Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin

From Noonan's Wall Street Journal column today ("A Farewell to Harms"):

Mrs. Palin has now stepped down, but she continues to poll high among some members of the Republican base, some of whom have taken to telling themselves Palin myths.

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To wit, "I love her because she's so working-class."

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What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits.

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"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.

"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.

"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!

"The media did her in." Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.

Noonan's mostly on-target here, I think, but it would be interesting to see some introspection from her on why so many in the Republican base might have embraced a candidate who hunts, fishes, lives in a rural area, etc. I'd expect a little more thought on this from a former Reagan speechwriter. The GOP has spent the last few decades mythologizing blue collar Americans in an attempt to woo them, going back at least as far as Reagan's "Morning in America" campaign, and continuing through the second Bush administration. We went from a plaid-shirted Reagan clearing brush on his ranch in California, to a plaid-shirted Bush clearing brush on his ranch in Texas. Noonan, of all people, shouldn't be surprised that when a candidate fits this image as well as Palin does, she will be popular among the base.

Noonan claims that Palin isn't working class because her father was a teacher and her mother was a school secretary, but this seems like splitting hairs. Okay, Palin's father didn't work in a coal mine. But neither was he the commander of the Pacific Fleet (as McCain's father was), or the CEO of an auto company (as Romney's father was), or the President of the United States (as Bush's father was). Palin may have her limitations, but she is savvy enough to run with her blue collar authenticity, such as it is, given how GOP image crafters such as Peggy Noonan have long made a fetish of it.

Sarah Palin to Resign from Alaska Governorship?

Apparently so (Hat Tip: Alyssa Rosenberg, subbing on Ta-Nehisi Coates's Atlantic blog). From KTUU.com:

WASILLA, Alaska -- In a stunning announcement, Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday morning she will resign her office in a few weeks.

Speculation has swirled for weeks, perhaps months that Palin would not seek re-election in 2010 as she pursues a political career on the national stage. The former vice presidential candidate has long been rumored to be considering a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Palin did not address those rumors at the press conference at her Wasilla home, during which she did not take questions from reporters.

Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, and the benefits of Increasing Domestic Energy Production

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain's surprise VP pick, is in at least one sense a refreshing change from the usual sort of politician we've seen on a national ticket: someone who has done some blue collar work in her life, when she worked in commercial fishing. Her husband has gotten his hands dirty as well, both as a fisherman and while working in the oil fields for BP (NYSE: BP) on Alaska's North Slope¹. According to this article in the Anchorage Daily News from last year, "Todd Palin Unique Among Nation's 5 First Husbands" (hat tip to Atlantic blogger Jeffrey Goldberg),

Until recently, he earned hourly wages as a production operator in a BP-run facility that separates oil from gas and water. Palin was making between $100,000 and $120,000 a year before he went on leave in December to make more time for his family and avoid potential conflicts of interest. London-based BP is heavily involved in the gas pipeline negotiations with his wife's administration.

That's good money for honest work, and, as I've pointed out in comments on some political blogs, it's another benefit of increasing domestic energy production: more high-paying blue collar jobs for Americans². To his credit, Mr. Palin has encouraged young Alaskans to consider the same line of work. From the article,

Like other first spouses around the country, Palin has been asked to champion an array of causes or institutions since his wife took office in December.

His favorite is steering young Alaskans toward stable jobs in the oil and gas industry. It's a singular choice among his counterparts, whose pet issues include schools, public health, domestic violence, poverty or the arts.

That's the sort of pragmatic career advice you don't hear much of from many politicians, particularly those on the left, many of whom seem to consider access to a college education to be a panacea for economic advancement. In reality, a lot of Americans don't have the interest or aptitude for college (hence the high dropout rates), or the sorts of jobs a college degree often leads to, and there are plenty of Americans with college degrees sitting in cubicles making a third of what Palin was making for BP, or serving lattes for $8 per hour.

Regarding the politics of the Palin pick, a flurry of comments on the Atlantic blogs argue that this is an attempt by McCain to woo women voters. I doubt that. Most single women vote for Democrats, and most married women vote for Republicans; I don't see this pick changing those trends much. If anything, McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is an appeal to the sort of Reagan Democrats that Barack Obama had difficulty winning over in states like Pennsylvania. While Republican politicians generally feel compelled to be seen hunting or clearing brush or otherwise acting as if they enjoy outdoorsy activities, Sarah Palin seems to be the real deal on that score, having grown up hunting moose with her father. She and her husband ought to be able to connect more easily with rural voters than, say, Mitt Romney. Louisiana's impressive young governor, Bobby Jindal, might have contributed more in policy terms, but Palin probably gives McCain a better shot of winning in November.

¹A royalty trust that pays out distributions based on production from BP's Prudhoe Bay field on the north slope is a holding of mine I've mentioned here before, BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (NYSE: BPT)

²There are other benefits, of course. Every barrel of foreign oil that we can replace with a barrel of domestic oil helps reduce our trade deficit and our fiscal deficit as well (by the increased tax and royalty revenues domestic energy production generates). No, increasing domestic energy production will not make us energy independent -- we will still need to import oil from Canada, Saudi Arabia, etc. But the more energy we can produce here, the better off we will be.