BOOK REVIEW: An icon loved and feared

GOING ROGUE

By Sarah Palin

HarperCollins, $28.99, 413 pages

Reviewed by Wes Vernon

Reading Sarah Palin’s runaway best-seller “Going Rogue” merely reinforces conclusions as to why she, now a private citizen, remains a lightning rod: adoration among devoted fans of the rank-and-file citizenry and unbounded visceral hatred among the elites - most notably on the left, but also on the right from those who don’t want to be bumped off the “A” list of “upper crust” social invitations.

The former Alaska governor shares her views on every major issue including (but not limited to) taxation, spending, energy production, massive bailouts and homeland security.

She comes across as a world-class communicator with more political smarts than most. That encourages her following and scares the daylights out of her opponents.

It does not matter whether Mrs. Palin runs for president in 2012. It is not illogical to theorize that if she ever goes for the White House, it is more likely to be in 2016 (when she will be a mere 52), if for no other reason than that some in her family have problems right now and she wants to “be there” for them.

Either way - candidate, officeholder or private citizen - she is loved/feared precisely because she is an icon for all that is down-to-earth real, a sharp critic of the politics-as-usual culture that casts a shadow over Washington. Furthermore, she has the audacity to utilize her iconic status to be heard in the arena of public discourse - a one-woman tea partier.

Her sheer human emotion comes to the forefront when - eschewing the abortion route - she gives birth to a baby with Down syndrome and silently prays, “Please don’t let anything happen to this baby. I’m so in love with this child, please God, protect him!”

A smart woman with a basic-values mind-set frightens establishmentarians who fret that she might influence blue-collar citizens (union and non-union) and small business people - a new generation of “Reagan Democrats,” if you will.

That is also the profile of Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher whom Mrs. Palin admires. The long knives of candidate Barack Obama’s kept media were out for Joe, too, after he told the future president his “spread the wealth” mantra sounded like socialism.

Mrs. Palin writes that shortly thereafter, she saw hand-carried signs at her campaign rallies identifying “Peggy the Nurse,” “Tom the Real Estate Agent” and “Wendy the Waitress.”

Why wouldn’t one expect Mrs. Palin to be on the wrong end of a steady drumbeat of smears and harassment that transcended the contact sport that normally comes with the give and take of politics? Consider the enemies she has made.

Start with her home state. On Wasilla’s City Council, she rejected the inside-deal ways of the elder councilman who had mentored her, and then she ran for mayor, ousting the multi-term incumbent old enough to be her father.

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