There’s a famous story about the 80s hair band Warrant triumphantly returning to Columbia Records’ office after a brief hiatus, only to discover their status with the record company had plummeted.
It was clear something was up when a picture prominently hanging on the record label’s walls of “their Cherry Pie platinum album had been replaced with a gold record from Alice in Chains.”
In the entertainment business, it’s hard to stay on top forever. Some (like Bon Jovi) manage to enjoy commercial success for decades. But for every Bon Jovi’s there are a dozen Warrants or Skid Rows (whose power ballad inspired the title of this post).
That’s what my latest column for The Week is about — whether or not Sarah Palin was just a fad.
Of course, it’s not the Seattle “grunge” movement she has to worry about, but instead, a new generation of conservative stars she must compete with for attention.
As I write,
Before 2010, almost no one knew who Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Chris Christie, or Rand Paul were. Today, they are nearly household names and the future of the Republican Party. They are more relevant than Palin. After all, each of them actually holds office — something Palin gave up when she resigned halfway through her gubernatorial term in 2009.
The irony is that Palin worked hard to help elect many of these bright new conservative stars. And the list above doesn’t even count Michele Bachmann actually ran for president in 2012 — or other losing candidates like Mia Love, Christine O’Donnell, and Sharron Angle. (One could imagine the conservative media would be all over them had they won.)
Of course, this isn’t necessarily the end of her popularity. Even if the end of her Fox News contract does signal a decline in popularity (and that remains to be seen), the good news is that — just like Warrant — everyone got Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich on the deal.
Read my full column here.