Sarah Palin’s Destiny: Trivial Pursuit Stumper

The Parabolic people have spoken — and it doesn’t look good for Sarah Palin.

Asked whether the half-term governor and ex-reality show star would ascend to the Presidency, most of you were pessimistic about her becoming America’s Commander-in-Chief. Only 15 percent of you voted for that outcome, leaving that possibility a shade behind Family Feud host and slightly ahead of America’s Got Talent judge. All of these possibilities lagged far behind the most popular choice, Trivial Pursuit answer, which received 58 percent of the vote. In poll terms, that’s a landslide — no Electoral College vote necessary.

This is not good news for the Alaskan hockey mom and self-described mama bear, whose meteoric rise has alternately enthralled and appalled Americans ever since a desperate septuagenarian John McCain plucked her from obscurity to put her one electoral victory and a single heart beat away from having her finger on the button of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.

In only a short number of years, Palin rose quickly from TV broadcaster to mayor to state governor to would-be vice president. In the two-plus years since her electoral defeat, she has resigned as governor and settled back into an environment best suited for anyone with an outsized personality, lots of opinions, and no sense of shame: the political lecture circuit, reality television, and Fox News Channel.

This vote shows that people expect her to stay in television. As an anyone-but-Palin supporter, the outcome gives me hope. I just pray that it is not wrong.