During the 2008 campaign, one of the more interesting things about Sarah Palin was that she seemed to enjoy near universal support in her home state.
Apparently, that’s not true anymore:
JUNEAU, Alaska – It’s not getting any easier for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is becoming a more polarizing figure at home while she tries to maintain a national profile from one of the most remote states in the union.
Palin was once praised for her ability to work with Alaska Democrats to push through major initiatives, but in the wake of a bruising national campaign she’s more likely now to reach across the aisle to pick a fight.
(…)
Palin’s actions of late have left many political observers scratching their heads over her future plans.
University of Alaska Fairbanks political science professor Gerald McBeath said he can’t tell if she’s preparing for re-election in 2010, a presidential run in 2012 or something else altogether.
“Her actions don’t fit together in a pattern,” McBeath said. “So that leaves me to suspect she hasn’t figured it out. She hasn’t decided. Or alternatively, maybe that’s just part of her style and we just haven’t gotten used to it yet.
“That would be a charitable interpretation,” he added.
(…)
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Palin’s traction outside the state has also slipped. Her public relations have been a disaster, he said, from the mix-up over the GOP dinner to the recent tell-all television interviews with Levi Johnston, who fathered a child with Palin’s teenage daughter and is claiming to be squeezed out of the infant’s life after he and Bristol Palin broke up.
“Almost everything that we’ve heard in the Lower 48 has been about controversy of one variety or another. Some have put her in a terrible light, such as the Levi Johnston matter. I mean, really, at a certain point you cease having the gravitas to run for president,” Sabato said.
To be honest, to cease having something you had to have had it in the first place. Palin never had the gravitas, and that is precisely her problem.
