Can Sarah Palin be more than a political celebrity?

In recent years, politicians and the media have shamelessly pandered to and promoted the growing public appetite for the telegenic and the vapid.

Shortly before Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California, a leading Republican US senator introduced a bill that would amend the Constitution and make the Austrian-born superstar eligible to run for president. (The irony the GOP eventually discovered is that Governor Schwarzenegger is a classic European liberal.)

Republicans now in search of a new messiah might ask themselves if Palin is truly another Ronald Reagan, as more than a few would like to believe. It wasn't movie star glitter that made President Reagan so effective but rather his political genius, which rivaled that of Franklin Roosevelt.

Reagan charmed scores of congressional Democrats into embracing his points of view on dozens of issues. In 1981, I watched big-spending Democrats walk out of the West Wing completely "Reaganized," happily confessing they were converted to his spending reductions and other presidential initiatives.

Setting aside his two terms as governor of California, presiding over what would become the world's seventh-largest economy, Reagan had a biblical talent for making "even his enemies to be at peace with him."

He was aided by supreme self-confidence. That confidence, and his actor's sense of timing, compelled voters to like him. Political instinct made him far more than a celebrity. I can't imagine Reagan walking out of the governor's office in Sacramento before the job was completed – as Palin has done in Juneau.

Over the next three years, Palin needs to develop skills beyond a TV persona who can read scripts off a teleprompter.

During his campaign for governor, Schwarzenegger acknowledged his weakness on state policies. So he surrounded himself with wonks and worked 12-hour days reading and studying.

Is Palin doing the same? Her July op-ed on cap-and-trade legislation was a flop. And her reference in August to the prospect of the sick, the elderly, and the disabled facing a government "death panel" brought plenty of heat but little light to the complicated issue of national healthcare reform.

America's political stage is increasingly a burlesque featuring embarrassingly ill-informed political stars. The problem is the public's obsession with political celebrities who outemote public servants and statesmen. Twenty minutes on "Saturday Night Live" trumps 20 years of wisdom nowadays.

Walter Rodgers, a former senior international correspondent for CNN, writes a biweekly column for the Monitor.

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