Palin shines on the silver screen

Democrats took a terrible blow in the midterm elections two weeks ago, and now they’ve been dealt another. Sarah Palin’s new reality series Sarah Palin’s Alaska premiered on TLC Sunday night to record-breaking numbers. With almost 5 million viewers, it is the network’s highest rated series premiere ever.

In the show, Palin serves as a perky tour guide of beautiful Alaskan landscapes while also giving us a glimpse into her hometown “regular American life.” A commercial for the show tips us off to all the ways Palin will be ingratiating herself to viewers – and potential voters – along the way.

In an obviously staged scene, Palin charmingly reminds her sixteen-year-old daughter Willow, “No boys allowed upstairs.” She’s just a regular American mom dealing with a teenage daughter (and she has apparently learned a lot since Bristol). And there might be some winning self-deprecation as well — Palin smilingly tells us that on a clear day, “you can see Russia from here.”

Variety’s Brian Lowry calls the series “an eight-hour infomercial for the former Alaska governor.” If it is the extended 2012 campaign ad that many people think it is, the Democrats are going to have to up their game. Between Sarah Palin’s Alaska and Bristol Palin advancing to the semifinals on the top-rated Dancing with the Stars, the Palins are really building that constituency.