Nor, for that matter, is it the character assassination job that right-wing bloggers reflexively claimed it was, long before anyone outside of HBO had actually seen it.
The fishbowl phenomenon is ancient, but the technology and pace of were new and intimidating. They thought that the rest of her candidacy — the part built around facts and stuff — could be filled in later. As Palin awkwardly tap dances her way through question after question, the advisers realize she knows little about the actual mechanics of governance. It is about politics.
The script presents Palin as an ill-prepared and deeply narcissistic person who seems to view others as mere extensions of herself except for her husband and kids, whom the movie treats with warmth and respect.
But it never forgets that without Schmidt, Wallace, Davis, and their boss McCain, Palin would have stayed in Alaska, and McCain might have lost honorably, without having committed what amounted to gross electoral negligence by picking somebody who was arguably the least qualified vice-presidential candidate in modern history, a woman who made George H. The movie is so smart and ethical that I wish it were better. As a piece of filmmaking, it just feels too typical. I wish it had been more of a black comedy and less of a political-psychological case study.
Confronted with this level of genial stupidity and accidental madness, only satire can do history justice. Sarah Palin herself is a triumph of style and a failure of substance; Game Change , the reverse. Obviously, Palin, then and now, would not agree. Almost any man-on-the-street interview will reveal a similarly huge gap in the knowledge of average Americans. Like candidate Palin, average citizens may not know what the Fed is or who runs the British government. This is both disturbing and understandable.
The political game goes on above their heads and they feel estranged from the process. While the pros were appalled that she had no command of the facts, the folks out on the rope lines recognized someone who had come from among them.
They saw an attractive mother of five, beset by insiders and media elites, who was battling back and expressing gut feelings that were the same as theirs. That appeal was what made Palin an overnight political phenomenon. She may well have believed herself to be a Ronald Reagan-like figure for whom destiny had greatness in store. Perhaps she could have become a female Reagan, but Reagan did not become Reagan overnight. He honed his stagecraft for decades; Palin had a short stint as a local TV sports reporter.
Even when he was president, there were still unsettling moments in press conferences when Reagan seemed as baffled and inarticulate as Palin was with Couric.
But, by then, Reagan had years of experience on the big stage and could finesse his way through. Palin had just a few days of frantic coaching on the basics before she was thrown into the media maelstrom. Sarah Palin had political smarts but no knowledge. When asked to join the Republican ticket, she immediately said yes with the utter confidence of the clueless. And who can blame her? The blame for this reckless choice lies with the smart guys, like Steve Schmidt, who thought they were clever enough to transform the presidential campaign.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey is a former political commentator for the Los Angeles Times. After graduating from the University of Washington, Horsey entered journalism as a political reporter.
His multifaceted career has taken him to national political party conventions, presidential primaries, the Olympic Games, the Super Bowl, assignments in Europe, Japan and Mexico, and two extended stints working at the Hearst Newspapers Washington Bureau.
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