Three weeks after the Republican ticket suffered a sweeping defeat at the polls, Sarah Palin continues to dominate search engine queries, cable news and online video sites.The reason is obvious: Sarah Palin is now recognized as the face of the conservative future, and as a threat to long-term Democratic dominance.
The only American politician who generates comparable interest is President-elect Barack Obama. No one else is close.
Palin was the most popular Lycos search from the week she joined the ticket continuously through last Sunday, some two weeks after the election, when she was dethroned by Paris Hilton, the celebutante whom John McCain famously compared to Barack Obama.
The Alaska governor now ranks fourth, just one spot below Obama, on the weekly Lycos 50 list.
“People are still searching for her in record numbers,” said Kathy O’Reilly, a spokeswoman for Lycos. “How bizarre is that? Obama is the president-elect after the most historic election of all time and you’d think he would be dominating search activity and he only now is going ahead of her.”
Palin has been the subject of intense online fascination since her introduction as the Republican nominee on Aug. 29. In September, the Anchorage Daily News reported a 928 percent spike in traffic, according to Nielsen Online. Her mid-October “Saturday Night Live” appearance drove the show’s highest rating in 14 years, and her Oct. 2 debate with Joe Biden was the most watched vice presidential debate ever — drawing more viewers than any of the three presidential debates between McCain and Obama.
The scope of the GOP ticket’s loss — and the role her critics assigned to her in that defeat — hasn't cooled interest in Palin. She ranked as the No. 2 top news search at Ask.com this week and No. 2 (after Obama) among newsmakers on the AOL 2008 year-end hottest searches list, and she occupied two slots on Politico’s list of the site's 10 most searched terms. Palin also ranked fourth among Yahoo searches, behind “Black Friday,” a Czech model and a contestant on the hit television show “Dancing with the Stars.” She was the only politician on the Yahoo top 20 list.
A recent YouTube clip that featured her being interviewed while, unbeknownst to her, a turkey was slaughtered in the background was the site's most-viewed clip over the last week. Two of the top 10 video moments of 2008, according to Truveo, an online video search engine, also involve Palin — a “Saturday Night Live” skit that mocks her and the governor’s ill-fated interview with Katie Couric of CBS.
“It’s astounding that someone who should have faded into the background after the election is not only making headlines but being searched for in record numbers online,” said O’Reilly. “People still have a fixation with her, for whatever the reason.”
The is why the nihilist left demonizes her so aggressively, and why conservatives are mobilizing around her as the standard bearer for 2012.
The Cuda is a threat to all that is liberalism
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if the DNC is already working against her
they were caught by surprise after her announcement and immediately began attacking her ... they don't know how to play her except smears and lies
Dr Douglas, it's a shame that trackbacks don't work without HaloScan. At any rate, I gave credit where credit is due.
ReplyDeleteDana, just leave trackbacks in the comments. That's what I do when I cite Hot Air, or the others.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Gingrich/Palin 2012!
ReplyDelete(Newt says he wants the job now: all you folks have to do is ask him.)
Please, please, please, let this be true. Palin as the face of the GOP for years to come?
What a gift to the rest of us.
Aw, cheer up Quaker Dave. You could always make a fortune selling Rev JWright ringtones
ReplyDeleteI see Palin as a Modern Pioneer Woman. She got where she was on her own without an Ivy College degree. She is a self made woman who rose up from a PTA mom all the way to VP candidate. Not only that, she can skin her opponent and her dinner.
ReplyDeleteHey Joan,
ReplyDeleteI dunno about you, but most people get their "ivy league" degrees on their own. Maybe you got yours in a cracker jacks box?
Seems like it.
Hey Don, I just came over after reading your happy Thanksgiving comment on my site to wish the same to you but after reading your post I also had to leave a comment.
ReplyDeleteWhile not an officially elected representative of the left, let me speak for my fellow communists and traitors on this issue: the reason Sarah Palin won't go away from the news is because she's the political equivalent of a deadly train wreck; whether fascinated or horrified by what they see, people can not help but stop and take a look and every media outlet in this country instinctively covers stories like this because it ultimately makes them more money than covering more important but less entertaining ones.
Couple this with the very obvious fact that your side is desperate to not just retool the Republican party's image and message for those outside your base but also to do so using someone who isn't an old white male as your public face and yes, I can see why you and other neocons would think that she's good for your side. You're hemmoraging younger voters badly and that does not bode well as the Boomers start to die off and the values of the country move further away from the far right.
And incidentally, we on the left are not afraid of Palin, in point of fact we love her; the absurdity of her VP nomination made clear to the rest of the nation that actually thinks for themselves and pays attention to politics just how desperate the right has become in trying to hold on to some semblance of electoral power, and she is the culmination of that desperation: a pretty, winking face coupled with an incurious brain and a mouth unfettered by political acumen or savvy. She's the personification of marketing over competence, of political maneuvering over responsible governing. She was your hail Mary pass of the last election, a low-percentage play that only works once in a great while; adding it to your regular offensive line up would seem to be an ill-informed strategy.
If we do fear her it would only be in the face of her actual election to higher office, and even then my fear would be more akin to that I would feel in the presence of a two-year-old swinging a loaded handgun around a crowded room: way too much power being wielded by someone who is dangerously unable to use it correctly or responsibly, putting the safety of everyone in the immediate vicinity in jeopardy unnecessarily. I refer you to the oval office's current occupant as a real life example of this metaphor.
So please run her in 2012, I beg of you! Choosing from amongst some of the more moderate and intelligent rising young stars in your party (Pawlenty, Crist, Jindal, etc.) would just give your side an actual chance of unseating Barack Obama after his first term in office, and Allah knows we free-loading socialists certainly can't afford to have that happen.
Just the same, a belated happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.