Sarah Palin is my Person of the Year for 2010

Posted on Friday, December 24, 2010 at 11:16 PM

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My person of the year 2011 is Sarah Palin.

No one has played the media at their own game and defeated them as handily as the former Governor of Alaska.

She has created an alternative universe, one where she controls her own media through appearances on Fox News and her Discovery special.

What anyone else writes doesn't seem to matter anymore.

By tweeting her latest thoughts or doing a live interview she can completely dominate a news cycle.

How successful is she? Remember 'death panels'?

Her books are best sellers and she continues to attract thousands to her signings

She influenced millions of voters by her endorsements in the mid term elections and helped create the Tea Party and its resounding success.

Along the way she confounded critics time after time.

In the process she has made millions, propelled herself into the race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States and has become a household name across the western world.

Today, every mention of her name raises hackles or cheers depending on where you stand politically. She is never boring, always controversial and the press cannot get enough of her.

She has done all this despite a legislative career that consists of a short period as governor of Alaska and chaotic and failed vice presidential candidate bid to her name.

She has the virtue that everyone continues to underestimate her, believing she has no chance at the Republican nomination in 2012.

I beg to differ as I have said here on numerous occasions.

I think 2011 will be another banner year for Palin at the end of which she will be poised to win Iowa and New Hampshire and sweep the Republican nomination.

Because she is the most unlikely political story in a lifetime I think she deserves Person of the Year for 2010.

And watch this space.

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21 comments

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McNamara31 | Dec 27, 2010, 12:39 PM EST

KansasGirl....The guy graduated from Harvard and in your mind he is still "an affirmative action president”. Speaks volumes about your perspective or lack of it.

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hancock | Dec 27, 2010, 12:15 PM EST

You talk about her enough.

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DennisQ | Dec 26, 2010, 02:35 AM EST

Entertainer Sarah Palin is the ghost of America's Protestant past. Protestantism was once America's official religion, but not anymore. Today there are no Protestants on the Supreme Court - the last one retired in June.

Palin herself is not as Protestant as she holds herself out to be. Instead of staying home minding her children, she gallivants around the country signing autographs and gives speeches for big money. If she were really all that traditional, we'd never hear from her.

The Tea Party is typical of a number of ad hoc groups seeking to restore the Protestant Ethic in American life. They dress up in colonial garments and call for the self-reliance of early America. Palin's frontier woman schtick suggests a yearning for simpler times.

Significantly, the Palin family aren't really the old-style Protestants that Sarah portrays as part of her act. For example, what does the First Dude do for a living? He gallivants all over the country just as much as she does. What kind of a job is that? And the disappearing son-in-law who may or may not pose naked in a magazine - there's nothing in the McGuffey Reader about him either!

Palin's candidacy is the ghost that walks among us from days long ago. It's an invention of course, and Sarah Palin's America is an invented place. Like Palin herself, Dale Evans and Annie Oakley - earlier role models for frontier women - weren't real figures; they were entertainers!

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pilib04 | Dec 25, 2010, 09:58 PM EST

Governor (I QUIT) Palin. Gombeen man of the Year.

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KansasGirl | Dec 25, 2010, 02:32 PM EST

I agree with you ImaLindatoo. This country has to suffer because of our "affirmative action" President. What a disaster he has been.

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ImaLindatoo | Dec 25, 2010, 10:33 AM EST

Well, you were pretty good with the rest of the article, so imagine my surprise that you didn't look in to Governor Palins resume and just used a typical snipey leftist false attack. I would have thought you'd want to be enlightened by facts and truth. Governor Palin last position was as Governor of Alaska. Prior to that she was Commissioner on the Oil and Gas Conservation, Mayor or Wasilla for 2 terms and prior to that was City Council. Governor Palin has a world of experience in the government all while raising a family and running their own private business. I know such a stark contrast from the inexperienced, jump the ladder, only held public office- Activist sitting in the Oval Office, now.

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