Sarah Palin for Divisive GOP Leader, 2009!

Never underestimate the power of a Sexy Puritan to influence conservatives. Sarah Palin seems to be beating out the incumbent Divisive Leader, Dubya, in the hearts and minds of Republican voters. Right after the election results, the McCain and Palin camps began to claw at each other, providing great schadenfreude to those of us who suffered through eight years of GOP thuggery.

While sensible people seem to regard her as a shrill, ill-informed lunatic (e.g. the election blowout, by a larger margin than Reagan), a segment of Republicans perceive her as folksy, down-to-earth, and charismatic. Of course, Jim Jones was considered to be charismatic by his fellow Kool Aid drinkers. Different strokes for different folks.

It is my fervent hope that Palin continues the job that Bush Jr. began, the demolition of the Republican Party. Like Bush, her lack of smarts, appealing to those who can relate, is off-putting to conservatives of average to above average intelligence. Most folks will have a problem with a party leader–and thus potential candidate for 2012–who didn’t know that Africa is a continent rather than a single country, and could not name the countries in NAFTA (link to juicy ABC News article).

But hey! That stuff is BORING! No one cares about it except for policy wonks like Bill Clinton. What makes Sarah Palin a fine representation of the common American–male OR female–is her love of shopping. Not only shopping, but blowing far more than budgeted on her own ego. More from the same article:

Perhaps the most dangerous allegation for Palin are reports in The New York Times and Newsweek that when she was urged by McCain adviser Nicole Wallace to buy three suits for the Republican convention and three suits for the campaign trail, she went on the now-infamous shopping spree at swank stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

A Republican donor who agreed to foot a majority of the expenses was stunned when he received the bill, Newsweek reported. Both the Times and Newsweek report that the budget for the clothing was expected to be between $20,000 and $25,000. Instead, the amount reported by the Republican National Committee was $150,000.

That wasn’t the whole tab, however, according to Newsweek. The magazine claims that Palin leaned on some low-level staffers to put thousands of dollars of additional purchases on their credit cards. The national committee and McCain became aware of the extra expenditures, including clothes for husband Todd Palin, when the staffers sought reimbursement, Newsweek reported.

That’s a great way to bite the hand that feeds you. If Palin remains a figure of power in the party, expect more defections (possibly to the crazy-man Constitution Party?) and more dirty laundry hung out for all to see. Then, in about six months, the tell-all memoirs will flood the market. Hopefully the effect will be to bolster public comfort with a progressive agenda, though in America the mainstream left is fairly centrist. We can make progress in the next four to eight years. Palin may play a crucial role in digging a hole for the American right.

Drill, baby, drill!