"DID HE POP THE QUESTION?": THE PALIN STORY AS CHICK LIT

Part 2 of Greta Van Susteren's Sarah Palin interview aired last night on Fox News -- and started, essentially, with Van Susteren asking for an after-date report:

VAN SUSTEREN: I take it you get off the plane, and did you go right to his home or his apartment or...

Question #2:

VAN SUSTEREN: Did he pop the question? Almost sounds like getting -- you know, like -- I mean, how do you ask someone? I mean, what does he say? Does he turn to you and say, you know, Governor Palin -- I mean, what -- how does he do this? How does he ask you?

This is pure chick lit -- Palin as heroine, McCain as mysterious maverick. I'm not sure Palin herself was fully cooperating -- she seemed to be trying to present herself as do-it-all career mom, so she barely looked up as she made her moose chili dogs in her business suit -- but she perked up at the end of her answer:

PALIN: He just looking right in my eyes and saying, Are you ready for this? Would you like to do this? And I said, I would be honored to run with you. Absolutely. And I thanked him for taking the chance on me also.

I mean, just talk about -- that was the epitome of being the maverick, somebody bold, somebody thinking outside of the box, not going with, no doubt, what a lot of the -- more of the conventional wisdom would have dictated, you know, go get somebody who's already on the national scene and perhaps it would be a safer type of pick.

No. He was going to do what he believed was the right thing to do with his pick. And you know, I saw that in his eyes and I respected that. And I said, Absolutely. You are the perfect running mate. I would love to run with you.

And then, with a saucy flip of the head:

It was great.

Yikes.



Van Susteren then said that she "would have gone to the other room and sort of pinched myself" under the circumstances; later she reassured us that

I would have asked that same pinching question, by the way, of Senator Biden.

Oh, yes, I'm sure.

****

All this may be working -- yes, still. TV Newser reports:

Greta Van Susteren's interview with Gov. Palin brought On the Record its highest rated (full-hour) program of the year in Total Viewers last night. 3,785,000 viewers watched -- second only to The O'Reilly Factor in both Total Viewers and the A25-54 demo.

Unless a lot of snarkmeisters like me are swelling that audience, Palin's still got a disturbing amount of mojo.

Remember, she doesn't need Democrats or more than a handful of independents to win the 2012 nomination. She really needs only 25% to 35% of Republicans from Iowa through Super Tuesday -- just ask John McCain. She'd be extremely beatable afyter that, but she'd be more divisive at the top of the ticket than she was as #2. So I think Palin in 2012 would be good for Barack Obama and the Democrats -- but I think she could be very bad (again) for the country.