Who is responsible for Sarah Palin?

January 27, 2011: Sarah Palin has a problem. With just months to go before the GOP field for the 2012 presidential race starts filling up like shoppers queuing for a Wal-Mart black Friday sale, polls show that she is the most intensely disliked politician in America.

Since the mid-term elections alone, she has lost ground not only with Republicans, but with the ever important independents and especially women. How could this have happened to the Wasilla hockey mom that stormed onto the national stage over two years ago, bringing heat and light to an otherwise drab political scene?

Yes you could place some blame on the intense media coverage. You could place some blame on how lovers and haters alike scrutinize every word she tweets or facebooks, raising constant questions about her understanding of domestic and international affairs. And you can even place blame on Palin herself for not fully thinking out what she says before she says it, thereby setting herself up for criticism.

But the real blame lies closer to home, here in Alaska.

Looking back over the progression of Sarah Palin's political career and her continuing political education, or lack thereof, Alaskans are to blame for Sarah Palin's inability to communicate on the national stage. At the critical time of development, we failed to demand more than just cheerleading rhetoric from our former leader.

From her time as Mayor of Wasilla to her run for governor in 2006, Palin's message on the issues of the day never had to mature. She was never forced to compete for votes on a knowledge based field, instead using her charisma while tapping into the public's distrust and dissatisfaction with government. Everything was a soundbite, intended to give voters an easy way out without having to think.

In April of 2006, the morning after a debate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Palin and I were sharing a cup of coffee at the Captain Cook. "I hear you spout off facts and figures with no notes and I'm just amazed, but then I look out over the audience and I wonder if it really makes a difference", she said to me.

Palin was correct. Having a grasp of the issues and facts didn't make a damn bit of difference.

Voters loved Palin for who she was, not what she knew and therefore gave her a pass and accepted her glittering generalities as public policy gold. All her vague talk about new energy and transparency were more important than specifics on improving education or public safety.

During an August 2006 candidates forum, opponent John Binkley asked Palin what her vision was for the University of Alaska. For the next forty five seconds Palin prattled on about travelling Alaska, talking to Alaskans. "I've been travelling the state in a Jetta, not a jet (an obvious swipe at former Governor Murkowski's ill-fated jet) and they understand the importance of education." 

However, nowhere in the answer did she ever give any indication that she had an inkling of the role the University played in Alaska's future. In return, the audience swooned, as if she had just uncovered the cure for cancer.

During the 2006 campaign, the last race Palin won, Alaskans taught her that an understanding of issues and ideas was secondary to having a populist appeal. Whatever she said was accepted without question and when it was questioned, she instantly became the victim.

In an October 2006 debate in front of the Building Owners and Managers Association, Palin became outraged when the moderator refused to make her two opponents stay seated when answering questions in front of the audience. Palin wanted her counterparts to stay seated because she relied on notes to answer questions and by being forced to stand she couldn't use her notes. If she stayed seated while the other two stood, she'd look disrespectful.

Her term as governor was a continuation of the enabling by Alaskans. With her approval ratings at eighty percent, Palin had no incentive to actually understand the issues. She was free to use her popularity to push lawmakers into passing populist legislation that was doomed from the start.

During the contentious AGIA debate in 2007, one interior lawmaker returning from a weekend at home where Palin made an appearance, stated her rock star status meant there was no way he was going to stand in the way of her proposals.

Her stratospheric approval from the public gave her the power necessary to pass her gas pipeline plan (AGIA) and to raise oil company taxes (ACES) to some of the highest marginal tax rates in the world. The public never questioned the significance or the risk, only taking Palin's word. In one online poll, roughly sixty percent of respondents felt Palin's plan would deliver Alaskans a gas pipeline.

Today, three years after the passage of both pieces of legislation, there is widespread recognition that the only two pieces of Palin's legacy are failures. Headlines scream about lost investment due to high taxes and a failed pipeline plan while the state is on the hook for almost $500 million. The new governor and legislative leaders are talking out loud about abandoning both policies to protect Alaska's economic future.

But we created this mess and have no one to blame but ourselves. We created a politician that was never forced to describe or defend her populist policies. We by default trained Sarah Palin that knowing nothing is as good as knowing something.

After her defeat in the 2008 presidential election, supporters and critics alike gave Palin the same bit of advice; go home and keep your head down, be a good governor, become knowledgeable about the affairs of the world and come back. But that's not what Palin did, because that's not what Palin was trained to do.

She came back, departed from her ways of working across party lines, became disengaged in government and then abruptly resigned to go off in search of fame and fortune. Never once did she try and improve her understanding of the issues, only spending time sharpening her tone as to who was to blame.

Almost two years after her departure as governor, Palin has proven that she is incapable of internalizing the need to communicate on various levels in order to appeal to a more complex electorate. 

In 2006 Alaskans let her get away with how Frank Murkowski was bad, and in 2008 she travelled the country bathing the GOP base in her rhetoric about how Barrack Obama was bad.

Today, her downed lines of communication to critical segments of the voting public and her historical inability to bridge that divide seems insurmountable.

Palin's problem is she has fallen too far too fast and judging from history, a mid-course correction is highly unlikely. If Palin were to succeed in repairing her high negatives she must immediately begin to temper her tone and offer more substance than an occasional tweet or two blaming Obama for high gas prices.

She must take into account she is marketing herself to many different audiences and one size, or in this case one screed, does not fit all.

These segments include Republican base voters who will be a big factor in next years primaries; independent and moderate voters who will vote in next year’s general election and the news media itself which will continue to scrutinize, dissect and parse her words in different ways and in greater volumes, all with their own twist and interpretation. 

If history is any indicator, Palin will be unable to accomplish this. She has proven herself incapable of intelligent discourse beyond the pointing of fingers and the placing of blame. While over the years, many including myself have warned about under estimating Palin's capabilities, what we really should have been worried about is over estimating voters intelligence. 

Alaskan voters created Sarah Palin's political career. We rewarded her shallow campaigns and soundbite governance with thanks and praise. We created a politician that only knew one note and that note was rewarded with high approval ratings which attracted John McCain. We rewarded her with the platform to get her to where she is today.

In a big way, we are responsible for Sarah Palin.