Sarah Palin Still Hasn't Been Invited to the Republican National Convention

Looks like we've got a Republican etiquette concern on our hands, folks. Even after what seems like a centuries-long career of tossing meaningless word salad live on cable news, Alaska governor possible Presidential candidate rural mayor victor in the battle to overturn the Affordable Care Act hockey mom yammering pundit Sarah Palin is still awaiting her invitation to the 2012 Republican National Convention from the Romney camp. Tea Party supporters are hopping mad. What's this feeling? Oh, yeah. Palinfreude.

Although her speech at the 2008 convention was pretty much the pinnacle of her political career, Palin should have expected her reception from the mainstream GOP to be chilly — she's worked hard at alienating just about everyone in America, even people who should have been her allies. You can't maverick around for years without pissing the establishment off. NewsBeast's Peter J. Boyer notes that hours after Mittens Romney announced that he was running for President, Sarah Palin's probably-non-fuel efficient bus rolled into town for a stop on her cross country Sarah Palin Awareness Tour, the equivalent of a blasted Lee Greenwood or some other such deliberately emotionally manipulative patriot music interrupting what Romney hoped was a Historical Speech. She distracted public attention from actual GOP Presidential candidates by pretending like she was considering possibly running for office months into the primary season. She's declared that she could beat Mitt Romney, and hesitated to extend him an endorsement after he won the party's nomination. To expect Mitt Romney to welcome Sarah Palin to the GOP convention with open arms after months of shitting all over everything would be somewhere between naive and obtuse.

But what's the GOP mainstream to do now? Palin's enmeshed herself in the politics of a Tea Party hesitant to support Romney because, in short, he's not crazy enough. He's not as far right as his primary contenders like Ricks Perry and Santorum. He's not as shouty as Michele Bachmann. He just doesn't get people excited. And that's worrisome for Tea Partiers, who reportedly cried at a Herman Cain-hosted What Do We Do Now? whine meeting after Romney got the nomination.

For her part, Palin seems pretty self-aware, and oddly proud of her role as the Shiva the Destroyer of the GOP,

What can I say?" she responded in an email from Alaska, when asked by Newsweek about the convention, just before heading to Michigan to deliver an Obama-thumping speech. "I'm sure I'm not the only one accepting consequences for calling out both sides of the aisle for spending too much money, putting us on the road to bankruptcy, and engaging in crony capitalism."

"In accepting those consequences," she added, "one must remember this isn't Sadie Hawkins and you don't invite yourself and a date to the Big Dance."

Being invited to the RNC is sort of like being invited to speak at a Tea Party rally... except people at the RNC have real responsibilities.

[Daily Beast]