This past weekend, I traveled to Chicago to speak at the Conservatives4Palin meetup, where Mama Grizzlies, Palinistas and "ordinary barbarians," as she's now taken to calling her followers, gathered to hear speeches, talk about conservative issues, celebrate a hypothetical Palin 2012 campaign and generally worship at the altar of Sarah Palin.
At one point during the program, Palin made a surprise phone call to the group, patched through one of the organizer's cell phones and played over a loudspeaker. The room burst into spontaneous applause and frenzied yelping as she launched into a warm and cheery 20-minute "thanks for all your hard work" chat.
I returned to New York from the Chicago gathering to find Palin again, not in my ear but on my television screen, bouncing gleefully around Alaska on her new TLC documentary series, "Sarah Palin's Alaska." She and Todd (her "neat husband," as Phyllis Schlafly put it recently) went fishing, rock climbing and bear spotting in between appearing on Fox News and ducking from their nosy new neighbor, who moved in just to write about Alaska's former first family.
It seems everyone wants a piece of Palin these days. Some are fans, some are hostile foes. But regardless, we just can't stop talking about her. Will there ever be a time when we decide that we've figured her out and there's nothing else to say?
And then it hit me. The reason Palin has become such a lightening rod, a kingmaker and a punching bag, a celebrity and a power player, is simple. It's because she's so gosh darn happy.
For her fans, like the ones I had the pleasure of meeting in Chicago, she's refreshingly upbeat and resilient, the bubbly friend from childhood who was always great at cheering you up and cheerleading you on.
But for her detractors, nothing raises the ire of cynical liberals more than a happy-go-lucky, totally unburdened, freethinking and self-assured conservative woman who has everything she wants and then some.
And without anyone's help.
Sure, she'll tell you that Todd, her parents and her children are an invaluable support system. But after eight years of hearing that George W. Bush was a nepotism experiment gone wrong, Sarah Palin has made it here (wherever this is) on her own. John McCain's imprimatur certainly launched her into the national spotlight, but she became the youngest and first female governor of Alaska all on her own.
How dare she?
Liberalism, after all, needs to imagine an unhappy populace. Passing sweeping entitlement programs and convincing voters that big government is the answer only works if people are frustrated with their stations in life.
Thus Palin is a real threat to front-office operations.
And Sarah Palin, more than almost any other public political figure, represents the "can do" rugged individualism and self-reliance that liberals fear most. She's not just running her household. She ran her state!
And in her new documentary series, we see that independent streak clear as glacier water. Whether she's casting for salmon or scaling the rockface at Denali, she's smiling - and just won't quit.
It isn't the angry, antiquated feminism of a Barbara Boxer. Or the pushy defiance of a Nancy Pelosi, who refuses to go quietly into that dark night. Or even the brash "I can make you regret being born" argumentativeness of an Ann Coulter.
It's the kind of ambition that comes from confidence in her convictions and the security of knowing that no matter what happens to her in the press, she's got a happy home life and everything she needs to survive in the wild - the Washington wild, that is.
If Palin's critics really want her to go away, they don't have to worry about her politics, her faith or her folksy rhetoric. They need to worry about her boundless happiness which, like her favorite hunting weapon, is poised to be a warm gun for anyone who dares cross her path.
S.E. Cupp, whose column appears on Wednesdays on NYDailynews.com and often in the print edition of the newspaper, is a political commentator and author of the book "Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity." She is also co-author of "Why You're Wrong About The Right." S.E. has a regular feature at The Daily Caller and is a contributing editor at Townhall magazine. She lives in New York City.
secupp@redsecupp.com
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