Sarah Palin – Could She Be The Second Internet President?

Did I just say that? I certainly hope i doesn’t come true. I do wonder it though.

Today, Palin’s book begins to be sold while already being considered at number one. Though the mainstream “gotcha” media, as she would put it, always tries to marginalize her ability to rally people to her cause, I see an unnerving amount of support for her, though I can’t really say why.

No area of possible indication shows this more than the internet presence of this woman, which we are reminded of, this morning on AllThingsD -

Former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is certainly giving her Facebook fan page a workout this week, as she nears one million fans.

It would be so easy to make the quick joke about fooling some of the people, but this is serious. By this time most casual  onlookers would have dropped off, after getting their fill of whatever it is she is providing them. These people are interested in what this woman has to say. I don’t know if it is a scary thing, but it is worrisome.

Using the site to flack her new book, “Going Rogue,” which comes out officially today, it got a big boost today with her interview with Oprah Winfrey, clocking in at close to 995,000 fans last night.

Here I have nothing to compare with. I don’t watch Oprah, and I did not see this, though I’m sure there are snippets, possibly the entire interview, available on YouTube. This is another clue about the massive appeal of this woman – it can’t be only her looks, which are formidable, but if that was the prime reason, people would be flocking to the every word of Monster Garage Jesse James’ ex-wife.

They are not.

Posts include info on her multi-part interview with Barbara Walters, her unhappiness with the recent cover of her in running clothes in Newsweek magazine (”The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now.”) and, of course, how the media was unfairly attacking her.

People who want to hear her side of things certainly don’t have to work hard to get her take on all the parts of her life. It’s easily gotten to, with Facebook and Twitter, and costs her nothing but a bit of time.

Interestingly, Palin’s number of followers for the book in Twitter (#SarahPalinUSA) numbers only a paltry 17,624.

Still, Palin has a number of other Twitter accounts, such as when she was governor of Alaska (153,432), but it is still a very small audience.

(By the way, President Barack Obama is closing in on seven million fans on Facebook and 2.7 million followers on Twitter.)

Though this is somewhat comforting, I think about what might happen when we get closer to the 2012 election cycle. With the next off year elections, it will be interesting to note how much she might shape things.

I won’t hazard a guess why she matters to these people. I have never understood what makes people believe what they do. It’s not because I live in a Blue State (CA), because I grew up in a military family, and lived all over the Midwest as a child. I just never developed those views. I find many of the beliefs of the Republican party to be repugnant. I also firmly believe, as a Christian (something that is more than a small thing to me) that it is impossible to be Christian and Republican at the same time. I believe that anyone who believes differently is either delusional or does not understand the terminology. That is another problem I have with this woman. I cannot resolve those differences in her, but then I am not her core audience. Her core audience seems to consider themselves both, and have apparently overlooked the overwhelming clash of concepts.

I saw a blurb in passing yesterday, from Newt Gingrich, someone I seldom agree with, but always respect. He said those who discount her ability to rally people behind her will do so at their peril.

I don’t discount it; I worry about it. People with much less popular appeal have become President, and really mucked things up. ‘W’ had that same disdain for the mainstream media, said they did not understand him, and tried to be folksy (though he was from the Northeast, he ran for Governor of Texas, and won, presumably because of his “Christian” beliefs). He barely made it to President. Sarah Palin is certainly better looking, more influential, and more intelligent (perhaps not in the IQ sense, but in the street smarts sense). She just might be able to pull it off.

And that’s when I head for Canada.

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I’ve always put this up as a joke, hopefully it stays that way

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Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. Winston Churchill

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