The Resurrection of Sarah Palin

"god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and god help you if you are a phoenix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying back"
- "32 Flavors," Ani DiFranco

Sarah Palin wants you to know it's not her fault.

Likely spurred on by the repugnant post-campaign chatter to the contrary, the former GOP Vice Presidential candidate has instinctively, and smartly, started a one-woman reconnaissance mission, declaring that she is not a down-home diva and ignoramus, nor the reason for the McCain-Palin ticket's loss. And while some in the media continue to lap up the drama, perplexed by Palin's decision to do something other than retreat to Alaska with her pit bull tail between her legs, I can't help but smile at her savvy.

Surely, this time out, she lacked the couth and global curiosity required of candidates for national office. That notwithstanding, Palin's potentially fatal blunder came not during her campaign for the Vice Presidency, but before it. When asked to be a Vice Presidential candidate, she should have said 'no.' She was not ready to campaign or govern on a national level and she should have known it. So, frankly, should have those who cunningly and cynically selected her to provide a boost to McCain's campaign - which, let's be fair, her selection did, in fact, provide. They got what anyone with eyes that work should have expected: a dangerous mix of ambitious hubris and a stunningly sheltered naivity that has derailed politicians seemingly far more talented than she (Richard Nixon, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, et al).

But, they also got something else, something they couldn't have expected, something that clearly inspired the jealousy and hatred that led to their decision to try to blame and defame her before the campaign was even over: a phoenix resolute in her plan to rise up from the ash.

One week out from the election, McCain staffers cried foul, saying Palin was "going rogue," had "left the reservation," was "campaigning for 2012," and "going off-message." What they knew, and were responding to, was that the man at the top of their ticket, despite his considerable knowledge and experience, was being left in the dust of his own making by someone far less knowledgeable and experienced, because she had a skill he did not, one that is vital for political survival: instinct.

Palin has been a greater presence post-election not simply because she's free from the protections of a campaign that mistrusted her, but also because she knows instinctively that she must be. The impression of Palin that would linger and calcify in a post-election absence, is one she cannot politically afford. She knows she must remain a presence on the national stage, disallowing her future to become inexorably linked to McCain's dreadful, antiquated, losing campaign. And let's be clear: It was McCain's campaign. And the loss was not Palin's fault. Palin can, and should try to, survive it. And, may her God bless her, that's exactly what she's doing. In the political game of "Survivor," she's proving she has the instinct to outwit, outplay and outlast.

Now that she's had a taste of national politics, her international curiosity and involvements can grow. She can learn that which she doesn't know, without losing the aw-shucks-ness that so endeared her to those for whom such curiousity will not grow. She can be a national presence as governor, honing her instincts and tailoring her ambitions to be better paced with her knowledge and experience. Rather than wait for the next door to open unexpectedly, she can wait outside the door of her choosing and walk through it not as a former Vice Presidential candidate and perceived albatross, but as the Governor Palin and soaring phoenix she is savvily showing herself capable of becoming.

She will, of course, continue to be vilified by those still sifting through the Arizona senator's and GOP's ashes. But that, perhaps more than anything else, is all the proof she needs that she has risen.

It will take years to know if she will become the Republicans' savior, but today there should be no doubt: the resurrection of Sarah Palin has begun.