COMMENTARY | One of the more fascinating aspects of writing about Sarah Palin is how other people react so irrationally to her. Julianne Moore, an actress who is purported to play her in an upcoming HBO film "Game Change," does not like her one bit.
Big Hollywood has reported how the actress has trashed the politician she plays, claiming she was "unqualified" to be vice president.
Now a new narrative is arising about the former Alaska governor that is more suggestive of Machiavelli than of a bimbo.
The U.K. Daily Mail suggests, ever so gently, that Palin might be maneuvering to have herself nominated at a brokered Republican convention in August, thus avoiding the messy primary process that has not been edifying for any of the candidates involved.
The Week echoes that view and suggests, by quoting Jim Newell of Wonkette, that a brokered convention has been Palin's plan all along. How else to explain her wish that the primary process continue, by slyly hinting support for Newt Gingrich. The theory is this is less a play to help Gingrich than it is a way to stop Mitt Romney from clinching the nomination.
The scenario works like this: None of the candidates comes to the convention with sufficient delegates to clinch the nomination. The convention becomes deadlocked with ballot after ballot failing to pick a nominee. Then Palin and her activist army goes to work, cutting deals in the great tradition of "The Best Man" and becoming the compromise candidate.
One of the candidates who actually ran -- probably Gingrich -- is given the vice presidential nod. There are tacit promises of Cabinet positions for Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. Ron Paul gets a prime time spot to talk about the Constitution.
As a conspiracy theory, the idea of the Republican primaries as a kabuki dance that ushers in the nomination of the Mama Grizzly is not half bad. It would certainly make a better movie than "Game Change," as it would avoid the usual sexist portrayal by the left of conservative women as ditzes. It would be reminiscent of the way Francis Urquhart got to be British Prime Minister in the miniseries "House of Cards."
If that were the case, Barack Obama had better be very afraid.
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