Truthdig - Reports - Party of Franken, Party of Palin

Truthdig - Reports - Party of Franken, Party of Palin

The new senator from Minnesota is a comedian, writer and actor who lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and raised a lot of money from friends in Hollywood. The departing governor of Alaska is a hockey mom from a small backwoods town who likes to hunt and fish. Yet today, Al Franken looks wholesomely mainstream, while Sarah Palin seems headed for the tabloid fringe.

That unexpected contrast reveals much about the current configuration of Republicans, Democrats and politics in America—a story of two parties that crossed paths while traveling in opposite directions over the past dozen years or so.

In victory, the Republicans grew increasingly extreme and overconfident, encouraging figures such as Palin to follow their most extreme instincts. In defeat, the Democrats at last began to refurbish their progressive ideology, reconnect with working American families and rediscover their will to fight.

As an author and radio personality, Franken made a significant contribution to his party’s renewal. He was ready for prime-time politics in ways that Palin, the sudden star who could barely utter a coherent paragraph, was not.

Beneath the glittering surface, she exhibited profound weakness. Behind the joking persona, he showed moral and intellectual strength.