Sarah Palin's cruise to veep nomination

The New Yorker has an interesting piece out on how Sarah Palin, with help from a blogger and her Washington insider friends, came to be. From the time Ms.Palin made her debut at the Republican Party's convention, and throughout this campaign, her goal has been to define herself as an outsider, a reformer, a mavericky maverick of sorts.
Sarah had a script, and gosh darnit, she was gonna stick with it, even if it contradicted her running mate's platform that only he could lead America through these turbulent times because of his 89 years of experience. And it didn't seem to matter what the question was.

During her first interview as John McCain’s running mate, with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, Palin was asked about her lack of experience in foreign policy. She replied, “We’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual, and somebody’s big fat résumé, maybe, that shows decades and decades in the Washington establishment . . . Americans are getting sick and tired of that self-dealing, and kind of that closed-door, good-ol’-boy network that has been the Washington élite.”

And that answers the foreign policy question, how again?side note As odd as that response seemed, it paled in comparison to the one given when Katie Couric asked about it.






Back to New Yorker . John Bitney, who was one of Palin's top policy
advisers for her 2006 gubernatorial run had this to say:

“She had the biography, I told her, to be a contender,” he recalled. At first, Palin only laughed. But within a few months of being sworn in she and others in her circle noticed that a blogger named Adam Brickley had started a movement to draft her as Vice-President. Palin also learned that a number of prominent conservative pundits would soon be passing through Juneau, on cruises sponsored by right-leaning political magazines. She invited these insiders to the governor’s mansion, and even led some of them on a helicopter tour.

The article continues, and lists the "who's who" of this first group of attendees and their reactions.
People such as Bill Kristol, co-founder and chairman of the now defunct (publicly at least) PNAC glory. Kristol was sold.

as early as June 29th, two months before McCain chose her, Kristol predicted on “Fox News Sunday” that “McCain’s going to put Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket.” He described her as “fantastic,” saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton’s supporters. He pointed out that she was a “mother of five” and a reformer. “Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin,” he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace, finally had to ask Kristol, “Can we please get off Sarah Palin?”

This is probably the first time anything Bill Kristol has predicted, has actually
happened.

The second group, included such "Washington Outsiders" as John Bolton and Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, PNAC lackey. side note 3 Not in the New Yorker piece,
is Lowry's reaction after the Palin-Biden debate.

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

What is included is yet another guest's reaction.

Hanson, the historian, recalled Palin in high heels, “walking around this big Victorian house with rough Alaska floors, saying, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah.’ ”

Other Conservatives weren't as impressed though.

McCain had met Palin once, but their conversation—at a reception during a meeting of the National Governors Association, six months earlier—had lasted only fifteen minutes. “It wasn’t a real conversation,” said the longtime friend, who called the choice of Palin “the fucking most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Aides arranged a phone call between McCain and Palin, and scrutinized her answers to some seventy items on a questionnaire that she had filled out. But McCain didn’t talk with Palin in person again until the morning of Thursday, August 28th. Palin was flown down to his retreat in Sedona, Arizona, and they spoke for an hour or two. By the time he announced her as his choice, the next day, he had spent less than three hours in her company. And a surprising number of conservative thinkers have declared her unfit for the Vice-Presidency. Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal columnist, recently wrote, “The Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain.”