Very good WaPo article, indeed -- surprising. Note that the author takes a relatively sympathetic look at Palin, but, in the end, he makes pretty much the same criticism that I do (especially when comparing her to Reagan, at a more-or-less comparable stage: But while the parallels between them are evident, it is far from clear that Palin appreciates Reagan's discipline and substantive grand strategy. In many of her speeches and media appearances she tends to ramble on, with none of the crispness and rhetorical force of Reagan's formulas. With the partial exception of energy, she has yet to identify a set of signature issues that can carry her particular stamp, as Reagan did in the late 1970s with his relentless attacks on detente and his championing of supply-side economics. (Even on energy, she needs something more substantial than "drill, baby, drill.") And while her reasons for resigning early from Alaska's governorship are plausible, they deprive her of one of Reagan's greatest assets -- an extensive executive record.
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Very good WaPo article, indeed -- surprising. Note that the author takes a relatively sympathetic look at Palin, but, in the end, he makes pretty much the same criticism that I do (especially when comparing her to Reagan, at a more-or-less comparable stage:
But while the parallels between them are evident, it is far from clear that Palin appreciates Reagan's discipline and substantive grand strategy. In many of her speeches and media appearances she tends to ramble on, with none of the crispness and rhetorical force of Reagan's formulas. With the partial exception of energy, she has yet to identify a set of signature issues that can carry her particular stamp, as Reagan did in the late 1970s with his relentless attacks on detente and his championing of supply-side economics. (Even on energy, she needs something more substantial than "drill, baby, drill.") And while her reasons for resigning early from Alaska's governorship are plausible, they deprive her of one of Reagan's greatest assets -- an extensive executive record.
I'll go along with all that.
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