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Cutting bait (Steyn on Palin)
NRO ^ | 7/3/09 | Mark Steyn

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Alaska
KEYWORDS: careerendingmove; chickenlittles; democratswin; fedindictmentcoming; gopimplosion; marksteyn; palin; quitter; sarahbarraquitta; soroswins
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To: floridagopvoter

Look, I totally agree that 0bama will have a host of problems of his own creation. I mean, if his term turns out to not be so bad, then there isn’t as much urgency to drag him out of office, right?

I believe he will screw things up more than we can imagine.
However, he did get more votes than anyone ever has, so he has a lot of support to lose before he is vulnerable. We will have an opening, but only with the right candidate with the right message who can step in as the adult in the race. That candidate will need to be armed with facts and figures at their command, and a quick and sharp intellect. They will need common sense alternatives to 0bama’s agenda that people can get behind. Shrill platitudes won’t cut it. I see this candidate as being in the mold of Newt Gingrich. Though not necessarily Newt himself. I think Mike Pence could be that person, but he would have to follow in Newt’s footsteps first, lead a New Republican Revolution in 2010, take back the House, and be made Speaker. Then he could use the Speaker’s chair as a buttress and bully pulpit against 0bama and launch a run for the White House from there. But that’s a pretty tall order, and not very likely to happen.

No matter who runs against 0bama in the end, they can’t be like the one-dimensional cartoons that have been offered up as of late.


201 posted on 07/04/2009 1:36:28 AM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: DoughtyOne
I do not respect a poltical figure who caves.

With all do respect to your own words on your about page. YOU do sound exactly like all the leftist and some "right" talking heads and pundits from the evenings news channel. The same talking points they always produce to attack the "enemies"!!!

202 posted on 07/04/2009 1:37:03 AM PDT by danamco
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To: DoughtyOne
Jindal is serving out his term. Unless I’m missing something, I think he’s my next person to support.

I see Jindal and Palin as conservatives that will always be able to speak each other's language, I think any political competitions they have will be honorable and respectful in the sense that they are cut of the same cloth.

Both of them share so many qualities including being genetic conservatives, they were born conservative, I believe their lives and their faith are truthful, natural and real, I trust both one of them not to change when they go behind the closed doors to make the deals, both of them are strong and know what they believe in.

203 posted on 07/04/2009 1:37:43 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
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To: the long march

You are correct, Kerry got a little less than 1 million votes fewer than McCain-Palin. Both were in the 59 million range.
I stand corrected on that.


204 posted on 07/04/2009 1:39:02 AM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: berdie
Until this country is willing to sacrifice...and it is not..I do not ask Palin to make a similar sacrifice. Are you willing to offer your family up to an ungrateful nation? Think carefully before you answer.

You obviously have little faith in the American people, to believe that none would stand at this moment, when we are in the greatest peril since our founding, and choose to accept the risks at hand to defend the very survival of our nation.

Why do you admonish me to "think carefully" before I answer? Are you so cowed and beaten by the worthless scum who are pissing on the floor of your House, that you would admonish others to bend their knees likewise?

Fear - hide, if that's what suits you, but don't invite others to follow you into whatever dark place you're running to. Many of us here would rather die fighting on our feet, than live in shackles on our knees.

Sarah Palin is just such a person.

205 posted on 07/04/2009 1:39:28 AM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: counterpunch

You seem to make a habit of showing up on every Palin thread for the purpose of putting her down. What suggestions, if any, do you have for who and what it will take to get conservatives united?


206 posted on 07/04/2009 1:42:00 AM PDT by beelzepug (It's not what you said, it's how you said it.)
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To: floridagopvoter

Bush didn’t make people vote for 0bama.
They voted for him by the millions because it was a feelgood personal statement for them to vote for the first black candidate to run for president.

0bama will have his own record to answer for in 2012, and it will be bad. And there just won’t be the thinly veiled affirmative action Hopey-Changey message. But still don’t underestimate how much his race will continue to be a huge motivational factor behind his support, even if it isn’t quite as ‘historic’ the second time around.

Perhaps 0bama will run his campaign on being the first black man to be REelected president...


207 posted on 07/04/2009 1:44:18 AM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: counterpunch

For now on, everytime we mention Her, it should be followed by “Peace Be Upon Her.”

You are way too happy about this. Gloating like a Democrat as a matter of fact.


208 posted on 07/04/2009 1:48:06 AM PDT by Luke21
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To: danamco

Seriously, I am not buying the $500,000 legal fees argument. Isn’t she getting $11 Million Dollars advance for her book? This argument that the family is facing massive debt and had to therefore bow out of the governorship is hogwash in light of the book advance.

I am more receptive to the other argument that she did not want her children and husband to be subjected to continued abuse, but politics is a tough biz. I thought her tougher than that.


209 posted on 07/04/2009 1:50:36 AM PDT by floridagopvoter
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To: pissant

I was thinking along these lines when I woke up this morning, though I would never have been able to articulate it this well.

We have now a national politics in which only the mentally unhealthy and the morally depraved can survive and prosper.


210 posted on 07/04/2009 1:55:11 AM PDT by Bahbah
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To: counterpunch

You are obviously an idiot...Sarah Palin would have wiped the floor with Bozo, and she still would if she chooses to run. You keeps saying how Palin screwed up as if Palin ran for President last year. She didn’t, the only one who lost the election was McCain. He is a total frickin’ fool, along with Romney and the other RINO a**hats. If Palin doesn’t run in 2012 we will NOT win the election. Not if the present day RINOs are all that we have to pick from. It is as simple as that. We may win back the House in 2012 and the senate in 2016, but the Pres job will go to some dimwit.


