Is Conservative Support for Palin Cracking?

I'm concerned tonight about Sarah Palin and the Republican ticket. Yesterday, a prominent conservative writer, Kathleen Parker at the National Review Online wrote a piece urging Palin to quit the Republican ticket. Here's the meat of her article entitled "Palin Problem":

As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion...

Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted. Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood.

Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true. What to do?

McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

This is tough stuff from a reliable conservative woman -- exactly the base that Palin's selection was trying to attract. Will this be the first of many on the right who will turn against Palin in the coming weeks? The answer to this may determine whether John McCain can win the election against Barack Obama.

Parker's criticism of Palin is qualitatively different from the consistent "Palin derangement Syndrome" we've seen from the left. That opposition is both reflexive and ideological. The feminist opposition to Palin in particular is rooted in the pro-choice orthodoxy that would have made any pro-life woman unacceptable -- though the venom hurtled at Palin by those in the women's movement was far, far more vicious than it would have been had the selection been someone else -- a Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, for example. Palin's five kids, her blue collar roots and her frontier persona is tremendously appealing to many. But it has bred much vitriol among the left's intelligentsia (an oxymoron, I know).

Kathleen Parker's views, however, are potentially far more damaging to John McCain. Should this be the first of many respected conservative voices who turn against her, it will dampen some of the enthusiasm among the base. If Palin lays and egg against Biden -- not out of the question given her interviews thus far -- it may turn a few scattered voices into a crescendo. This would be devastating to McCain -- who needs his base fired up to have any chance at winning in November.

We will see what next week brings. But I'm nervous.

Here's the Palin-Couric Interview: