Where is Palin country?

Sarah Palin's rather tortured explanations for why she just had to resign, for the good of her state and/or to protect her family, have thrown up a couple of good quiz questions. At TNR, The Plank's been pretty good at pinpointing them.

Example 1: Palin said that although "it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."

Your question: from the top of your head, name just two or three of those "countless others" who resigned without finishing a term to pursue an unspecified higher calling, and were not criticized like Palin but instead deemed "honorable".

Take 2:  Palin explained that

[T]his decision comes after much consideration, and finally polling the most important people in my life - my children (where the count was unanimous ... well, in response to asking: "Want me to make a positive difference and fight for ALL our children's future from OUTSIDE the Governor's office?" It was four "yes's" and one "hell yeah!" I think much of it had to do with the kids seeing their baby brother Trig mocked by some pretty mean-spirited adults recently.)

Ignore, if you can, the obviously fair and untendentious way to query your children about their thoughts on what you should do. It's clear she gave her children a real choice to state their thoughts, no matter what those might have been. Instead, your quiz question is: who are these mean-spirited adults whom the family heard mocking Trig? How did they mock Trig, himself, exactly?

Now, Jason Zengerle offers a new "guessing game":

Assuming Palin does have future political ambitions [..], where in the Lower 48 will she make her home away from Wasilla?

Obviously, the elitist liberal coasts are out of the question; Texas is just too GWB and Phoenix too much McCain's domain; while nobody would come look her up in rural Idaho, where she was born. So where to go?

I've got two suggestions:

• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
• Knoxville, Tennesee.

No, I'm serious. Think about it.

Oklahoma is a deeply red state - a larger share of voters voted for McCain/Palin here than in any other state (65.7%). It's near the South, the shrinking GOP's political powerhouse, but not itself a Southern state. (Since it still lacked statehood at the time, it was formally neither a slave state nor a Confederate state, so I gather it tends to escape the South's historically fraught image.)

Tennessee, true, is a proper Southern state. But at least it doesn't quite have the backward, bigoted image of the Deep South.

Both states are located in the "hillbilly belt", the band of counties ranging from West-Pennsylvania down through the Appalachians and west to Arkansas and Oklahoma, which bucked the national trend and actually moved toward the Republicans in 2008. Tennessee and Oklahoma were two of only five states in the US in which gave McCain a higher share of the vote than Bush had gotten in 2004. Nobody lives in Idaho, but Oklahoma and Tennessee lie at the heart of the two regions where McCain/Palin ratcheted up most of their net vote margins.

In Knox county, McCain/Palin achieved a comfortable 23% lead, barely less than the 25% lead of Bush/Cheney in 2004. It yielded the largest vote margin (net 41 thousand votes) for McCain/Palin in the state. Oklahoma county, meanwhile, yielded McCain/Palin a 17% margin and a net 47 thousand votes.

The latter's less than Tulsa county yielded, but if you're going to settle out in Oklahoma, you want at least a sheen of cosmopolitanism. Oklahoma county is just 63% white, 15% black and 12% hispanic, so a more than passable reflection of the US population. Oklahoma City is also not easily pegged as a backwater - it's the 31st largest city of the US, larger than Atlanta. (Granted, in a ranking of metro areas, Oklahoma City comes in 44th, but still above New Orleans and Salt Lake City.)

Moreover, Oklahoma City and Knoxville may be located in hardcore conservative heartland territory, but they don't easily fit the stereotype about the unwashed masses. Compared with counties across the country, both Oklahoma county and Knox county have an above-average percentage of college graduates (25% and 29%). Yet median income is low ($37k and $42k), so Sarah could bask in her working class appeal.

Just one problem: in both cities, it gets pretty hot. And with her resignation in mind, you know what they say - heat, kitchen, etc.

Comments

[kathy a.]

i'm all good if she stays in wasilla. and really, todd's whatever it is he does with races requires snow, doesn't it?

she kind of topped herself this time, with "i care so much about alaska that i'm quitting mid-term to do something else." ummm, okay.

[Sir Charles]

Okay, but can you give me an example of one of these clowns actually staying in flyover country? DC is overrun with right wing assholes who never go home, despite their professed contempt for the City. (Most of them live in the Virginia suburbs, although Bob Dole maintains his quaint residence at the Watergate -- probably just being sentimental.)

