Sarah Palin has taken demagoguery to new heights. She has effectively nourished and grown her notoriety to be the source and impetus for a new industry, namely Sarah Palin Inc. Sarah’s recipe for her new culinary phenomenon started with a skillfully manipulated public relations (PR) campaign. After the PR has been well oiled with generous political campaign funds, it is then vigorously rolled out and then evenly distributed in the pan. More of Sarah’s recipe continuous below.
After seasoning with timely publicity stunts, the Palin PR batter is then allowed to slowly simmer in the national political oven. At this point Sarah keeps a sharp eye on the progress of her PR preparation baking in the national oven. If it shows signs of browning unevenly, she refreshes the process by reaching into the oven and carefully basting her PR batter with selected outrageous statements that have been purposely designed to generate the greatest amount of public controversy which of direct consequence in turn creates the widest amount of attention in the media “echo” chamber.
Though far from being an international delicacy Sarah’s culinary creation has never-the-less captured the appetite of the American media and as a result enriched Palin beyond her wildest Alaskan dreams.
I should like to point out here that I personally have no inside information as to the structure, size and operation of the business entity which in this discussion I identify as Sarah Palin Inc. It should be noted that my observations are strictly as an outside observer and they are based exclusively on the well publicized events already initiated by Sarah Palin Inc. My conclusions are derived from my own personal logic as to the ultimate cost to produce such Palin initiated events.
A TV commentator recently made the following observation concerning Sarah Palin, “She is everywhere!” As of this date, I fully agree with his observation, indeed Sarah Palin appears to be everywhere. The events that she has been recently responsible for are as follows:
(1) She has written a second book which is due out in a week or so.
(2) She has a full itinerary of scheduled speeches around the nation.
(3) She has a daily show on Fox TV.
(4) She writes various opinion editorials for national newspapers.
(5) She has a TLC network TV show titled “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.
(6) She has a tour to promote her TLC network TV show.
In view of this frenetic schedule it is obvious management of this size itinerary would be beyond any normal human being (unless that person happened to be the comic book hero known as The Flash!) Seriously, anyone with manpower scheduling experience would immediately be aware that a substantial number of backup staff people would be required in order to facilitate such a schedule. I shall provide a quick review of the items on the above list. Starting with item 1, Sarah would need at a minimum 1 ghost writer and 2 editors to get her book manuscript ready for publication. In regards to item 2, Sarah would require at a minimum 3 speechwriters to support the many public appearances on her schedule. In terms of item 3 Sarah would require a minimum of 2 writers and 1 editor to create program material for her Fox TV show. These writers would not only provide her broadcast scripts but would also provide the intellectual creativity to put together the topics, in addition to producing a guest list to complete the material for their respective program date. In regards to item 4, Sarah would require at a minimum 1 experienced opinion column writer to produce the op editorials for various national newspapers. This person could actually provide this support on a part time basis as Sarah does not have a contractual obligation to produce these op editorials on a regular basis. Concerning item 5, Sarah would need at least 1 script writer and 1 editor to provide the program material for her TLC network TV show. Finally, for item 6 Sarah would require at a minimum 5 travel agents to handle booking, arrival and departure schedules. She would also need to have 1 person to oversee, synchronize, and perform management level responsibility for the successful execution of her entire itinerary. A total of 18 highly creative resourceful people will be required to staff Sarah Inc. as defined by the minimum estimates listed above.
The 18 people listed above only constitute the intellectual component of Sarah Palin Inc. (Sarah Inc.) The other component of Sarah Inc. is her constant ever present security detail. Again I would estimate the minimum size requirement for her security detail to be 6 people available on a 24/7 basis. The logic for this estimate is based on the obvious fact that anyone living at the notoriety level of Sarah Palin would require this size protection detail as an absolute minimum. Six additional people result in a total of 24 people required to staff Sarah Inc. as an absolute minimum. The main product of Sarah Inc. is face-to-face access to the presence of her endearing effervescent personality.
As in any other business, the revenue receipts are used to pay the expenses, with the rest retained as pure profit. Therefore in my estimation Sarah Inc. is currently a rapidly expanding business, which would most likely be instantly oversubscribed if a portion of the Sarah Inc. was made available to the public on the New York Stock exchange.
The only bane of Sarah Inc.’s business plan lies in the highly probable change in the attitude of the general public, namely public fatigue with all things Palin. Essentially public fatigue with notorious characters falls in the category of being less interesting to the public than last month’s newspapers.
Hence it behooves the CEO of Sarah Inc. to make hay while the sun is still shining, and this is exactly what Sarah Palin is doing. At this point she will say anything and possibly do anything (within reason) to keep her image at the forefront of the number one topic coverage of all media. Currently the Palin infatuation has reached the level where the American news media has begun to develop an automatic reflex response to any major domestic news item to ask aloud, “What do you think Sarah Palin would say about this?” It is this current situation in the mainstream of American conversation that leads me to believe that America is very close to peak saturation with Sarah Inc. One last thing it is important to remember that public fatigue with Sarah Inc. will be established across America long before her ardent diehard supporters actually become disillusioned enough to stop working in her behalf, and with heavy hearts they return once again to the ranks of the undistinguished American anonymous.