be a losing trade, they will hit you for losses as though you went in for 200-1 leverage. (They do not manipulate the leverage on losing trades.)
They did this to me twice, and refused to correct the “error” when I brought it to their attention, both times. They did, however, agree that I was “right,” they just did nothing to remedy these “mistakes” in their favor.
Remember – when you are cheated in an unregulated market, you have no legal recourse, even against those Forex firms based in the U.S.A. This is what you want for the equities markets, on top of the specialist price manipulation and “gaps up and down” profit-stealing from investors we already have? Good luck with that and with the slinging hash career.
News Flash for Mr. Bonfire:
Don’t worry about scalping the Forex or the stock market or taking it down, because the Banksters and their friends inside of the SEC already beat you to it .
Message to Banksters and the U.S. Treasury:
I want scalps: Bankster scalps. Treasury Scalps, then I want the gold that you government S.O.B.s stole from my family in 1933. You can have your printed paper back, I’ll take the gold. As an adult, I’ll also take FULL responsibility for my investments. I don’t need the SEC or The Fed or The Treasury or The President looking out for me, because I can look out for #1 just fine without you.—– And if somebody breaks a contract, then I’ll get a legal-man and fight it out in court. That’s what the courts are suppose to be there for.
P.S… Message to Mr. Bonfire and others: Pay no attention to my ranting, because I’m in a mood…..
robby…you miss a significant aspect: the “unregulated” forex market is not actually a free market – so in reality it is a regulated market. if it were a free market, the abuse you’ve suffered would have competitors coming into the market offering alternatives. and that’s the the kind of regulatory ‘mechanism’ that works, and is needed.
Rant on Reality Seeker! It’s high time we show some passion, so thanks for leading the way. Folks, he’s right…we don’t need the government (Federal or otherwise) meddling in our personal and business affairs, period. Federal government need only “guard the shores, operate the courts, and conduct minor admimistrative duties.”
United States of America’s President and Armed-Forces Commander-In-Chief-Elect Sarah Louise Ronald Wilson Reagan Heath Palin, come Sunday January 20 2013, will move into our once again most hallowed house and provide our beloved fraternal republic with our first president in eight years!
The more the merrier. If she – or anyone else – wants to run, let her. The best thing that can happen to Amerika is a team who will work together to attack the top of the ticket (whoever that may be). That is the best way to expose the snakes and shine the light on truth.
The only reason I voted against Sarah on the poll is because I was afraid she might not beat Obama. I think Ron Paul is our best bet. Why more people aren’t supporting him is a mystery. Although I do think he should do some saber rattling concerning Iran.
Could be that Ron Paul will soon be eighty? And is to (for starters) America’s Defense and to American Exceptionalism about what Michael Jackson was to heterosexuality and Keynes was to rational Economics.
The rhetorical difference between an “unregulated” and a “free market” industry is not worth pursuing, beyond the indisputable FACT that Forex investment firms the world over have a veritable license to steal money from their clients. And as for new, “ethical” companies coming to the rescue of patsy investors to rectify the Grand Canyon scale shyster ethics practices contagion, it is highly unlikely that the Forex industry, 30 times larger than the combined value of all U.S.A. equities markets combined, would allow such “idealistic” intrusiveness into their priviledged insiders bunko game to gain traction.
Oxymoron of the day: “Ethical Company.” (The Wizard of Oz would be proud.)
robby….those aren’t “veritable’ licenses, they are actual ones. unregulated businesses/industries don’t have licenses. nothing rhetorical about that.
you also corroborate my point when you write that the “forex industry…would (never) allow such “idealistic” intrusiveness into their privileged insiders bunko game to gain traction.” How, exactly, do you think they disallow competitors now? by the regulatory scheme/scams they themselves drafted, and had their minions enact, so as to, among other nefarious ends, erect obstructive barriers to entry (by potential competitors).
sorry you got screwed. and a free market would not guarantee you never got screwed, either. but there would be mechanisms to correct that in a free market that are absent in regulated markets.
in a free market, unethical firms do not retain customers; nor do they have monopoly/cartel powers enabling collection of rents; nor are they shielded from liability & legal recourse.
sold my ethical company a few years ago…you’re very mistaken if you believe the many people operating in the real world, as opposed to the world of political contrivances, should be lumped in with those as you describe.