Once Palin starts collecting her $60,000 a speech fees (boggles the mind), she'll probably keep a place in NYC.

[John]

If she wants to be on television, she'll move to DC or New York. Conservative politicians talk a good game about the "Heartland" and "Real Americans," but they know where the power lies.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

By the way, was one-year old Trig a 'Yes' or the one "Hell, yes"?

Forget politics, she'd be perfect to star in a revival of the Joe Isuzu commercials -- and, in her case, no acting necessary.

[oddjob]

I think this sums up the entire farce up fairly well.

[low-tech cyclist]

Weatherwise, I'd take Knoxville over either of the Oklahoma cities: when summer in Knoxville gets too hot, the Smokies are close enough for an easy day trip.

I've never been to Oklahoma, but I've spent a lot of time in Arkansas City, KS, just across the state line; it's where my mother's family lived. Extremely hot in the summer, extremely cold in the winter - and nowhere close to escape from either one.

Palin's a better fit politically for Oklahoma: Tennesseeans can be pretty wingnutty (they nearly made Jason Mumpower their House Speaker), but they have occasional moments of sanity, and she just might lose in a statewide race.

But there doesn't seem to be any level of wingnutness that's too wingnutty for Oklahoma. I know nothing about the state, and have no idea how it became so crazy, but when they elect Inhofe and Coburn to the U.S. Senate, that tells you all you need to know. Palin could easily get elected there.

[nimh]

have no idea how it became so crazy

Amazing, isn't it? And to think that once upon a time - almost a century ago, admittedly, before the Dust Bowl drove out most of the poor peasants in the state - Oklahoma was a hotbed of socialism!

[Stephen]

Since it still lacked statehood at the time, it was formally neither a slave state nor a Confederate state, so I gather it tends to escape the South's historically fraught image.

After the Civil War, quite a few ex-Confederates participated in the Oklahoma land grabs because doing so gave them the chance to A) escape, to a certain degree, their Northern oppressors during Reconstruction and most especially B) really stick it to another non-white people group.

So the whites in Oklahoma, especially in the eastern half of the state, have always felt like they need to out-southern the actual members of the old Confederacy. It was in Oklahoma that I personally saw the sign at the edge of one town which said, "Black man, do NOT let the sun go down on your head in this town." It was in Oklahoma where, attending a rodeo with my grandparents, we stood, men doffed their caps, and we listened to the band play Dixie while two riders carried Conferate Battle Flags back and forth through the arena.

I'll swear to this in a court of law, it really happened. While the states of the old Confederacy struggle with that heritage, Oklahoma's white residents have long sought to embrace it. A thousand years from now, when even Mississippi and Georgia have left the stink of the Confederacy behind, Oklahoma will provide it a loving home.

[Lisa]

Alas, that sign you saw was all over the South, and in some places in the North as well, up through the 1960s. The places were called "sundown towns."

[C.S.]

Nah, if she wanted to go Red, she'd go with Atlanta. The only really "major" city in the southy-south-south, and the home of CNN if she needed the air time. Not identified with another major national political figure with whom she would have to compete for air time (unless you count Newt -- do you?). She'd be set. Sure, there's not a lot of snowmobiling, and there's a hefty helping of persons of the non-pale persuasion, but some sacrifices have to be made. After all, if nobody would care about her in Idaho, why the hell would they care about her in Oklahoma?

[Joe]

I agree Atlanta would be a good choice. The best play would be a deep red area in a purple state with other purple states nearby, and hopefully near media centers-- the Atlanta suburbs, the Florida Panhandle, Lynchburg VA, Kansas City MO suburbs, or maybe Winston-Salem NC. Those are places where she can legitimately take credit for increased turnout, and get exposure in battleground type states. Kansas City would be my favorite just to read Stephen's agonized/enraged blog posts on Palin's exposure through the local media.

[litbrit]

Nah, if she wanted to go Red, she'd go with Atlanta. The only really "major" city in the southy-south-south, and the home of CNN if she needed the air time.

Plus, Atlanta has a rocking Neimans. Also.

[Stephen]

Kansas City would be my favorite just to read Stephen's agonized/enraged blog posts on Palin's exposure through the local media.

What'd I ever do to you, to wish such a thing upon me? We paid our dues with Phill Kline.

