Why I love the Tea Party and Sarah Palin, too

I am a university-educated, young liberal/progressive who currently lives in Los Angeles, and recently called New York City home. I voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election and John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. I drive a Japanese import that gets terrific gas milage and read the New Yorker every week. I, secretly (until now, of course), like the Tea Party movement, a lot. Oh yeah, Sarah Palin too. Honestly, like is too weak a word. LOVE is better. Love them both, dearly.

Before you run me out of my blue state on a rail, please, allow me to explain.

The Tea Party movement is great for Dems. In fact, its the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party since FDR. The splinter-ish Tea Party represents the fractured state of the GOP, and no matter how PC both Biden and Obama have remained toward it, the fact remains that the Tea Party are comprised largely of undereducated, white idiocrats who, at one time, represented the more radical percentage of those who usually vote for Republican candidates.



The Tea Party is emblematic of broken Republican ideology that crashed its ship into the rocks during the George W. Bush administration and currently remains adrift, at sea. During my political consciousness, I have remained impressed by the GOP for their lock-step, party-wide unity which, quite frankly, Dems often lack. I have grown politically aware knowing that there are many shades of Democrats, but, generally speaking, one kind of Republican, The Party Loyalist, until recently.

These days, the GOP looks more like a herd of gazelles in the midst of a lion hunt, panicked, afraid, and running in many directions at once. As much as Obama's approval ratings have dropped considerably since his election in '08, the fact remains that no candidate has yet distinguished his/herself as the politically viable opponent. Which is an excellent moment to bring me to the second part of the title of this piece.

I love Sarah Palin.

I hope, I dream, I fantasize that come 2012, she somehow convinces the GOP to allow her to run on their ticket. Which is not to be cruel, suggesting that former Governor Palin is not a strong candidate, only that President Barack Obama is an excellent candidate. One or two friends who work for the president have regaled me with stories of our commander-in-chief's daily excercise routine, while both home at the White House, and traveling. Former Governor Palin, on the other hand, has been noted many times for her frequent use of a tanning bed.

My point remains that although the electorate is unhappy, disgruntled, and generally pissed off, the GOP still has to send someone up against a very strong leader. Obama has demonstrated his leadership primarily by his refusal to bow to job approval numbers. In a time of American politics where so many candidates "lead" via poll numbers, Obama chooses time and again to forward a progressive agenda of pragmatic change, as opposed to catering to populist issues that might be more palatable to a wider national constituency.

If not Palin, I also encourage Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and, most emphatically, Newt Gingrich to run in 2012.