Crazy like a fox

So it seems I might have underestimated Twitter in one regard. I found out Sarah Palin was quitting as governor of Alaska yesterday not by going to a news website or having an alert flash to me via email, but because I had a browser window open with Twitter running. And I noticed that Sarah Palin's name was magically climbing the Trending Topics list on the sidebar. I clicked on her name only to discover people reacting in shock that she announced she was quitting.

So there you go...a new experience in technology for me.

I suspect I was not alone in my first reactions - wondering if she had lost her mind, wondering if she was sick or if there was a major scandal brewing. And then firmly writing her off as a serious candidate for the 2012. How can you run for president if you can't even finish one term as governor of Alaska?

But, you see, this is why they don't pay me big bucks to do political analysis. Or why it's useful to have staked out intelligent analysts who can put things into perspective. I've read a lot in the last 24 hours....Andrew Sullivan has thoughtfully been collecting a bunch of it. However, the most intelligent view so far has come from Marc Ambinder. I think he's managed to nail it.

People mocked me last year when I said this wasn't the last we'd heard of Palin and that she was going to be a leading contender for president in 2012. Probably because the depth of the horror of the possibility of President Palin was too great to contemplate. She's always had her appeal and it would be wrong to underestimate it. However, let's not confuse "leading contender" with "chance in hell." I'm not saying she's going to win in 2012. If she does manage to make it so far as being the Republican nominee you're going to see a result similar to what Regan did to Mondale in '84. She might carry a half dozen states.

I'm not sure Palin knows what she's doing half the time. Others have pointed out the borderline incoherence in her speech yesterday. But there's no doubting the ambition and cunning. Often that's all you really need in politics to plow your way through obvious deficits in intelligence and vision.

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I guess this is a glass half full observation, but Cathy made it and I thought it was worth mentioning. The wind for the past few days has been blowing from the west. That's meant the ice has been blown further out in the bay so it's not been quite so depressing to look out the window. However, the wind shifted last night and is now blowing from the east, which means there's ice back in the bay.

But as Cathy noted "at least it's blowing all the dust from the construction site away from us." That's my girl, always looking on the bright side of things.

Oh, and we're on Day 6 now of 12 hours a day drilling. On the upside, less than a week until we leave for Australia.

Last Five
1. All along the watchtower (live) - U2
2. Meadowlarks - Fleet Foxes
3. Life in Technicolor - Coldplay
4. Put your record on - Corinne Bailey Rae*
5. Monsters - Band of Horses