This came to my attention today by way of The Daily Beast, my favorite news-digest site since Chris Buckley (that’s William F. Buckley’s son, by the way) used it as a forum to endorse Barack Obama. Johnathan Martin of politico writes that conservative leaders are planning a top-secret evil genius meeting in Virginia for the day after the election. The topic of discussion? Not how to jettison their rigid, backwoods, xenophobic “base” like ballast from a sinking ship, but rather how to groom Sarah Palin* for leadership in 2012. Conservative think tank president Brent Bozell was quoted yesterday in the New York Times saying that Palin “has proven that she can electrify the grass roots like few people have in the last 20 years.” But hasn’t Palin, in fact, been surprisingly ineffective at doing the one thing she was brought in to do–solidify hardcore social conservatives behind John McCain? Despite Palin’s sincere efforts to appeal to the worst instincts of the voting public–insinuating, or saying outright, that Obama is a dangerous radical, a foreigner, and an anti-American terrorist sympathizer–McCain is losing in swing states like Pennsylvania and Virginia, where race and social conservatism should have given him an edge. Sean Quinn of fivethirtyeight.com, a polling analysis site, related a story shared with him by a door-to-door canvasser:

“So a canvasser goes to a woman’s door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she’s planning to vote for. She isn’t sure, has to ask her husband who she’s voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, ‘We’re votin’ for the n***er!’
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: ‘We’re voting for the n***er.’”

Maybe this recession is good for us after all–apparently economics now trump race. Not only does Palin represent a Republican party that intellectually serious conservatives (a string of whom have appeared recently on  “The Daily Show”)  no longer recognize, she’s doing it badly. As America pirhouettes on the brink of a recession, Pain (of the $150,000 shopping spree) is out of touch with the “Real Americans” she purports to represent. Her line doesn’t work anymore. The fact that some conservative leaders see her as the party’s future shows just how deep the GOP’s schizophrenic cracks run. The old-style prosperity republicans, the ones who just want to make a lot of money without the government interfering, are increasingly alienated by a party that seems more interested in telling everybody who to sleep with and how to pray. Funny how the likes of Sarah Palin can make simple greed seem so innocent.

*with this post, dig for fire firmly pledges not to target Sarah Palin again until after election day, no matter how tempting, fun, or downright easy it might be.