Palin Comparison, Is the First Dude the new Hillary?

The fitness-obsessed, policy-lite, skirt-wearing conservative from Alaska would not, on the face of it, seem to have much in common with the Big Mac- scarfing, policy-relishing, skirt-chasing Democrat from Arkansas. And yet, before Palin, what other youthful and relatively inexperienced governor from a backwater state burst onto the Washington scene, chased by an eye-popping train of hometown enemies? What other charismatic politician became a culture-war lightning rod? Who else drove his critics to such depths of rage and despair that they reached for wild conspiracy theories (a few of them actually true)?

As anyone who watched last week's "Saturday Night Live" knows, Palin is no Hillary Clinton, and she's certainly no Bill, either. If she makes it into office, she's more likely to build a bridge to nowhere than to the next century. But the more one burrows (an activity that both Clinton and Palin seem to provoke), the more weird parallels between the two emerge (could Todd Palin be Hillary with a goatee?)--and the more liberals might want to look to the Clinton years for direction on how--and how not--to hit back.

'They were particularly attracted to those who were slavish, unobtrusive, and loyal; forceful personalities were not courted, Washington dinner party regulars were shunned--anyone who might be less than worshipful was considered suspect, a probable source of news leaks, a potential enemy." This is how Joe Klein described the Clintons in his book The Natural, but it describes Sarah Palin's political instincts eerily well, too. Attracted to those who were slavish? Check: As mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire the town's librarian for having the wrong attitude, and she succeeded in firing the police chief in part because she heard he'd been "acting sad and unhappy" about her win at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Forceful personalities were not courted and dinner-party regulars were shunned? Check: In Juneau, Palin neglected to advise powerful Republican legislators on budget negotiations because, explains Larry Persily, a longtime state employee who used to work for her, "she thinks of it as backroom deals, good-ol'-boys network, horse-trading, arm-twisting, politics as usual, the cliche." ("She doesn't do well with dissent," sniffs one GOP state legislator.)