211 posted on 07/04/2009 1:58:05 AM PDT by calex59
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To: beelzepug

My best suggestion is one that no one is going to listen to.
It’s for everyone to take a step back and quite carrying water for whoever their pet politician is. Let the politicians prove themselves to us for once, instead of continuing to propping them up when they fall short, no matter who they are. Demand more from them, not less. Drop this need to cling to the Next Presidential Contender like a security blanket.

It’s 3 years before the next election. It’s not all about Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Sit back and let things play out, and see who steps forward and rises to the top. We’ve got time to sort it out.

In the meantime, work on telling the GOP we want a return to basics — fiscal responsibility, personal ethics, real common sense solutions to the Democrats’ Big Government agenda. Tell them we want inspiring leadership in the House and Senate, not the Bob Dole impersonators we have now. Replacing John Boeher with Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell with Jim DeMint would be a good way to kickstart a Republican comeback and return to principles.


212 posted on 07/04/2009 1:58:57 AM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: beelzepug
You seem to make a habit of showing up on every Palin thread for the purpose of putting her down. What suggestions, if any, do you have for who and what it will take to get conservatives united?

His efforts are on behalf of Mitt Romney.

213 posted on 07/04/2009 1:59:49 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
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To: counterpunch

“Bush didn’t make people vote for 0bama.
They voted for him by the millions because it was a feelgood personal statement for them to vote for the first black candidate to run for president.”

The economy had fallen apart and Bush was personally very unpopular. That is all it takes, in ANY election. Sure, Obama’s ethnicity played into this to an extent, but that was mostly window dressing. Had Hillary come out of the primary as the winner she would have won, same likely with Edwards, unless his sex scandal would have broken during the general, which would have thrown the election to McCain/Palin, headwinds be damned.

This election was lost before it began because of the faltering economy and the sitting president’s lack of job approval. In 2012 the situation will be exactly opposite.

If the economy is out of recession and the jobs market is recovered by 2012 we have zero chance, if the economy is bad we probably have a strong chance to beat Obama, regardless who opposes him. It IS indeed the economy, always and foremost.


214 posted on 07/04/2009 2:02:48 AM PDT by floridagopvoter
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To: floridagopvoter
Seriously, I am not buying the $500,000 legal fees argument. Isn’t she getting $11 Million Dollars advance for her book? This argument that the family is facing massive debt and had to therefore bow out of the governorship is hogwash in light of the book advance. I am more receptive to the other argument that she did not want her children and husband to be subjected to continued abuse, but politics is a tough biz. I thought her tougher than that.

Right, all of you people saying that politics are tough are full of sh**. Palin has been through more than any other politician I have ever known and I have been around a long time. You, for instance, would have caved long ago had you been in her shoes, I know this for a fact from the way you have caved on her now.

The press isn't even going after Sanford the way they did Sarah and he has actually done something wrong. The Presidential Candidate was McCain, but they trashed his VP, not him. The reason? Because she can cut it and he couldn't.

They saw in her the embodiment of the conservatives and feared her greatly, pressure 1000 times greater than any other politico has ever faced was exerted on her and you think she is a coward and not tough.

What a fool you and others who think that way are.

215 posted on 07/04/2009 2:02:52 AM PDT by calex59
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To: calex59

Palin couldn’t talk straight. She had no command of any facts. She couldn’t discuss policy or even name a single Supreme Court case. She didn’t screw up so much as she just wasn’t cut out for the role. Nothing you say can change that. I was like Elizabeth Hasselbeck running on the ticket.

The GOP is the party of Reagan and Gingrich. We can do a lot better than what the GOP ticket offered last time around.


216 posted on 07/04/2009 2:03:00 AM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: ansel12

Keep refighting the 2008 GOP primary, HuckaBot.


217 posted on 07/04/2009 2:03:58 AM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: counterpunch
It’s time to cut bait on Sarah Palin as the future hope of the GOP, just as she’s cut bait on political life. She’s not the Moses to lead us out of the desert.

You obviously don't know much about Moses. God has a history of using ordinary men and women to do extraordinary things.

218 posted on 07/04/2009 2:07:39 AM PDT by SeaHawkFan
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To: counterpunch

You are a liar. Not only did she talk straight then, she talks straight now. You are obviously a RINObot. Anyone who thinks Palin caused McCain the trained monkey to lose the election that he totally f***ed up on his own is obviously carrying water for someone else. Got news for ya fella, the RINOs will never win again. No matter how bad Bozo gets, the RINOs will not win an election. If Sarah doesn’t run, we lose in 2012. We may not get Bozo, and I don’t think we will, he will be dead politically soon, but we will get another dimwit, one of the traditional variety. We will never see the inside of the WH again because the conservative base won’t vote for Romney or any of the other losers that are RINOs. You can take that to the bank.


219 posted on 07/04/2009 2:08:34 AM PDT by calex59
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To: counterpunch

I have never been a Huckabee supporter and have zero connection with him in any way, at any time so that is like everything else you post, just a lie, but we have established you as an early and steady Romney supporter by showing your previous posts.

Although I’m going to bed, even this little link shows a little bit of where you are coming from.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2209693/posts


220 posted on 07/04/2009 2:13:09 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
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