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Jewish World Review Jan. 21, 2011 16 Shevat, 5771 Palin Dumb Like a Fox By Roger Simon
She has been battered by her use of cross hairs in an ad targeting the district of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot on Jan. 8 along with 18 others in Tucson, Ariz. Palin has used fighting words like "Don't Retreat, Reload," and she also used the slur "blood libel" to defend herself in a recent video. As a result, she has built up some pretty high unfavorable ratings in the last few days. A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows Palin with a 56 percent unfavorable rating, and a recent USA Today/Gallup poll shows her with a 53 percent unfavorable rating. Both polls were conducted before Palin appeared in a live interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Monday, however, so are snapshots in time already outdated by events, the risk inherent in all polling. By way of comparison, by the way, Rasmussen Reports showed President Obama with a 56 percent disapproval rating last Dec. 4, though he climbed back to 51 percent as of Wednesday. How much should you pay attention to such polls? Not a lot. As I said, they can change quickly and are affected by daily events and news media coverage. Although some conservatives felt Palin just dug herself in deeper on Hannity's show — David Frum said, "She should stop talking now" — I thought she did fine. In fact, whenever Palin stays within her comfort zone, which is a zone containing a sympathetic interviewer with no tough, let alone "gotcha," questions, she usually does fine. That is probably not sustainable for an entire presidential election campaign in 2012, but one should not overestimate how much the American voter values intelligence. Adlai Stevenson, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore (who did win the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes) and John Kerry were probably hurt more than helped by their intelligence. Bill Clinton masked his intelligence during his first presidential campaign with his "Man From Hope" video and his Bubba image, which were designed to make voters forget he was actually the Man From Georgetown, Oxford and Yale Law. Palin will never have the problem of appearing too intelligent, though when she went up against Joe Biden in a 90-minute vice presidential debate in 2008, she did not fall off the stage. And he did not wipe the floor with her. I, for one, thought she kept him on the defensive — who can forget her wink? — though Biden did have the twin burdens of masking his own intelligence while not wanting to appear to be sneering and superior toward a woman. As Katie Couric of the "CBS Evening News" demonstrated, however, Palin is not good under pressure or with quizzes. So you really can't see Russia from Alaska? And Palin really couldn't name a single newspaper or magazine that she read? So what? One should never underestimate the power of a candidate who can make an emotional connection to voters. Ronald Reagan said all sorts of outrageous things, both as a candidate and president. Often, he would cull them from magazines and would not bother to check to see if they were true. "Like any other speaker," Reagan once told a reporter, "I'd see something, and I'd say, 'Hey, that's great,' and use it." Did people care? Nah, they loved Ronnie. Palin is no Reagan — she lacks the ideological footing that he had, for one thing — but she does know how to connect with people, even if they are not the same people most of the media hang out with. The best thing you can probably say about her whole cross hairs-reload-blood libel thing is that it was a mistake, and if you are going to make mistakes in a presidential race, it is best to do so early. This is still early, and Palin still has time both to educate herself and grow more skilled at handling the non-adoring media. And if Palin's whole "Mama Grizzly" image will never gain support among liberals, well, that is not the base she is stalking.
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