Put your leftist foot in

It seems the leftists are starting to realise that something is happening that may just not fit in with their worldview.  Much like those who were shocked to death that Castle lost in Delaware

From huffPo #1

It's time to rethink Sarah Palin...The tough to swallow truth is that she has greater national political name recognition than any other Republican and that includes her former ticket head, McCain. She energizes and rallies conservatives, and polls say more Americans self-identify themselves as conservatives than liberals, let alone progressives. Palin's motherly, family-values, fundamentalist pitch fascinates even those who personally detest her message.

The final vote result proved it. Despite the colossal baggage McCain and the GOP carried, and colossal advantages Obama and the Democrats had, the majority of white moderate and conservative voters, and a large segment of young whites and independents still voted for McCain. In the nearly two years since Obama's election, Palin has been the GOP stalking horse to stampede the herd of moderates and conservative independents even further away from Obama.

The Palin success in grabbing headlines, firing up anti-Obama mania, and snapping the heads of the GOP establishment to attention hasn't been lost on Palin. She's adroitly moved her game plan to the next level, and has extended the Olive Branch to the GOP mainstream with saccharine public appeals for the party to make peace and target Democrats for the boot in November. Her party unit pitch is aimed at doing one thing, and that's to bring her in from the fringe cold and establish her as a worthy, even credible, presidential candidate in 2012. So far she's done everything else right, and there's no reason to think that she won't make some headway on this either. This horrific possibility is more than enough cause to rethink Palin.

From huffPo #2

Making fun of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party wingnuts has been fun, granted. And it's given Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert lots of great material. But maybe it's time to re-assess all this.


But progressive radio talk host and HuffPost blogger Norman Goldman said something on his nationally syndicated show the other day that caught my attention.

"We have to stop treating Sarah Palin as a joke," Goldman said. "She could cause real damage to our democracy."

I treat most politicians today as a joke, especially Palin. But Goldman has me thinking about re-evaluating this. What many of us have been treating as a joke has the potential to become a tragedy.

Neither I nor hardly anyone I know would ever vote for Palin or her nutty acolytes. Same is true in the town where I live.

But a recent trip to a popular National Park brought me abruptly back into the general public I've avoided for years.

Many of these chronically under-informed, ill-educated people love Palin.

And because of this, it's no longer so easy to laugh her off.