Sarah Palin sat quietly in the green room, contemplating the swirl of coffee in her tiny cup. It wasn’t the disappearance of Splenda that fascinated her, but the way that subtle folds of liquid churned according to the hidden rules of particle physics long after she removed the stirrer. There’s so much we don’t understand, she thought to herself. It would take a computer the size of Wasilla Lake to accurately map the path of each and every water molecule as it reacts to the cooler temperature of the Coffee-Mate. In fact, she once proposed the construction of just such a computer to study the Aurora Borealis, but Todd convinced her that an ice hockey arena would more effectively increase the marginal rate of joy per Alaskan per dollar spent.

On stage, Andrew Breitbart called Sarah Palin his “fantasy.” She hadn’t been listening to his meaningless blather but this caught her attention and distracted her. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t hurt. The word choice only increased her pity for the man. Hers was neither a lipstick feminism nor something cast in the traditional mold. Rather, it was a belief that sexual objectification hurt the objectifier more than the objectified, that prevailing cultural norms of the past thousand years impaired the ability of men to excel in modern society. A Christian feminism, perhaps. Forgive him, Lord, for he knoweth not the limiting effect of his own chauvinism. Sympathy was required. Compassion.

She let go of her reaction and returned her focus to the happenings in the Dixie cup. How different, really, was Brownian motion from Keynesian economics? Let’s pour a bunch of money into the economy, stir it around, and see what happens? Larry Summers knew he lacked the predictive ability to know if this would work. So did the President. To pretend otherwise was disingenuous. This would be a tenet of her speech to the Tea Party Convention: stop the reckless spending. They knoweth not what they do.

But, wait. A spark flashed somewhere deep in the dark ethereal waters of her consciousness. The entire pantheon of macroeconomic theory appeared before her in an instant, as if two angels debating at the speed of light rattled off the hypotheses and rebuttals and counterrebuttals of every economist and social philosopher since the Enlightenment. The years of surreptitious study, the countless, long Alaskan winter nights spent propped up in bed with tome after tome illuminated by a little clip-on book light, it all came together in one great apocryphal moment. And there, in the green room behind the main ballroom of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, she concluded that the supply-siders had been right all along. All that’s needed are a few tweaks around the edges to curb the rampant greed of the wealthy and to make sure the money stays within American borders, and growth will surely come. Growth, tempered by humble restraint and the pride of patriotism. Prosperity will recover alongside the recovery of values.

A warm, peaceful lightness washed over her. She looked up from her coffee at Piper, playing innocently with a Zhu Zhu Pet. There was certainty now. Direction. Piper, could you hand mommy that pen? Thank you, sweetie. She looked down at the notes on her hand, crossed out “budget cuts” and replaced it with “tax cuts.” Applause floated into her space as Breitbart finished his introduction. She stood up, straightened her skirt, and walked out on stage.