**since you now know, experientially (what could have been determined by just a little reading), that baitfish forex is a sucker’s game, maybe you should look into switching to futures, instead…
Continuing on with my rant……
Do you know what? Nobody can make this stuff up, really. Even if I wanted to paint an unflattering picture of my dear card carrying Union sister Sarah Palin, I couldn’t ask for more dirt than she herself provides: Just take a look at some of this made for public consumption rhetoric that Sarah Travolta posted on her face book page:
Welcome, Union Brothers and Sisters
by Sarah Palin on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 2:50am
………………..”What I say now, I say as a proud former union member and the wife, daughter, and sister of union members. So, as a former card-carrying IBEW sister married to a proud former Laborers, IBEW, and later USW member, please hear me out. What I have to say is for the hard working, patriotic, selfless union brothers and sisters in Michigan and throughout our country”……………bla bla bla………Union Sister Sarah Palin.
I wish Ayn Rand was alive to see and hear this Palin crap—or, Ludwig von Mises. I’d love to read their blogs on the subject….
I don’t know how some of you Republican pigions can sit there and read Palin’s union crap, I really don’t. Is there no limit to your willingness to be suckered by these cheap imitators, these RINOs?—these counterfeit epigones of The Founding Fathers? How many times do you patsy Republicans have to get stung by a school of spineless political jellyfish—jellyfish like Palin— before you learn?….. Will. You. Ever. Learn? ….EVER? You must truly love to be conned, because I know your not stupid, right?
Why don’t you look! Go ahead and open your eyes! Because that’s your “selfless” little card carrying angel on face book who’s speaking to all you Tea Party marks.
Here I am in Texas, and all around the beloved Capitol, Austin, is burning. And The Texas National Guard is on some quixotic overseas mission, when it should rightly be in Austin. Why? Because the ignorant masses have patriotic maggots in their heads, that’s why. And on top of all the bad news, I have somebody show me Sarah Palin’s Face Book page. And like a fool I read the scribblings of some card carrying union phony, and now I’m really in a mood…..so ignore me please.
for once, i totally agree with robert ringer
Her beautiy? Oh My, someone get Robert Ringer some glasses.
Sarah Palin has no Physical Beauty at all … I don’t know her well enough to vote for or against her in any election she may run for, but beauty? Not a chance(that crown surely goes to someone else).
robert…..
like you and for the same and other reasons i like sara…the pistol packing mom from alaska…her conservative views are
solid…perry has the momentum and best chance…but his reliability in rejecting in practice the gop mainstream liberal
policies i do not trust…
it would be better if sara did not run this time…but what puzzles me is why she and the other gop contenders do not deliberatly adopt ronald reagan’s policies and approach…..reagan won in landslides and yet every gop contender since reagan has leaned far enough to the left to barely win or actually lose elections…
reagan was a revolutionary….i believe the candidate that can communicate,convince the public that they are and were reagan revolutionaries will win the gop and the white house…
don…reagan’s “revolution” was analogous to king louis 16′s revolution….he was accelerant, or presided over the dumping of fuel onto the fire. so, the correct word is devolution, not revolution…..
Your evaluation of Palin is a disappointment to me. As a long time fan of your books and articles I am surprised at your schoolboy like admiration for a woman with the deficits that you touch upon and then discard. Oh well…
Sarah Palin is better looking with glasses on than 90% of the female population is without glasses. I saw one picture of her without glasses. Stunning is more than just a word. Why her advisory team doesn’t makeover her into a blonde without glasses we will never know. She would have our enemies falling all over her feet.
I am not the only one to get “screwed” in the Forex investor blood bath arena. Check out http://www.forexpeacearmy.com for the gory details x’s about 10,000 other quite perturbed investors with nightmare Forex experiences.
Come on, let’s get real in this blog, if you have no personal experience in an arena that is up for discussion, how about sparing the rest of us your sophomoric, conjectural, off-base postulates? You invest your money into something is when and how you learn the subject matter, fast. Until then, schoolboys on a playground are just as knowledgeable as the academics in their ivory towers.
Only here, where Mr. R. tolerates the lost children generation could Sarah Palin be characterized as “phony.” It should not be necessary to point out that she is one of the most genuine people in public life, never fudging as regards stating her values and belief system. So that all that is left for her political enemies is the attempted denigration of her character.
That so many here, and elsewhere, think they can manipulate their blatant falsehoods into the truth, via incessant repetiton, is testimony as to how expedient so many have become. Christ, when we get down to fanciful P.R. over substance and a love for the truth, we have lost our way. Some still possess a trace of integrity but it is definitely out of fashion with the unwashed asses.
Sarah Palin is in a position to be kingmaker. She is apparently waiting for a candidate that satisfies her demanding conditiona. She is very definitely not phony. She is honest as the day is long. I would love to see her back Herman Cain who is a breath of fresh air in national politics.
It is not yet time for a female President. There first must be a woman Vice-president.
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