So she may have lost the vice presidency, but she will likely win a big book deal coming out of this. According to this article from the Canberra Times, agents and imprints are lining up to make a bid for Gov. Sarah Palin’s memoirs. The current publishing guessing game? Whether the advance will top the $6 million Tina Fey landed for a book. There’s a chance it might not, which would be sad, but so it goes in the publishing world. We do know that conservative politico books sell pretty well.
That said, the literary types quoted in this piece talk about how her rough introduction to the national stage will be the biggest selling point of the book. I disagree. If Palin wants a future in politics, she can’t dwell on a grudge match with the national media and various sneering feminist types who greeted the idea of a first female conservative VP with outrage. Her memoirs should serve two more forward looking functions.
First, like Ronald Reagan after 1976, Palin is about to spend a few years in the political wilderness. She needs to build up her base, and make it extremely clear what she stands for (as Reagan did in radio shows, his writings and the like). She’s already talked a good game about being pro-entrepreneur, pro-free market, pro-Second Amendment and pro-life. All of these are solid philosophical ideas which she needs to defend at length. Why does she believe them? Why are they the right thing for America? She can really delve into political philosophy here, economics, plus personal storytelling — anecdotes of Alaska folks and the people in her life who believe these things (the Palins run a commercial fishing business… they know about the entrepreneurial spirit).
Second, I hesitate to talk about Dreams from my Father, but Barack Obama did do a good (if perhaps not 100% accurate) job of turning his early life into a narrative. The lost father is, of course, an archetypal hero’s journey, but Palin can definitely turn her childhood in this newest American state into a frontier story. She can talk of being lost a bit as a young person — literary readers love alienation, and I don’t know how else you define attending four colleges — and then about how she found herself being called to lead the people she grew up with. Throw in the gaudy world of pageants blended with the rough world of commercial fishing and snowmobiling races, the prestige of being a governor and the loneliness of knowing you are carrying an infant with special needs and not knowing who you can trust to tell… and you’ve got a good narrative.
Oh, and you need a good ghostwriter… (if anyone connected to the Palin camp is reading this, give me a call).
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Laura Vanderkam is the author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (Portfolio, 2010) and Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career without Paying Your Dues (McGraw-Hill, 2007). She is a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors, and her work has appeared in Reader's Digest, Scientific American, Wired, The American, Portfolio and other publications.
Write to her at lvanderkam at yahoo dot com.
Pushing further the Palin-Reagan comparison that you suggested…
I would be really impressed if she ever gets a massive number of votes from Democrats. Indeed, I can’t even imagine anyone ever talking seriously about the Palin-equivalent of ‘Reagan Democrats’. Such a big gap in human qualities and political maturity…
Nevertheless, a book about her life will be extremely interesting. I recognize that she has a few excellent competences at the interpersonal level. She is tough and determined. If she would only use those wisely…
About being pro-life, you may want to read this… http://www.theinformationparadox.com/2008/11/pro-lifepro-choiceboth.html
If Sarah Palin takes this spot in the limelight as her calling to get busy and really learn her trade - which, if she has any desire to represent the country on a national scale, would basically mean educating herself about a lot of the things she really has no clue about at the moment - then by all means I think she could be a force to be reckoned with in the years ahead. But it would have to be a pretty dramatic turn here…if she’s going to win the GOP over, she’s going to have to get solidly together with the more moderate members of her party. If the goal of a book is to make money, then that’s great. The best way for her to make money on a memoir would be to speak directly to her supporters, who will gobble up whatever she’s got to say, in whatever way she wants to say it. But if your goal is for the book to serve as a platform from which to jump back onto the national political discussion, then it’s gotta be something very different. And I’m not sure how a book would work to help bridge the gap with the people that were turned off by her even within her own party. I think the bigger question for her on down the line will be: Can she perform better when it counts - i.e. when the world is watching. While I disagree with most of her platforms, I think she showed plenty of charisma in her campaign, and I think if harnessed, she could definitely go places. But it was her inability to grasp basic political concepts in interviews and be able to give straight answers to simple questions that was a large part of her undoing in this campaign. If she works hard enough to change the way she performs, then like I said, you never know. But it seems like kind of a stretch to me.
Laura, I believe your analysis is outstanding…I have been tied into the Palin network of blogs since Spring, during the Draft era with Adam Brickley. (who as you probably know begain in Feb 07′)
I linked your post to my blog, with attribution…I know for a fact that Palin has people checking certain pro-Palin blogs with reference to her since January.
She is a lot smarter and Machiavellian (I say that in a positive manner) than people give her credit for, the woman is made of pure steel.
As for the Reagan comparisons (I like the Thatcher model, too) I think Michael Reagan knows more about his dad than either Pep or Tauri above. He was the one the confirmed that analogy the day after her RNC speech.
I hope you get the gig, check out my blog now and then…I grew up in the Reagan Bush era, it’s the same type of rhetoric and denigration which was levellaed against the Gipper!!!
The problem with Obama goose steppers like Tauri and some idiots on the right (Will,Parker, Brooks, Frum, Noonan, etc) is that she is very plain spoken & sees the world in moral certitudes…
Tauri, check both the written transcripts of the Gibson & Couric interview (thank Wallace for the latter) and you will see that she DID answer question fully, in a cogent fashion.
BTW, do you want to go there? President elect telemprompter, Mr. Uh, thought we had 57 states and Biden, which she whipped in the debate, talked to Couric about FDR and TV when it did not exist, coupled with the false restaurant in his home state….he made 14 factual errors in the debate.
Excellent post. I hope you get the gig! I’d love to read it.
“Pushing further the Palin-Reagan comparison that you suggested…
I would be really impressed if she ever gets a massive number of votes from Democrats. Indeed, I can’t even imagine anyone ever talking seriously about the Palin-equivalent of ‘Reagan Democrats’. ”
Funny considering that Reagan faced the same criticism after his 1976 defeat in the primaries. He could never appeal to anything except the most conservative Republicans, he is a “dunce”, he doesn’t pay attention to details … blah blah blah
However, after 4 years of Jimmy Carter … well you know what happened and it is my opinion that Obama is nothing more than a Jimmy Carter clone, he has no idea how to govern, that is why he is hiring all of these Clinton hacks…
Palin has a record as a governor, the problem is that nobody knows about it because the way the McCain campaign handled her. Palin had more executive experience after one day as Wasilla mayor than Obama has in his lifetime and we just elected him so ….
And in four years when the unemployed stands at 12%, inflation through the roof to pay for all of these grand Obama programs and interest rates at all time highs, the American people will be looking for a REAL fiscal conservative.
Palin needs to control her message and she could use some new advisers
Just my 2 cents … I enjoyed the original post and comments!
And note well — Reagan understood that his base was the libertarian / principles of the founders / old time roots of the American people.
And Reagan hired Martin Anderson to continually provide him with contact with the best minds among the libertarian economists and policy experts of the day, along with books and articles by the best libertarian economists of the day. During his “wilderness” years Reagan was reading Hayek, Mises, Friedman, etc. — and he was holding briefings with Friedman and other libertarian economists and policy wonks.
Palin needs to do something similar if she hopes to defeat Jindal for the nomination in 2012.
I’ve heard Bill Ayers is available. Heh.
Just contact her direct. Local Alaskan media have her cell number but it’s not like she’s hard to track down.
Carlos Echevarría, Joey and saint above, all have blogs which clearly indicate their clear pro-Palin inclination. This is not bad per se. However, and with all due respect, a quick look to the aforementioned blogs immediately reveals the immense subjective bias of their writings. A smart reader will immediately disregard their opinion as intellectually misleading.