Shortly after hearing of Sarah Palin’s decision to forgo a 2012 presidential bid, most Americans also learned that Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs had died from pancreatic cancer. The fact that (as others have noted) thousands or even millions of people learned of Jobs’ death on the very products he helped invent, speaks to his amazing influence.
The two stories aren’t obviously related (for one thing, Jobs left a world he helped redefine, while Palin merely left a campaign she was never really in to begin with). But the timing invited comparison — and some observers seized the opportunity to note that Jobs had somehow overshadowed Palin.
Putting aside the obvious differences in terms of the utter seriousness of Jobs’ passing versus the less serious news of Palin’s announcement, juxtaposing the tangible inventions of a visionary entrepreneur with the intangible contributions of a politician is rarely good for the politician. And Jobs was no ordinary inventor. I’m writing this blog post on his MacBook.
Palin, of course, is no ordinary pol, either. As I’ve previously noted, she is arguably the most significant American female politician of the 21st century (though one could make a good argument for others). And while drawing an analogy between these two events based solely on the timing of announcements does a disservice to both people, there are some interesting similarities.
Both Jobs and Palin rose from improbable backgrounds to become superstars in their respective fields. If it was unlikely that an Arab-American boy could start a company in a garage and go on to redefine “the computer,” it was perhaps even less likely that the daughter of a Wasilla schoolteacher would grow up to be the first female Republican vice presidential nominee in American history.
Jobs and Palin were, in their own ways, both creative innovators who broke barriers and altered long-standing paradigms. For this, they both became cult-like figures who embodied the American Dream. Jobs has left an impressive legacy and is rightly being mourned and eulogized today. For Sarah Palin, the next chapter is yet to be written.