Sorry, but for me the blush is off this rose. I'd definitely bump uglies with her if given the opportunity (can't help it: I'm male!), but as far as voting for her for higher office? I think those days are done for me.
It isn't her politics, which I mostly agree with, and it isn't her 'dope factor' (she happens to be a very intelligent woman, she just isn't very polished or rehearsed which makes her seem inarticulate and human. But that was her charm!). It's the sheer robotic nature of any Sarah Palin appearance nowadays that has turned me off.
She's a broken record, still in campaign mode. Perhaps this is understandable given the sheer scrutiny and hell that she and her family have endured in the last year at the hands of a gutter media which should be ashamed of itself. The Natural Sarah is gone; it's been replaced with with the Cardboard Cutout Sarah, the one who repeats the same five or six talking points over and over and over, sticking to The Script, the one that decides what she'll say beforehand and then has a team of advisers scrub it of anything controversial or interesting before she utters it. She's beginning to make Sean Hannity, the King of Relentless Repetition, seem like a second-stringer.
Maybe she's still learning The Game, or maybe she has come to the conclusion that swimming in the pond of national politics is rather icky, and she would prefer to remain above the fray. Better to be Kingmaker than the King (or Queen) yourself, right? Just don't say anything stupid, or that anyoen can make fun of. She can still make a lot of money and wield enormous power behind the scenes, no?
But then Greta Van Susteren asked Sarah a very interesting question last night; did Scott Brown ask for your support or endorsement? And the answer was: No. Sarah said she admired Brown for not asking her to appear on his behalf, and blah, blah, blah, but it seemed to me that she was rather insulted, and perhaps hurt, that he hadn't asked her to the dance.
Rudy Giuliani showed up for Brown, after all. John McCain did too...but not Sarah Palin, supposedly the poster girl for Conservatism and American values. She wasn't asked to.
Which leads me to believe that Brown probably decided not to touch her with the proverbial 10-foot pole, because she would only be red meat for the libs in Massachusetts. He has probably come to the conclusion that many others will today that the solution to America's problems at the moment is economic conservatism, but that some of the more controversial aspects of social conservatism need not enter the conversation. Smart man, methinks.
Perhaps Sarah America will get over her fear of saying something stupid and being savaged by the press, or perhaps the Maureen Dowds of the world have done their work too well and destroyed someone who could have been a force in American politics. I have no doubt that Sarah will be around; making appearances in the places where she might actually help a candidate, raising money. She might even be learning the skills she'll need to fend off the press while she's at Fox News and come back stronger than before. You never know.
But her absence in this fight was telling, for me at least.
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