Jul 8, 2009, 12:01 a.m. EST
Sarah Palin is smarter than the media think
Commentary: The news junkies can't get enough of herView all Jon Friedman's Media Web ›
By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) --
Sarah Palin is the most fascinating politician of her time. Sure, Barack Obama is the most accomplished and respected but news junkies can't get enough of Palin, love or hate her.
She is a lightning rod. The left loves to mock her as a buffoon. In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd dubbed Palin as "Caribou Barbie."
Palin has to expect coverage like that in the Times /quotes/comstock/13*!nyt/quotes/nls/nyt (NYT 4.81, -0.16, -3.13%) , the darling of the Eastern establishment elite. She has mastered the art of using the media to divide and conquer and is using it to solidify her hold on her political base.
Go ahead. Call her stupid and unsophisticated and goofy and sleazy. But understand that Palin also has more street smarts when it comes to keeping her name in the news than anyone today on the national scene. She has mastered the media by acting like the star of her own reality television series.
On Tuesday morning, Time Warner Inc.'s /quotes/comstock/13*!twx/quotes/nls/twx (TWX 23.53, +0.08, +0.34%) CNN aired an interview with Palin as a reporter caught up to her while she was on a fishing trip with her family. She was as feisty and defiant as ever. "I'm not going to take the comfortable path," she said.
Palin bristled when the reporter implied that America now might view her as a quitter. She is resigning her post to go off and, presumably, make millions of dollars to run for the 2012 presidency.
"I'm certainly not a quitter," she stressed. "I'm not going to close any door."
Bumping M.J.
Who else but Palin could have hoped to bump Michael Jackson off the front page of the newspapers and the lead spots on the evening-news programs?
Palin did just that last Friday when she shattered the calm of a long holiday weekend by announcing her plans to resign as governor of Alaska. It was instant pandemonium.
Some pundits promptly blasted her for her timing. But they were missing the point, a common occurrence when the subject is Palin. She is so famous that she can set the agenda. It doesn't matter when she made her big announcement. She effectively created a news flow.
The bottom line is that Palin intuitively understands the media better than they understand her. She recognizes what journalists need to do their jobs well -- a constant stream of sound bites and headlines. And she delivers.
Keeps on giving
Palin gives journalists and commentators exactly what they crave: news. She has no peer when it comes to attracting publicity. For media people like me, Palin is the gift that keeps on giving.
Admit it. You can't get enough of her and her many controversies. You have been obsessed with her since John McCain shook up the Republican Party by naming her to be his vice presidential running mate nearly a year ago.
We are riveted by the antics of her "Dukes of Hazzard"-like family, her alleged improprieties as governor and her wacky, rambling speeches that lead nowhere yet somehow contain ample sound bites. There's also the lampooning of her by Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live" and the debate surrounding her credentials as a feminist.
Some believed that Palin, a devoted mother and career woman, represented the ultimate in feminism. Others, horrified by her unsophisticated ways and penchant for looking perky in photo ops, branded her as a traitor to the women's cause.
The more the left rips her, the more sympathetic Palin can seem to the people who admire her. Paul Begala wrote in Huffington Post: "It was an almost impossible mission, but in resigning from office with 17 months to go in her first term, Sarah Palin has made herself the bull goose loony of the GOP."
Sarah Milhous Nixon
I've thought that Palin has had a Richard Nixon-like quality when it comes to the media. The two, both dedicated westerners who distrusted the New York-Washington axis, have always had a symbiotic relationship with the media.
As much as they both despised reporters, they needed the coverage. And reporters, who love newsmakers, needed them.
I asked Joe McGinniss, author of the groundbreaking Nixon book, "The Selling of the President" to ruminate on Nixon and Palin. He also wrote a cover story for Portfolio magazine on Palin earlier this year.
McGinniss told me by phone: "She is thin-skinned and can't forget or forgive," which puts her in the company of Nixon, who once infamously drafted an "Enemies List" while he was president. "She has decided that the media are her enemy now."
He continued: "Everything Nixon did was calculated and cynical. But you don't know what side of the bed Palin will get up on tomorrow morning. She is always going to surprise people."
That's why America can't get enough of her.
Jon Friedman is a senior columnist for MarketWatch in New York.
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Ha ha. You liberals are going to die if this woman ever gets ahead.
