"The Sarah Palin Syndrome:" When a person believes their own hype and falls in love with themselves. Seems legit.

Nancy Smith, a reporter for the Sunshine State News, was reporting on the fact that Charlie Crist's running mate, Annette Taddeo, seemed to have national political aspirations.

Smith clearly does not think that Taddeo is particularly qualified, and describes her overinflated sense of self thusly: 

God knows why. The Sarah Palin Syndrome, perhaps? 

After Sen. John McCain and Sarah Palin lost the 2008 presidential race, Palin quit the governor's job in Alaska, wrote a book, and has been touring America whipping up her conservative fan base ever since. Those are the folks she listens to -- the only ones -- the cheering throngs who adore her. Now she has a website exploring her presidential prospects for 2016. (I would disagree with the reporter here to suggest that the channel website has actually nothing to do with a potential career in politics and everything to do with promoting Sarah Palin the brand.)


That's the gist of the Sarah Palin Syndrome: Palin came to believe her own hype from 2008 and fell in love with herself.

Okay now THAT is certainly true.

Now I don't know really anything about Annette Taddeo, and certainly not her qualifications to run for office, so I was really drawn to this story due to its use of Sarah Palin as a yardstick for somebody's overinflated ego and sense of entitlement. 

We have all seen Sarah Palin used time and time again to measure a person's intelligence, their commitment to their job, their qualifications, and their seriousness as a potential politician.

In every case, except a few rare occurrences on uber Right Wing news outlets, the Palin comparison is used to indicate a negative in the person, not a positive.

If one were to be compared to Sarah Palin, in almost all circumstances, it would be cause for serious concern as it is almost certainly a slam against your character for one reason or another.

So that is the true legacy of Sarah Palin. She is the very definition of character flaws, poor judgement, and a lack of intelligence.

Yeah, that works for me.