Sarah Palin

On top of everything else, she seems like a vindictive, spiteful person, judging from her reputation in Alaska politics, her open warfare with the McCain campaign and her juvenile tit-for-tat with her 19-year-old grandbaby-daddy Levi Johnston. If she can’t brush off Levi’s provocations, how would she handle Ahmadinejad? Or Joe Lieberman? I’ll even allow that there’s some sexism in the equation: Women suffer more from being perceived as vindictive and spiteful than men do. (It clearly didn’t stop George W. Bush or John McCain.) Not fair; still true. But to be completely fair, McCain and even Bush accomplished more than Palin in the same life span, which maybe made their vindictiveness a little bit less defining than hers.

The main reason not to fear a President Palin can be seen in recent polling among independents and moderates. In a the most current ABC News/Washington Post poll, Greg Sargent drilled down to find that: only 37 percent of independents and 30 percent of self-described moderates think she’s qualified for the presidency, and 58 percent of moderates view her unfavorably. Even more intriguing (but not surprising): Palin’s approval rating with men is higher than with women, 48 percent to 39 percent, and just a third of women believe she’d be qualified to be our first female president. (So much for Palin’s appeal to Hillary Clinton fans!)

So I think the Sarah Palin rehab tour is more about Sarah Palin Inc. than Sarah Palin 2012. She’ll rack up the speaking fees, raise some money for red-state, red-meat Republicans, further polarize the party and live the high life she thinks she deserves. Still, even as I dismiss Palin as a serious GOP threat, increasingly I believe that the faux-populism of the right is something to worry about. It may be fun to mock Sarah Palin, but Democrats shouldn’t laugh at many of the people who admire her – who see a folksy, new kind of self-made mom trying to fight the bad old Eastern elites.

Two great blog posts last week made me worry: Timothy Egan’s “The Betrayal,” and my friend Digby’s “What if they don’t,” about how liberals are too complacent that moderate Republicans and the rest of the country will laugh off the likes of Palin, Dobbs, Tom Tancredo and all the silly nutjobs who listen to them.

Egan intensified my growing fear that Democrats may be unable to ride the rising tide of populist rage, given their ties to Wall Street and K Street. “If health care reform gives people a choice, and doesn’t just fatten the rolls of insurance companies, it will be something to run on,” Egan wrote. “If the recovery helps millions of people who don’t have a well-staffed lobby in Washington, it too will be a plus.” But Egan made a good case that the party increasingly identified with Goldman Sachs may well pay at the polls nationwide in 2010, as Jon Corzine did in New Jersey this month.

So while I’m not worried about President Palin, I remain worried about President Obama. I’m particularly concerned that his increasingly triangulating, anti-deficit administration will do the wrong thing, morally and politically, and move to the right, without understanding that some right-wing rage could be rechanneled by acknowledging its roots: That the economic system seems rigged for the have-a-lots v. the have-a-littles, and despite their promises, the Democrats haven’t done enough to change that. Palin can’t change any of that, but Obama can. There’s still time for him to do so, but the clock is ticking. 

Romney continues to insist Democrats, as well as some of his GOP rivals, are practicing “the politics of envy,” and on NBC Wednesday made what might be his dumbest remark yet. Asked whether there was ever a fair way to discuss income inequality, the GOP front-runner replied:

I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.

Maybe Mitt wants to confine talk of inequality to “quiet rooms” because he’s seen the Pew Research Center data showing that Americans think conflict is growing between rich and poor.  Two-thirds of Americans see that conflict, up 50 percent since 2009. While African-Americans are still more likely than whites to see that conflict, the percentage of whites who agree tripled. Credit Occupy Wall Street for hiking consciousness about the gap between rich and poor, but credit the GOP for creating the conditions that allowed income inequality to soar, and the top 1 percent to gobble up 40 percent of the nation’s wealth.

A sly Sarah Palin called for Romney to release his tax returns on Sean Hannity’s show last night, to Hannity’s seeming distress. Palin defended Rick Perry’s “vulture capitalism” attack even as Hannity kept trying to get her to declare it unfair. She’s gone rogue again! We can only dream that Romney releases his tax returns. I think he’s less scared about showing his staggering wealth than revealing the scandalously low tax rate he pays, given how much of his income comes from investment and is thus subject to lower capital gain taxes. (I’m sure we’d also learn a lot from the tricks Romney’s accountants use to keep his effective tax rate even lower.)

