Posted on 07/03/2009 10:57:15 PM PDT by pissant
With respect to many of the Palinologists below, I think they're getting way too hepatomantic over the entrails.
As a political move for anything other than the 2010 Senate race, today's announcement is a disaster. And I'm not sure it's a plus for the Senate - and, even if it were, the manner and timing suggest it was not a professionally planned event and therefore is unlikely to have any grand strategy behind it.
So Occam's Razor leaves us with: Who needs this?
In states far from the national spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You're a mayor or a state senator or even the governor, but you lead a normal life. The local media are tough on you, but they know you, they live where you live, they're tough on the real you, not on some caricature cooked up by a malign alliance of late-night comics who'd never heard of you a week earlier and media grandees supposedly on your own side who pronounce you a "cancer".
Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it'll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You've got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who's given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.
Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to - what's the word? - "empathize"? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you'd have to turn into under that scenario?
National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.
Voter fraud.
It could be anything, I do believe that Governor Palin is a rare enough politician that it is entirely possible that she could be one of the first politicians to leave front runner status to benefit her family.
I know they all say it, but I think that Palin is capable of actually doing it purely for that reason, or it could be something else, who knows, I’m sure that she will still be serving conservatism in some way.
Sometimes people forget that she is a devout Christian that makes decisions on a different basis than some politicians.
So why would that be?
Margaret Thatcher, Merkel and many I am not going to look up their names. The lady that led Indonesia (thru 9/11) the lady that leads Argentina (not that I agree with her politics) and Bhutto that was so feared that she was assassinated.
Our country needs to look beyond gender and race, imho. This is very evident in our current administration. People voted for this man because of his race.
It's time to move on. A good leader of any gender or race will impress me.
Exactly. That's why saying she imploded in October is intellectually dishonest.
And there were 10 million less than 0bama had.
Actually it was about 8.5 million which is a pretty narrow margin out of a total of 125 million. Distorting facts seems to be your specialty.
“Sorry to be so against the grain here.”
Don’t be. We need to hear rational voices whether we agree or not. My thinking is this wasn’t a smart political move, but I am not ready to count her out quite yet. Stranger things have happened. I personally never pinned all my hopes on her, there is ample time for things to play out before 2012. IMHO, we should quit worrying about 2012 and start working on 2010.
You’re assuming she’s going to run...maybe she won’t. From what I know she got her most important agenda set up - the gas pipeline or whatever it is...something I understand had been in the works for 30 or so years and she got it done. However, the stupid ethics complaints weren’t going to stop and they were costing Alaska $ not to mention the Palin family. She has now circumvented this. I don’t see this as a melt-down at all.
If she wants to run for POTUS she can spend the next years becoming more of a policy wonk and build her support without the weight of inevitable ethics complaints about her non-Alaska activities. These dirty ethics complaints diverted too much attention away from her duties. What a rotten strategy...I hope the country sees it for what it is.
I have thought for a while that when the attacks on her kids got so nasty that I wouldn’t blame her for giving up this blood sport. Life is too short.
He describes it not as trying to move FR to the left but as trying to keep us from going over the (right wing) cliff.
How hany of those were actually living?
How many were registered by ACORN?
McCain did not help his campaign, that’s for sure.
But neither did Palin by not being able to name a single Supreme Court Case, and rambling on incoherently about topics she was clearly not at all versed in, such as the economy.
Like I said, people vote on the person, not the campaign.
If a person doesn’t think 0bama would be a good president, they’re still not going to think so just because McCain told them he would.
Voters assessed the candidates. 70 million people got excited about 0bama. 3 people got excited about Biden. 10 million fewer people got excited over McCain and Palin combined.
No matter how you divvy up the supporters between McCain and Palin, there were fewer of them than there were supporting 0bama. Which is why 0bama lost.
Our 2012 candidate is going to have a pretty high hurdle, and we already know Sarah Palin wasn’t able to reach it.
Yes, and we heard you, somewhere around 10,000 posts back, on a long ago Palin thread.
You have warned us, and warned us, and beat the anti-Palin drum until the skin has broken.
What point do you think you're making by continuing this unrelenting, and tireless campaign of negativism against her?
You're not informing anyone of anything. You're not bringing anything new to the table. All you do is express your dislike of Sarah Palin, in post after post, after post, after post.
Counterpunch, we get it already. You Don't Like Sarah Palin. 'Nuff said.
Seriously man, you need some sort of therapy. Try beating rocks with a sledge hammer for a while. You may just produce something of value without irritating thousands of your neighbors.
If you read her statement, she did nothing of the sort.
Thanks for the comments. I agree on the 2010 issue.
You can't even get that fact straight. It was 66,862,039.
LOL! He speaks propaganda because he’s doing the exact opposite. He hates conservatism.
No what I’m saying is that McCain was already losing to 0bama.
Then he picked Sarah Palin and he was beating 0bama.
Then Palin imploded in October and McCain went back down to where he started before picking Palin.
So Palin had the potential at one time to attract more voters than 0bama, but that deflated as the public got to know her better.
Is that “causing McCain to lose”?
I don’t think so.
I think it means that despite all the hype, she just wasn’t able to help him win in the end.
The drama will play out soon enough...then as Louis XIV said...”I shall see” and you will too.
http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=2008&datatype=national&def=1&f=0&off=0&elect=0
The actual final tally was Obama 69,498 Million - McCain 59,949 Million.
So, by your way of thinking we can say that Obama won because Biden brought in the votes. That’s it. Biden WON!
McCain was the candidate for the Presidency, not Sarah.
Sarah can write her own ticket. She is the only reason McCain didn't just sit down and quietly wait for the election. Without her Juan would have been visibly and demonstrably finished in October.
Sarah still draws crowds and continues to receive donations at her PAC. This with little or no advertising. People, I included, are willing to promote her.
We even go so far as to say “Run! Palin, Run!”. That's grass roots baby and not the political machine so many of us have decided to opt of, in terms of support.
She has conviction of principles that I admire and may very well be of a mind to promote those principles as President.
If we can elect some ghost on the basis of Dope and Strange, then why not someone who says “Yes, you can”.
Screw that yes we can. It is socialist pablum whereas You can elevate the individual and promotes individual responsibility.
That other guy say we all have a stake in failure which is stupid. If my neighbor fails how is that my problem and why should I be responsible for bailing him out.
Conversely, if my neighbor is self determined and takes responsibility for actions and outcomes, blaming no one, why shouldn't I respect that person.
If that person is also successful and we share similar interests, shouldn't I be a cheerleader for them.
I would rather have a person of conviction rather than a person of convenience.
But in the end, she had fewer people willing to come out and cast a vote on her behalf than 0bama did.
You can't even maintain intellectual consistency in the same post.
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