Get involved or get ready for an Irish Palin

THE announcement by Sarah Palin that she will not seek the Republican nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in America’s presidential election next year, will provoke relief and disappointment in equal measure.

Relief in that someone so obviously unsuited to that office will not demean it, demean American civic life or the idea of participatory democracy as a representation of the very best a society has to offer.

The disappointment is rooted in the fact that her candidacy would have led to, as it so memorably did when she stood as John McCain’s running mate in 2008, many moments of great but unintended hilarity. Though that amusement soon turned to concern at the prospect of someone who could not name even two or three newspapers having real influence in the world’s greatest superpower.

It should be a cause for concern for all of America’s friends that someone as crass, as vacant and so utterly contrived might even be considered a contender for that great office.

But then America’s culture wars have made it nearly impossible for a constructive, progressive, inclusive and fair-minded person to win the Republican nomination. Only zealots need apply.

The remaining candidates — Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and possibly others — are all in thrall to the hateful, ultra-conservative evangelical and Tea Party voters, so whether President Obama is re-elected or not America will be further polarised and see the loss of its world hegemony accelerate.

That there is no plausible, in any sense that the rest of the civilised world might recognise, Republican alternative to Obama is neither good for America nor those of us in its political or business orbit. Only time will tell if the Grand Old Party can, much like Fianna Fáil, reassert itself as a champion of the values that once made it admirable and worthwhile.

Just like Fianna Fáil, and most other Irish political parties, America’s Republicans must become more appealing, more relevant to a far wider range of people or risk surrendering their legacy to the lunatic fringe.

Though our presidential candidates, no matter how dull and compromised some may seem, are more admirable than the former head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Alaska’s Wasilla High School we should not be complacent. We should ask ourselves if the seven candidates are amongst the best this society has to offer and if not why not.

It may be that candidature for any high office opens a person to a discomfiting degree of scrutiny — as Dana has alleged about her American citizenship, as Martin McGuinness has claimed about his IRA past, as Mary Davis has suggested about her time as a building society director and as David Norris has said about the fact that he enjoyed a Trinity College disability payment for over a decade while holding a seat in the Senate — but that is how it works.

Our political system is at a very low ebb. Our economic independence has been sacrificed but unless individuals of energy and imagination become active in politics it cannot be too long before we have our own Sarah Palin and our own Tea Party. And you thought things couldn’t get any worse.