Palin casts herself as a bullied Cinderella, Caroline Kennedy as a wicked stepsister

Alaska Gov. Sarah PalinSarah Palin’s recent interview with Internet reporter John Zeigler is easily her most impactful, in-your-face media moment since her vice-presidential acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota. This difference is, the mainstream press knows what to expect from her now, knows her modus operandi as someone who is consistently "working the refs" when it comes to being viewed as an innocent target of Big Media mistreatment.

But knowing the tendencies of a given politician doesn’t preclude said politician from winning another election. Those already dismissing Palin as a one-hit wonder suffering from mild-to-moderate delusions of persecution have no way of knowing if the national mood will match her remarkably consistent themes of ongoing victimhood and stubborn anti-intellectualism by the time the GOP field begins to assemble for the 2012 campaign.

Showing a keen sense of timing sure to be remembered by her loyalistas, Palin began re-enforcing memes and laying new buzzwords for a possible 2012 presidential bid by taking advantage of the controversy surrounding Caroline KennedyCaroline Kennedy-Schlossberg and her interest in being appointed to the New York Senate seat Hillary Clinton is expected to vacate next week en route to becoming President Obama’s secretary of state.

It has been pointed out, of course, that while both Palin and Kennedy are women, the similarities end there: Palin was asking all of America to make her second-in-command to a 72-year-old cancer survivor, whereas Kennedy has merely expressed interest in being appointed to a vacant Senate seat.

But that’s not really the point. From a bottom-line, mobilize-the-vote perspective, the point is to give your supporters some very specific (if not entirely accurate) examples of that which you are going to make a foundation of your campaign. By taking on the role of a bullied but feisty Cinderella and casting Kennedy as a kind of a wicked-stepsister unfairly favored by the evil media, Palin throws a metaphoric pre-emptive shoe at anyone who dares to criticize or disagree with her version of the truth, regardless of subject matter. It’s a very wide net by design – her and her supporters against everyone else – and therein lies the strategic brilliance of her approach.

From the perspective of rallying the base, Palin did exactly what she set out to do in the Ziegler interview. Especially impressive is how she was able to inject the word “class” into the discussion. For decades, Democrats have outperformed Republicans when campaign talk turned to matters of the Middle Class vs. the Wealthy, although Republicans have made some inroads on that front with their use of the buzzword “elite” in recent times.

Yet in just one interview, Palin manages not only to paint the well-connected Kennedy as an indirect personification of the anti-Palin; she even speculates that an undefined “we” might be able to prove “that there is a class issue here also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy.”

Simply by using the word “class” as a way of illustrating her perceived mistreatment, Palin has now opened the door for her followers to blame “class issues” in the same vague but forceful way they blame “the liberal media” or “Big Government” for the ailment of the moment. That is no small feat, and whether or not Palin is the 2012 nominee, look for the Republican Party to try their hand at expanding and hammering home themes of class favoritism.

Also of interest were Palin’s references to Obama telling the media that his family was off limits and confessions of her own naïvete in regards to how she thought the media would treat her family. The entire interview has not been released, so she may have mentioned it later, but she appears to have overlooked or forgotten that then-Sen. Obama went to bat for her early on in the Republican convention after Bristol Palin’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy became the issue-of-the day. In a clip that was played repeatedly on the cable news channels during at least one early September news cycle, Obama explicitly told reporters that Palin’s family matters should be off limits to the media.

But acknowledging that Obama did the decent thing on her behalf would get in the way of her attempt to become that rarest of all creatures, the empowered victim. By framing herself as someone the bullies singled out to pick on but couldn’t keep down, she has managed to light a fire under Palin Nation. She should get plenty of opportunities to stoke the flames over the course of Obama’s presidency, but whether or not the fire will spread remains to be seen.

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