In 2nd book, Palin comes off as savvy politico
There really is nothing quite like a gifted politician on the make, but even in such fast company, Sarah Palin really has to rank as a force of nature.
Along with her ally-of-convenience, the Fox News personality Glenn Beck — certainly the most gifted electronic demagogue since Father Coughlin in the 1930s — she has adroitly used the full panoply of contemporary media to position herself as a leader of the populist surge reshaping Republican politics. Like Beck, Palin is a multi-platforming powerhouse, a presence on cable news, reality television, on social media — Facebook and Twitter — and, more traditionally, in book publishing.
“America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag” is Palin’s second book in as many years and more overtly political than last year’s autobiographical “Going Rogue.” If it isn’t an outright declaration of her intention to seek the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination, it’s a clear warning to the other prospective candidates that they’ll have to reckon with her and those she counts as her Americans on their way to the party’s endorsement.
Two interesting things stand out in this latest manifesto (and, make no mistake, that’s what it is): One is that Palin clearly has widened her circle of advisers, at least when it comes to her uncredited ghost writers, who have stitched a veritable laundry list of current conservative preoccupations into “America by Heart,” along with extended quotations from an array of figures, including Margaret Thatcher, James Q. Wilson, poet Karl Shapiro and all the requisite Founders and Framers. The other — and perhaps most instructive — thing to be gleaned from this book is just how shrewd a politician Palin is. Professional political consultants sometimes like to talk about a candidate’s “RLC quotient.” The acronym stands for Rat-Like Cunning — and it’s meant to be a compliment indicating not only a deep instinctual shrewdness but also a willingness to fight ruthlessly when forced.
Off the evidence in “America by Heart,” Palin’s RLC quotient is off the charts.
Thus, not unexpectedly, this book begins with the former Alaska governor speaking to a “tea party” rally in — where else? — Boston. These, she assures us repeatedly, are the real Americans and not the angry “hillbillies” allegedly portrayed by the mainstream media. The media, by the way, are one of the recurring demons in this media-savvy book, along with progressives, liberals, academics and all sorts of look-down-their-noses-at-the-rest-of-us “elites.” Like Beck, though, Palin is wonderfully adept at escaping any responsibility for what’s essentially a Manichaean view of our society — one that divides real, hard-working, family-loving, religious Americans from those who ... well, aren’t those things.
Like Beck, Palin is bent on educating her readers on the “real” American history that’s being kept from them. Thus, during one of her discussions of Coolidge’s suppressed legacy, the author muses, “is it just a coincidence that one of the presidents who most appreciated our founding principles is one of the least celebrated by the academic elite?” Actually, it’s because he was a worse-than-mediocre president, but why argue?
“America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag,” by Sarah Palin; Harper; 276 pages, $25.99
