a popsicle soon

I've broken the tabu, and my head feels clearer, my body lighter, my soul less stifled than it has in months.
This must be what it was like decades ago (or maybe it was last week), to say, yes, I am a commie, or yes, I am a Jew, I am a homo, or yes, I once voted for a Republican. (Not all of these examples taken from my own life.)
I am putting my cards on the table. Sarah Palin will be the Republican candidate for President in 2012.
The last time the Repubs nominated somebody overtly intelligent it was Richard Nixon. He expanded food stamps, pursued desegregation with the first affirmative action programs, proposed legislation that led to the creation of OSHA and the EPA, and shook hands with the Red Chinese. Then he lost his political base and had to resign. They're not going to make that mistake again.
They pretty much had to run Ford since he took the fall for bribing (or "pardoning") smartypants Nixon out of the White House. Also, the same deal had made him a sitting President. That makes you a dead cinch for the nom unless they find you in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.
In with Jimmy Carter. I'll never forget Carter standing shoulder to shoulder in DC with Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, wincing not with moral disgust, but because teargas had drifted over from where it was being dispensed against Iranian students protesting Pahlavi's torture corps. Other than that, which pretty much assured a hostile government in Iran once the Shah was overthrown, I thought Jimmy was an OK president. Now he's regarded with such general contempt that calling him "history's greatest monster" has become a trope on The Simpsons, America's most viewed guide to what to think about ourselves.
[I've recently become fond of the word "trope." It instantly elevates the intellectual presumption of any conversation or writing in which it appears, and since it only has one syllable, it lacks the smack of pointyheadedness. Using "trope" is also a trope. Trope trope trope.]
Sorry. I've digressed to the Dems, who are irrelevant to this discussion except as props for the Republican Party. Just like in real life.
Here was the brilliant turn in Republican strategy. They invented the inverse-Nixon (not the anti-Nixon - that was McGovern). They nominated a man without the brain of a Nixon. A man without the tortured soul of a Nixon. A man without the homely bodily instantiation of a Nixon. A man without history, a man without qualities. A man who took direction, never had a first thought, and shone with the light of a thousand thousand projectings. The Gipper.
This is the beginning of the Sarah Palin model. All flash, no filigree. Wait, I take that back. All filigree, no flash. Immune, freakin' immune from criticism and responsibility. Cop to Iran-Contra criminality and then mutter "I still don't think" arms were traded for hostages on the way out. Lose your way in THE ONLY PREPARED PORTION of the Presidential debates at the end of your first term and whisk your party to a historic victory. Become renowned for your chuckle.
The operating system (as contrasted to the slick user interface) of the Reagan presidency was George H.W. Bush, former Director of the CIA. Bush's life story is riddled with links to covert operations, oil wealth, and family privilege - he came from the milieu that had been grooming Reagan since the 1950s. He was the ur-Cheney, the sensible man of industry and power, the mind over matter of figurehead Reagan. (Holy smoke! Cheney was the ranking minority member of the Congressional committee investigating Iran-contra! Thanks, Wikipedia cross-checked with the NY Times!)
Easing Bush out of the Prez chute was not an option - added to all the reasons to go with a Veep is the matter of how much H.W. could incriminate others in Iran-contra and associated matters. (Jeez, I barely scratched the surface googling - george bush testimony iran-contra - and it was even worse than I remembered.) They made what many thought a dumbbell move at the time but in retrospect was a smart experiment in flipping the script - keep the OS, prepare the public for the next revision - Dan Quayle (aka Microsoft Bob, for the ancient among us).
Bush-Quayle, that pastoral duo, lost out to what critics decried as a slicker interface, but time would reveal as an attempt to reverse-engineer and personalize the Repub OS. That was (Macintosh) Bill. I liked him, even as I knew before he won the election that he had never met a principle he couldn't betray.
Yada yada, two terms of Clinton-Gore. Who did the Repubs run in '96? Oh yeah, Bob Dole.
Quick, who was Dole's running mate? I keep wanting to say Gerald Ford, but that's just because when Dole was Ford's veep-manque I giggled like crazy every time I saw the spoonerism "Dord-Fole." The answer is Jack Kemp. What was the question?
I'm so tired, and we haven't even reached the age of Kali Yuga. Can I take a break? I promise I'll tell you why the administration of George "W" Bush was an unqualified success, and how Sarah Palin will be the Republican candidate for Prez in 2012, maybe even if they find her in bed with a live girl or a dead boy.