[kathy a.]

isn't there a word for northerners who come to the south to fleece people?

atlanta might be more forgiving of newcomers than a lot of other southern cities, but the citizens aren't stone stupid.

[oddjob]

Plus, Atlanta has a rocking Neimans. Also.

THAT was cruel.......... ;-)

[MR Bill]

I was going to say not so much Atlanta as Cobb County, the suburban rightwing stronghold. It was one of Newt's launching pads, and has quite a wingnutty history: the strange life and ironic death of Cong. Larry McDonald is instructive. (And La Palin doesn't even have to leave Cobb as the local Galleria is there..)
And Steven, I'm glad you pointed out the 'outConfederate the Confederates' syndrome. It's what happened in the Appalachian South, forgetting the real history to try and be accepted by being more racist and perversely ignorant than the former Confederates..
It's why you see Rebel Flags with 'West Virginia' on them. And why the football team in my town is called 'the Rebels'.

[low-tech cyclist]

The problem with Georgia is the question of whether Palin could win a Senate seat there. From a governorship to a House seat is a major step down in terms of influence and visibility, and Presidential campaigns launched by House members rarely get very far.

Sure, there's Newt, but (a) he threatens to run for President but doesn't actually follow through, (b) he was not only House Speaker but developed a reputation as a big-ideas guy, and (c) he's somehow managed to persuade the D.C. pundits that he's still full of big ideas. I think the lessons regarding Palin are obvious: there's even less future for her in the House than in Alaska.

[jenniebee]

I vote Atlanta, mostly out of the hope that she'll discover the Junior League and denounce it on National TV as "socialist."

[kathy a.]

i don't think palin has any intention of moving out of alaska, or running for a piddly office like senator.

one way to make sense out of resigning the governorship is that she wants the freedom to fly around on other people's jets, keep the clothes, collect the speaking fees, and generally get paid the big bucks to do whatever she wants to do, unencumbered by ethics rules or people demanding that she do boring tasks, which happens all the damned time for people in office.

this doesn't fit well with what she promotes as her down-home persona, but sacrifices must be made. she seems utterly convinced that she has important messages for the american people. "higher calling" sounds an awful lot like her important messages might include a lot more godliness than she has previously emitted in public, but that's just speculating.

[Ron E.]

You're all missing the obvious. She will be moving to Des Moines to get a head start on 2012. Duh!

[Plutonious Monk]

We need Sarah Palin in Cobb County Georgia just about as much as we need more traffic congestion, another aircraft factory churning out useless $2 billion dollar military aircraft, a couple more humongous shopping malls, another 60,000 uncompleted housing units, more Republican Congressmen or a mass influx of 30 foot pythons from neighboring Florida.

[litbrit]

Hey Plutonius, those aren't pythons, they're Freedom Reptiles! You should be glad that we're willing to share them.

Florida: Upending the nation's ecosystem, one captively-bred and dangerous exotic species at a time.

[MR Bill]

Forgive me, Plutonius, I'm just trying to keep her out of the Southern Appalachians: the local politics (and the bear/deer/moose decor) are too much like Alaska.
(Yeah, I know, there have been no moose in N. Georgia since the Pleistocene, but try telling that to the interior cabin designers..)

[Plutonious Monk]

Litbrit and Mr Bill--I once lived in Pensacola and later took frequent mini vacations in Panama City. So I do believe the AK grandma moose hunter to be an ideal future denizen of the Florida Panhandle. Few to no moose there but lots of those Freedom Reptiles and quite a few rigged voting machines.

[litbrit]

Plutonius, several years ago, I spent a summer holiday in Seaside, which is in the Panhandle. Karl Rove has a nice place nearby. The place is crawling with wingnuts, too--every single woman of childbearing age has the requisite blonde, chin-length bob and wears Lilly Pulitzer pedal pushers. The music of choice is Lite Jazz; the cars, Jags; the décor, Disneyfied Old Florida. The general topics of conversation do not include philosophy, art, geopolitics, Frank Zappa, vintage clothes, or, for that matter, anything interesting to me whatsoever. I was exceedingly glad to get back to my dark, wild little corner of the state, to be honest.

Sarah Palin would fit in just fine, but she'd need to get herself some serious highlights and make a trip to the nearest Talbots first.