Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Thursday argued that she and her fellow Republican governors were ready to put aside "extreme partisanship" and act if WashingtonWhat the hell is she talking about? Since when do governors run the show around here? Do you know what governors do? They run their states, and every now and then they meet up with other governors who run other states, and they talk about running their states. They don't pass laws. They don't set federal policy. They don't run federal agencies. And no one outside their own states look to any of them for leadership. But don't tell Governor Palin:
fails to provide the leadership America needs.
"I think that this group is going to be looked to and looked at for leadership that perhaps had been lacking in Congress and in Washington, D.C.," she said. "This group is going to be uniquely qualified to provide leadership in this nation."Um. No. Let me repeat: at a national level, no one gives even half a rat's ass what a collection of governors think, and trust me, they care even less about what a collection of one party's governors think (be they Republican or Democrat). The story gets better, with Palin -- whose only apparent ability during the Presidential campaign was to try to talk about Barack Obama's pre-political career and events that occurred while Obama was a child -- decrying the media for talking about the past.
Palin addressed reporters at the annual Republican Governors Association convention in Miami, Florida. Palin was joined on stage by a long line of Republican governors.
Doesn't she get it? The fifteen minutes are over.
3 comments:
Well, to be fair, Congress *loves* hearing from the governors when they're asking for more Medicaid funding during an economic recession in order to stave off state budget cuts. For one minor example.
Besides, governors are natural candidates for the Presidency - this year was the first time we've elected a sitting Senator since Kennedy. Think Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Howard Dean, George W. Bush, and yes, Bill Clinton.
If you're tired of Palin and would prefer that she just go away, that's fine. But the governors are quite relevant in politics. Don't let your antipathy for her color that fact.
Michael: don't get me wrong. I'm not saying governors aren't relevant to politics. I'm saying they aren't relevant to federal politics -- even if all 49 governors got together, there's no place for them in federal politics. It has nothing to do with her personally, except that she's stupid enough to think that the Republican Governors Association (or Democratic equivalent for that matter) has any sort of leadership visibility in the US of A.
When running for President, they're candidates for a federal position. As governors, they're state officials. Maybe under the Articles of Confederation it would have mattered...not under our federal Constitution.
...to say nothing of the question of whether experience as a state executive really qualifies one to hold office as a federal executive. To Michael's list of erstwhile governors who were presidential candidates in the last 40-odd years I'd add Carter, Dukakis, and Reagan. Oh, and jeez, let's not forget Jerry Brown. Nelson Rockefeller, yeeeep.
Except -- marginally -- for Carter and Clinton, I'd argue that's one pretty damn sorry roster of "e.g."'s that governors know what they're doing when they move up to the White House.
FDR, though... well, exceptions and rules.
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