Posted on 07/10/2009 10:36:48 AM PDT by lewisglad
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's abrupt announcement that she intends to leave office 18 months early caused plenty of GOP operatives to wonder aloud whether she will be dismissed as a quitter if she makes a bid for the presidency in 2012. But the road to the White House runs through Iowa and New Hampshire, and grassroots activists in both kickoff states generally give Palin's decision more-positive reviews. Her prospects seem especially bright in Iowa.
"She's still tremendously popular here," said Mary Ann Hanusa, who chairs the Pottawattamie County Republican Party. Hanusa noted that at her group's central committee meeting on July 6, just days after Palin's surprise declaration, "I heard a lot of comments [such as], 'I still like Sarah. Sarah's my girl.' Her well of goodwill is still very deep in this part of Iowa."
Hanusa said that the party activists she talked to accept Palin's explanation for stepping down -- that is, to spare her state the distraction of what she views as frivolous ethics complaints filed against her and to shield her family from merciless press scrutiny.
"I haven't heard any second-guessing," Hanusa said. "People think she's been treated abominably by most of the mainstream media, and they don't like it. If anything, it's more of a sympathetic feeling, in that they understand that she would have every reason to try to protect her family and step aside."
Hanusa attended the 2008 Republican National Convention as a delegate for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who swept the Iowa GOP caucuses last year on the strength of his appeal to evangelical Christians, the kind of voters drawn to Palin's social conservatism. Hanusa hasn't picked her favorite for 2012 and wouldn't predict which of those two potential contenders would capture the Iowa caucuses in a showdown. But she said of Palin's prospects, "All things being equal, I would say she would do quite well."
Another one of Huckabee's key Iowa supporters in last year's caucuses, Carmine Boal, is ready to back Palin should she decide to seek the Republican nod in 2012. Boal, who was a well-regarded state legislator with strong ties to social conservatives when she endorsed Huckabee in 2007 -- before he won the state GOP's straw poll that year -- said Palin demonstrated an attractive energy on the stump as the running mate of last year's GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, that could make her a formidable challenger to President Obama.
"We're up against a very charismatic president that's got a lot of star power, and we're going to need someone with that kind of draw," said Boal, who retired from the Legislature last year but remains active in party politics and is the development director for the Iowa Alliance for Choice in Education.
Boal, who co-chaired the Legislators for Huckabee Advisory Committee (Iowa) in the run-up to the 2008 caucuses, predicted that Palin could prove to be a formidable general election candidate, running well among women and independents. In 2008, the nation's voters "went with a very left candidate with charisma and star power," noted Boal, who asks, "Why can't we go to the right with a charismatic candidate" in 2012?
But to reach the general election, Palin would have to win the nomination, and Huckabee still has plenty of fans in Iowa. GOP activist Danny Carroll, who co-chaired the former Arkansas governor's caucus campaign, said that he's not ready to switch his allegiance. "It would take something significant to move me away from Mike Huckabee," Carroll said.
He readily admitted, however, that Palin is "very popular" in the state and that her unorthodox moves could work in her favor: "I perceive that people will say, 'That's what we're looking for, someone who is willing to step out and do something different.' "
Like most other Republicans, Carroll brushes aside the news media's latest questions about the Alaska governor's suitability for high office: "We've had such a bellyful of critics of Sarah Palin, what's one more voice in the din?"
Indeed, according to a July 6 Gallup/USA Today poll, 76 percent of self-identified Republicans said that the media's coverage of Palin has been "unfairly negative." And 72 percent of surveyed Republicans said they were likely to vote for Palin if she seeks the presidency in 2012. (Nearly half of those Palin boosters described themselves as "very likely" to back her.) That's a formidable bloc of enthusiasm for any candidate to take into a nominating contest, even if those numbers are somewhat inflated by Palin's strong name identification.
Yet not all Republicans see Palin as a viable option for their party. Doubts are particularly widespread among those with experience running campaigns. They look at Palin's sudden and at times wandering exit-strategy statement and wonder whether she has the discipline and bearing to be an effective candidate. "By looking like she's sort of rootless and mercurial, she almost disqualifies herself," said Iowa GOP strategist Doug Gross, who chaired former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 2008 caucus campaign but is uncommitted for 2012. "She'll have a group of people who remain Sarah Palin fans, but as far as the gravitas required to run a presidential campaign, she's made it next to impossible to accomplish," said Gross, a prominent Des Moines lawyer and party power broker. "You don't turn tail and run if you want to run the free world."
