Sarah Palin Is Not the Future of the GOPAfter pretty much ignoring the national media during her 2.5 months as Sen. John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been willing to sit down and chat with any man or woman with a pen, pad, audio recorder and video camera as of late, talking and talking and talking and … It's been hilarious to watch as she says that she doesn't want to rehash the campaign but then launches into a litany of issues that doomed the McCain-Palin ticket. She even chose to talk about William Ayers, as if that worked the first time she kept bringing it up. Then there was that bizarre "news conference" at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami, where she held court with the national media and was flanked by her fellow governors, many of whom looked like kids forced by their mothers to go to church on a Saturday afternoon. At one point, I thought Palin was going to break out and starting singing a medley of hits from Gladys Knight and the Pips. Sorry, that's what it looked like! Everyone seems to be stuck on the notion that she is the titular head of the party, the most visible face on a Republican Party that is looking more anemic by the day. Don't count me among that group. In fact, instead of being jealous of all the attention that continues to be lavished on Palin, her fellow governors should be happy because the coverage isn't showing her off as a policy wonk. Instead, she appears to be someone who can't get enough of the limelight. I say let Palin be Palin and cause the public to get so sick and tired of hearing from her that it won't even want to see her in 2012. Yet the real reason Palin will not be the Joan of Arc for the GOP is that despite her best attempts, she is not the moderate voice the party needs right now. She is seen as a hard-right Republican who makes that arm of the party swoon but does nothing to appeal to the growing number of independents and moderates who populate the countryside. Those who live in Palinland threw roses at her feet, saying she excited the base, especially the white evangelicals who run the party.
It may be sacrilegious for this group to think that reincarnating Reagan isn't a good idea. But truth be told, the GOP must realize that it's a new day. The one thing that President-elect Barack Obama didn't try to do was be President Bill Clinton Jr. He knew that in the 16 years since Clinton was elected to the first of two terms, the nation has changed. And if you don't think a lot has changed in the 28 years since Reagan whacked incumbent President Jimmy Carter, you're delusional. What the GOP needs is not a lurch to the right. Now is truly the time for a moderate uprising in the party so they can take away the influence of the hard-core right. The hard-core right-wingers have dominated the party, and their crucifixion of McCain was evidence of the need for change. Many of them hated McCain because he wasn't like them, so they berated him into not being himself. The one man who could have appealed to moderates was turned into a Rush Limbaugh-Sean Hannity acolyte, and trust me; Americans are sick of those two, and they summarily rejected McCain. It will be like giving castor oil to the GOP, but just as the Democratic Leadership Council forced the liberal wing of the Democratic Party to open their eyes to a whole new world in 1988, the same must hold true for the Republican Party. If not, they might as well get used to Democrats enjoying festive inaugurations, because a move further to the right will alienate swing voters, who have tired of the Republicans' usual rhetoric and outdated ideas. Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN contributor and the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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