Palin also demanded that Romney substantiate his claims to have created 100,000 jobs while at Bain, calling it a “come to Jesus” moment. What is she up to? Her snow-machine-driving husband Todd endorsed Newt Gingrich last week, to great derision, but it did raise questions about what the nominally neutral ex-V.P. nominee is thinking. She’s not thinking good thoughts about Mitt Romney, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, the man who foisted Palin on the world, John McCain, today accused Romney’s anti-Bain attackers as supporting “communism.” But BuzzFeed recalls that in 2008, McCain himself attacked Romney’s Bain days. “He presided over the acquisition of companies that laid off thousands of workers,” McCain complained back then, and campaign manager Rick Davis told the National Journal:

“He learned politics and economics from being a venture capitalist, where you go and buy companies, you strip away the jobs, and you resell them. And if that’s what his experience has been to be able to lead our economy, I’d really raise questions.”

I’ll be talking about Romney’s Bain troubles, and the GOP circular firing squad, on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” with the Rev. Al Sharpton at 6 ET.

Steve Kornacki lays out the basics of Christie’s Simi Valley star turn. He made a fairly boring speech explaining why the country needs a national dose of what he’s done in New Jersey, and took a few swipes at President Obama. But he really came alive when a woman essentially begged Christie to enter the race. “I say this from the bottom of my heart, for my daughter who’s here and my grandchildren at home: I know New Jersey needs you, but I implore you…We can’t wait another four years (applause). I really implore you as a citizen of this country to reconsider.”

It was a great opening, for a man enjoying the devotion but determined not to run, to thank her and tell her he was sticking to his decision. But Christie didn’t.

He gave a long rambling answer, thanking her for her “heartfelt message” and making sure his audience knows he’s hearing a lot of similar messages from Republicans. But he concluded with: “My answer to you is just this – I thank you for what you’re saying. I take it in. I’m listening, and I feel it too.”

Feel what? That the country urgently needs him, so he’s reconsidering? Or that the country urgently needs him, but he’s still not going to do it? The door remains open. Christie is loving this.

Meanwhile, over on Fox, Sarah Palin told Greta von Susteren she’s still thinking about her options too. “I’m going to keep repeating though, Greta, through my process of decision-making with my family and with my close friends as to whether I should throw my name in the hat for the GOP nomination or not for 2012: Is a title worth it? Does a title shackle a person? Are they — someone like me, maverick, you know, I do go rogue, and I call it like I see it, and I don’t mind stirring it up… Is a title and is a campaign too shackling? Does that prohibit me from being out there, out of the box, not allowing handlers to shape me?”

Clearly Palin isn’t running. First of all, the “title” of president may well be shackling, as in you have to think before you open your mouth; it’s also the most powerful position in the world. If she wanted it, she wouldn’t make it sound like a big inconvenience. Plus, whether she wants it or not, the tease has gone too far. Even Fox has written her off; poor Roger Ailes is hot for Christie. It’s pretty clear she’s enjoying being mavericky and making millions of dollars; she doesn’t have the discipline to run, let alone lead.

Does Christie? Like Perry before him, he would learn that the glow of the cameras gets hot when you’re a national candidate. Plus, the GOP has tied itself to the Tea Party, which is now hugely unpopular with most American voters; even Christie could find he’s not pure enough for them. He wouldn’t prosecute illegal immigration as a U.S. attorney. As governor, he appointed a Muslim judge. He came out strongly against the demagoging of the Ground Zero mosque. He opposed the knuckleheaded GOP plan to hold disaster aid hostage to budget cuts.

People seem to like Christie’s regular guy shtick, which is a sharp contrast to Romney’s friendly CEO shtick. Christie’s got the common touch. Unfortunately, he bolsters his working class credibility by bashing teachers and public employee unions, as though they’re the “big government” enemy that destroyed our economy. A lot of white workers who voted Republican, in New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin, are waking up to their regular-guy governors’ anti-labor agenda; Christie’s Jersey-guy populism may not hide his anti-populist politics in a national race.

Besides: This regular guy is beloved by plutocrats. David Koch wants him to run; Home Depot CEO Ken Langone is introducing him to wealthy GOP donors; he’s getting attention from hedge fund managers like Daniel Loeb and other former Wall Street Obama supporters, who got their feelings hurt when the president talked about “fat cats” while still letting them loot the economy.

But I’m not Christie’s target demographic. He could well have more appeal than any of his rivals. If he wants to give it a shot, he should do it now, or shut the door. He’s starting to look like he’s putting his own good time before the interests of his party or his country.

I talked about Christie and Palin on MSNBC’s Hardball today:

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