CNN's Conventional Wisdom on Palin

There's one good reason at least to read the MSM: to get the conventional wisdom. So Alexander Mooney's CNN piece on "Palin's high risk, high-rewards strategy" is helpful.

We learn that Palin is too hot to handle for the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, because it will rile up the left and turn off the moderates. We learn that Palin's poll numbers have gone down in the last year, except with the conservative base.

But the conventional Mooney admits that there's an upside to the Palin strategy. By endorsing Doug Hoffman in NY-23 and challenging the GOP establishment she is staking out a Tea Party strategy. She may not appeal to moderates; people may not think she is ready to be commander-in-chief. But the Republican base loves her. And then there is this:

Moreover, as the Tea Party movement has made clear, a passionate grassroots movement now exists, ready to embrace a leader.

Now let's see. Let's think back to a presidential candidate that was written off by the conventional wisdom of the time as too lightweight, too divisive: couldn't appeal to moderates.

I remember well attending a Republican presidential caucus in 1980. I entered the caucus a Bush supporter, but the dogged enthusiasm of the down-market Reagan supporters, people that looked like blue-collar Democrats, made me into a Reagan supporter by the end of the evening.

Why was I a Bush supporter? Because he was the safe choice. Because I believed the MSM poison about Reagan the extremist, Reagan the lightweight.

The thing about a charismatic politician like a Reagan or a Palin is that once nominated, they can talk over the heads of the MSM directly to the American people.

And they can demonstrate to the American people that they are not at all the caricature created by Democratic activists and their bribed apologists in the mainstream media.

Maybe in 2012 the American people will be exhausted by the Obama administration's lies and failures. Maybe they will want a safe pair of hands. If that is so, then there will be plenty of insiders qualified for the job.

But maybe they will want someone with a record of standing up the the corrupt establishment, a candidate with the courage to take on the old guard and win.

If that is what the voters want, then they will be looking for someone very much like Sarah Palin.