What to Do With Sarah Palin?

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Mall camping is hardly an alien concept to the moms and dads who stoically trudge through Toys "R" Us at this time of year, exhausting themselves just so they can avoid disappointing their kids. Well, Mall of America certainly had enough campers this past Monday, but they weren't lining up by the Lego Imagination Center.
 
Yes, the former Republican candidate for vice president and continued scourge of the left (and, in some cases, the right), Sarah Palin, stopped by Bloomington, Minnesota's retail behemoth to sign copies of her number one, best-selling memoir, Going Rogue.
 
To say that Palin was Mall of America's main attraction on Monday would be somewhat of an understatement. People began arriving at midnight to queue up to get their wrist bands, which were distributed starting at 6 a.m. Palin signed the first book just after noon. Local Palinistas in their thousands waited for hours to get a glimpse of 'Serruh,' their maverick martyr. It was, all in all, one of the more peculiar experiences of my life.
 
For all of her baffling remarks and family travails last November, the American people still--for some reason--can't get enough of Sarah Palin.
 
Liberals call her "stupid" and "evil," yet they flatter the former governor of Alaska by dedicating so much of their column space to her utterances. On the right, some blame Palin for the "decline" of conservatism and the dumbing down of what is the "thinking person's" ideology. For all of her faults, Palin is like the unscratchable itch of American politics. Her detractors despise her, are quite aware of her presence, but pay her so much attention it's impossible for her to go away. And this is the point of her success.
 
Since she was 'Tina Feyafied' last year, large swathes of the electorate have come to adore Palin because they believe she has been victimized by the 'liberal' media and even pushed around by the 'establishment' of her very own party. To them, Palin is a bulwark against, well, almost everything that sticks in their craw.
 
In fact, the Palinista movement reminds me of the scene in Napoleon Dynamite when Napoleon and his friends are handing out flyers and key chains for the school Presidential election, and telling voters that candidate Pedro Sanchez "offers you his protection." Picked on for your use of the vernacular? Palin's your gal. Feel like you're patronized? Serruh's got your back. Tired of yet another war on Christmas? Sarah offers you her protection. But its protection in numbers, so you must defend her, too.
 
Will the novelty wear off? It's really hard to say, and most certainly depends on the energy of her fiercest critics. They are the individuals that in ridiculing Palin's grievances are also promulgating her message. There is, after all, a reason that Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Dede Scozzafava are seldom attacked by the left. It would be interesting if someone did a study to find how many copies of 'Going Rogue' are sold every time Palin is mocked after she "misspeaks" or writes something outlandish on Facebook. But for the time being, this is a winning formula on cable news and in Barnes and Noble.
 
Whether it's run its course on the campaign trail is a different question.
 
(Image from Flickr by geerlingguy)
 
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