Palin Re-Re-Revisited: Proud to be Trash (But Not Trashed)

Bag is in summer mode this week, recharging for the conventions. In the spirit of “what goes around, comes around,”  we have curated a group of posts that say as much about where we are or what we’re seeing now as what we saw at the time.   On each, we’ve added a few current thoughts. As always, we are interested in your take. We will be back in real time on the 20th.

With the announcement that Sarah Palin will not be a speaker at the RNC in Tampa, you have to wonder if the t-shirt and gesture in this photo that appeared during Palin’s 2008 “rollout” illustrate the GOP establishment’s current unease. If the Ryan pick satisfied the party’s intellectual base, should the party ignore the queen of its emotional base by refusing to have her speak? Will she comply or will she speak to her supporters in a Tampa parking lot? In a “base-rallying” year, GOP held hostage?

Here’s the original July 5, 2009 post.

This photo was circulated by Getty after Palin was tabbed for Veep by McCain and appeared, at least, in a cheeseball LAT election slideshow on Palin’s fashion sense. If you haven’t seen it before, however, it’s because the image, like Palin herself, is radioactive.

Although taken back in ‘04 (see caption below), the statement is significant today for revealing an attitude (along with the adorable love ‘ya/just shot ‘ya) that, upon her resignation from elected office, now morphs into a full-blown strategy. Palin has created a scenario, at least in her mind, in which she’s defeated the press and can freely Facebook and speak obliquely with and to her equally angry and alienated true constituency.

Simply, she’s positioned herself to reconnect, with the same invective, to the haters and fanatics she was inciting during the campaign.

(image: Robert A. Baker/Getty Images. Sarah Palin models purchased ‘Proud to be Valley Trash’ t-shirt as the result of State Senator Ben Stevens (son of Ted Stevens) comments that people living in the Mat-Su Borough are ‘just Valley trash’ July 21, 2004 in Wasilla, Alaska. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate at a campaign rally August 29, 2008 in Dayton, Ohio.)