The closer election day and the more likely a positive outcome for the Democratic ticket, the more you can see and hear about Sarah Palin getting ready for a 2012 run for the nomination.
This got me wondering: has anyone ever won the nomination of their party or even the presidency after being the running mate on a losing ticket?
Follow me below the fold for what I found. Let's just say history does not bode well for Palin 2012.
Between Palin's lightweight political background, the looming investigation of her abuse of power regarding her ex-brother-in-law, and all the other things swirling around about Palin, lots of people are raising Eagleton and Quayle comparisons. Others turn not to past VP picks, but to Bush's disastrous pick of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. But I think what will be the most apt historical comparison is Ferraro.
With the season now officially over, let's take a look back at the primary campaigns' most notable casualties--those boosters lucky enough to have resigned, been fired or publicly chastised by one of the Presidential campaigns.
In this edition of the Scalp Count:
Barack Obama's foreign policy adviser Samantha Power, pastor Jermemiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ.
McCain campaign staffers and federal lobbyists Douglas Goodyear, Doug Davenport and Tom Loeffler. Plus: Bonus spiritual baggage toted by pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley!
Clinton New Hampshire chair Bill Shaheen and '84 veep nominee Geraldine Ferraro.
See how the mighty have fallen. A timeline awaits you in the extended entry ...
As for Reagan Democrats, how Clinton was treated is not their issue. They are more concerned with how they have been treated. Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment. And that is enforced because they don't believe he understands them and their problems. That when he said in South Carolina after his victory "Our Time Has Come" they believe he is telling them that their time has passed.
Whom he chooses for his vice president makes no difference to them. That he is pro-choice means little. Learning more about his bio doesn't do it. They don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School and is married to a Princeton-Harvard Law graduate. His experience with an educated single mother and being raised by middle class grandparents is not something they can empathize with. They may lack a formal higher education, but they're not stupid. What they're waiting for is assurance that an Obama administration won't leave them behind.
In the span of two paragraphs, Ferraro, who was on the ticket that lost more Reagan Democrats than any other Democratic ticket before or since, makes no less than tweleve generalizations about what Reagan Democrats are concerned with, how "they" feel, what "they" believe, what "they" think, and what "they" want to see.
Isn't this kind of like getting advice on shooting free throws from Shaq? Also, isn't repeatedly generalizing about an entire group of people kind of, you know, arrogant stereotyping? Maybe it is just me, but if I read an editorial that made such an enormous amount of assumptions as to what I thought because I belonged to a specific demographic group, I would probably be inclined to not vote for that person. I wonder if there is a connection here between Ferraro's assumptions about Reagan Democrats, and her previous inability to win them.
This is truly bizarre pair of quotations from geraldine ferraro and jesse jackson jr in a year old article by Ad Nags, both agreeing in speculation about 2008 that it will be harder for
an African-American to become president than for a woman:
"All evidence is that a white female has an advantage over a black male - for reasons of our cultural heritage," said the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the civil rights leader who ran for president in 1984 and 1988. Still, he said, for African-American and female candidates, "It's easier - emphatically so."
Ms. Ferraro offered a similar sentiment. "I think it's more realistic for a woman than it is for an African-American," said Ms. Ferraro. "There is a certain amount of racism that exists in the United States - whether it's conscious or not it's true."
"Women are 51 percent of the population," she added.
I guess it's possible she was just saying this to be polite because she is a clintonista and assumed that hillary was a shoe in. I really don't know what to think right now, her comments this week have put me on the brink of not being willing to vote for hillary in the general, much less the primary. My best guess is that she is just a loyal attack dog willing to do whatever it takes for her candidate. This addition of self-contradiction on top of her blatant race-baiting is just making me feel too cynical...
"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up," Ferraro said. "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"
Mainly, this response depresses me, since it comes from someone who is otherwise known as a trailblazer and for fighting the good fight at a time when it was unpopular to do so. I don't want to think of Geraldine Ferraro this way, but this response is crazy.
I guess that Ferraro thinks, as Marc Ambinder wrote, that "running as a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama is soooo easy." Or perhpas she thinks that the only reason Obama is winning the campaign is because so many African-Americans are voting for him. Even if that is true, doesn't it occur to Ferraro that one of the main reasons African-Americans are voting overwhelmingly for Obama is because of statements like this from Clinton surrogates? Here is some love from Ferraro from Jack and Jill politics:
So, being Black is now a CONCEPT.
A CONCEPT, People.
Well, she can CONCEPT this.
Kiss.My.Lucky.Black.Ass.
This is pretty depressing, but it makes me feel even stronger about my Reagan Dem post from Friday, and the implications it has for the campaign. And Ferraro's inability to win Reagan Democrats despite statements like this is a perfect case in point of my central thesis.
