Interesting Take on Sarah Palin
Is Sarah Palin the first crowd-sourced candidate? That’s the question explored by Matt Bai in an interesting piece in today’s New York Times.
I’ve always found Bai to be a diligent reporter who thinks about his subjects in original ways. I recommend his book The Argument.
Bai argues that because Palin emerged on the national scene without a fully formed political identity, she was able to adapt quickly to what worked, making her uniquely suited to politics in the modern media age:
“The point is that in an increasingly interactive society, candidates can get an instant and amplified reaction to everything they say. And a candidate who happens to be more malleable in her political philosophy, either because she hasn’t yet settled on one or because she is temperamentally susceptible to the passions of the crowd, can be transformed by the moment,” Bai writes.
Read the rest of his piece here.
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