Sarah Palin No Longer Has the Ticket: Well Done!

Tucson and its murderous violence awoke a bit of civility in Washington and, in particular, constituted a limit for the most extreme personalities in political and media life. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh had some worries. Fox News Channel, their sponsor, may restrict their antennas. Rupert Murdoch has changed his strategy, is now friendly and multiplied the playing rattles symbolizing his new attitude in the direction of public opinion. Frank Rich, columnist at The New York Times, responded to this with a jeering air and wondered who among the Republicans would end up establishing leadership. We do, as well, but let us begin by seeing what sort of meltdown has taken place.

The only good news of the week for Sarah Palin has been the nomination of Michael Glassner as her chief of staff to direct her team (team is a big word). It is serious: a former Bob Dole collaborator already on the board of the 2008 campaign. One wonders if the Republicans support the end of the SP phenomenon in order to prevent the GOP from doing harm. Otherwise, the week was a catastrophe.

Since Tucson she has accumulated bad polling results. If one takes the ABC/Washington Post poll, only 30 percent of Americans agreed with her attitude after Tucson, while 78 percent favored Obama.

We are also seeing a shift away from organized paying events centered around her that earn her at least 100,000 in euros for each appearance. Consider that in May she was to preside in Glendale (Colorado) at the Patriots and Warriors Gala, which is quite the target. The event was launched in January at $185, sold off in February at half price, and has now been cancelled. Contrary to what she says, it is not because of security problems and threats to her person, but because the bill was anemic. Her star has faded.

Like Glenn Beck, who just lost 39 percent of his followers in a year, of whom 48 percent are 25-54 years old. The belligerence, bad faith and whatever no longer pass as well. The story he has made about the Egyptian revolution being infiltrated by a jihadist conspiracy resulted more in laughs than in getting new audiences.

And Fox, their employer, became scared and changed tactics. The client is king, and the client has changed.

Ten days after Tucson, according to a pre-established media plan, Fox has edited and published a book, “Death by Liberalism,” the thesis of which is that “more Americans have been killed by well-meaning liberal policies than by all the wars of the last century combined.” Unlike its usual behavior, Fox didn’t put any weight behind the launching of the book, as if it wasn’t necessary to too strongly incriminate the Democrats and stop the aggressiveness. Instead, in The Wall Street Journal, an editorial by a staunch conservative, Michael Medved, slayed criticisms of Obama made by Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Dinesh D’Souza as being paranoid and harmful to conservative causes. New, but all the same. There’s nothing more to do than to drop Sarah Palin from the radar.

The question that arises, which the Feb. 12 meeting of the CPAC has not been resolved is, who will lead the Republicans? Who will be the candidate pushed by Murdoch? Surely not John Boehner, pushed by “Meet the Press” to twist the punch to the Birthers and who replied, “It’s not my job to tell the American people what to think.” Too much courage hurts.

But pay attention to the return of Sarah Palin’s flame: Its soil is the space that we leave it in.