An underappreciated element of HBO's Game Change

Just had an opportunity to watch Game Change, the HBO adaptation of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's postmortem on the 2008 presidential campaign. The book devoted about a third of its attention to John McCain's now infamous selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, but it was enough to highlight several unflattering details about Palin, including the fact that she apparently didn't know the difference between North and South Korea.

Needless to say, Palin and her followers didn't exactly approve of the book. So its no surprise that the much-publicized release of the movie this weekend drew similar disapproval from conservatives, with Palin's Political Action Committee referring to the film as "a work of history that never happened."

But let's forget for a second whether or not the movie's dialogue was 100% true (it wasn't, because it was in a movie, and even movies with the most factual fidelity take liberties with their scripts). The movie, like the book, is based on the accounts of individuals closely involved with the campaign, and interprets those accounts accordingly. Parsing over every detail in the film obscures the real points that can and should be taken away from it.


I've read several accounts of Game Change so far, and almost every one has stuck to the stale question of what's true and what isn't. This is unfortunate, because I think the film's greatest accomplishment was to portray a side of Sarah Palin that is somewhat overlooked, makes one feel significantly more sympathetic toward her, and says a lot about the source of her animus toward the "lamestream media" and other "liberal elites."

Let's be clear about two things: 1) The film does not make Palin look good by any means; and 2) I cannot stand Palin the public figure and think her affect on American politics, especially since she embarked on her solo act, has been nothing short of toxic. Seeing it this simplistically, however, misses several points.

Game Change charts a convergence of two Palins: on the one hand, there's the aw shucks hockey mom that loves her family, loves connecting with people, and is just so dang happy to be here. In the film, she studies relentlessly to try and get up to speed on the issues of the campaign, and she is portrayed as genuinely doing her best to support John McCain and the Republican ticket. On the other, there is the cold, calculating diva who couldn't be bothered to prepare for her legendary (and not in a good way) interview with Katie Couric, wouldn't listen to what anyone had to say, and seemed like an utter nightmare to deal with.

So how did the two Palins fuse together to become the partisan bomb-throwing, resentment-stoking Mama Grizzly she is today? Let's start by seeing the fall of 2008 from her perspective. You've just finished a successful stint as mayor of the small town you grew up in. You've been elected Governor of Alaska, and you're the most popular governor in the country. Your entire professional life, you've been a big fish in a small pond, and your common touch has worked to perfection. To put it generously, one might make an argument that you should have been more educated, but for functional purposes you didn't really need to know anything about American foreign policy, or Wall Street, or the Federal Reserve, or anything else that people in New York City and Washington spend way too much time worrying about.

Then John McCain's campaign calls. You're flattered that you've been asked to be the vice presidential candidate of the United States, and how could you possibly say no? All of a sudden, you're under the microscope. You and your family are being subject to a level of scrutiny multiple orders of magnitude beyond anything you've ever seen. Your teenage daughter is pregnant, you have a 4-month old son, and everyone is judging you based on your answers to questions about which you have no clue. With each interview, it only gets worse. You're under a ton of pressure, and no one gives you a break.

Should a candidate for Vice President know that Saddam Hussein didn't attack America on 9/11? Or be able to name a newspaper she reads regularly? Of course. Sarah Palin was woefully underprepared for her star turn, and should never be allowed anywhere near our country's nuclear codes. Seen from another perspective, though, Palin was only trying her best to succeed, and everyone crucified her when she didn't. Eventually, she pushed back.

Liberals like myself dismiss the way Sarah Palin has helped to poison our public debate since Barack Obama became president. But who is she really speaking to? Her message is for everyone else who feels like no one ever gave them a chance in life, or piled on unfairly after they made a mistake. Like many Republicans before her, Palin is an expert at channeling this frustration into a broader resentment of those same elites that wouldn't stop feeding her notecards on the campaign trail. Palin has solidified in the minds of millions the idea that their material decline and other life struggles can somehow be blamed on an amorphous cadre of liberal and establishment insiders who look down their noses and are bent on imposing their views and values on the masses. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe this is how Palin herself experienced those last few fateful months of the 2008 campaign?

Game Change's real contribution is illuminating this central motive behind Palin's work since quitting her job as Alaska governor just 8 months after the conclusion of the '08 race. Like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Palin just wanted to be loved, and turned on the world when she wasn't.

Unlike Frankenstein, however, Palin had a bit of a mean streak to begin with. She's also got a lot more sympathizers. How others speak to the same constituencies Palin has targeted will say a lot about her continued staying power.