Veteran GOP New Hampshire operative Joel Maiola, who managed George W. Bush's 2000 campaign there and now runs Granite Edge, a strategic consulting firm, echoed Gross's concerns. "She doesn't scream 'presidential,' " Maiola said. He speculated that Palin is best known for being parodied as clueless on Saturday Night Live. "I think that's a persona that's going to take work to overcome," Maiola said. "I don't know if people will give her a second chance."
Such views are not pervasive among the party's grassroots, however. Rank-and-file Republican activists find Palin's seemingly unstudied approach refreshing. "One of her strengths is that she's willing to do things in an unorthodox way," said former New Hampshire GOP Chairman Steve Duprey, who was a senior adviser to McCain's 2008 campaign.
Duprey added that although resigning is a "risky move," Palin may have decided that she had little choice, given Alaska's distance from the early battleground states and their GOP voters, who expect to be arduously courted by any presidential candidate. The expectation of face time with any contender who wishes to be taken seriously is simply the dominant feature of the political culture of New Hampshire and Iowa.
Moreover, because those states have enjoyed an enviable position as hosts of the two kick-off contests for presidential nominations, their voters see it almost as their civic duty to give every candidate a fair hearing, no matter how he or she has been portrayed in the national media. That kind of open-mindedness could enable Palin to reintroduce herself, even to skeptics.
"She will appeal to the conservative base of the party and probably have her greatest strength drawing votes there," Duprey said. Despite the backbiting in the press from other former McCain campaign staffers who have trashed Palin's performance on last year's campaign trail, many McCain voters "will give her an initial favorable look," Duprey predicted. "Nobody in real America gives a tinker's darn about that stuff [in the press], and I count myself among that group," he said. "The campaign is over, [and former McCain aides should] let it go."
Iowa lawyer Richard Schwarm, who was the senior adviser to Romney's Iowa caucuses campaign, is somewhat "puzzled" by Palin's sudden announcement that she is stepping down, but he discounted the notion that she is a quitter who couldn't withstand the rigors of a lengthy presidential campaign. "I hear that from people who would have never supported her in the first place," he said.
Schwarm noted that although he thinks Huckabee remains the 2012 candidate to beat in Iowa, McCain wasn't always the most disciplined candidate and yet he won the 2008 nomination. "Spontaneity may be the style," Schwarm said. "And [Palin] has got the star quality at a time when Republicans are looking for some stars."
There, fixed it. A lot of the GOP establishment has been using the same long knives on Sarah as their foes in the MSM.
When a middle class person hears she has run up several million dollars in legal bills defending herself against (what seem to be) phoney, trumped up ethic charges, the first response is “what took her so long?”
Those type of expenses would ruin the average middle class family. The Palin’s are NOT rich by any stretch. This is the kind of thing that scares people in the middle class away from politics.
Go Sarah
Sarah will now get her book out, go on tour, give speeches and promote conservatie principles all over this country in the midst of the Obama administration disater and gain great political capital in the process. Then she will support conservative candidates in 2010 and help them win, amassing much more political capital. She will then take all of that and make an awesome, stunning run for the Presidency in 2012.
The conservative voter, not the Republican ‘inside’ understands the character assassination committed by the propaganda agents of the MSM.
The left has written the text book on “personal destruction” and is patting itself on the back at the moment. Mrs. Palin has couragously removed herself at the daily target of the MSM. Any further hammering would merely expose them for what we all they know the MSM is. Namely the “propaganda arm of the democrats”.
I believe that Dr. Goebbels would be proud of his students.
1. She is personable and with personality.
2. She is purposeful.
3. She is principled.
4. She is proud of America.
5. She is proud to be an American.
She is generous, grateful, gracious and most important, she is genuine.
And one more, She is not a phony as are most politicians.
Name another potential Republican presidential candidate that meets those descriptions.
No question the media had treated her horribly, but she needs to rise above it, stay positive and focused on the future. After a year or so from now, with a #1 book on the stands and having drawn record crowds to Republican and Conservative candidate rallies, her options will be as wide as they are today, if not moreso.
And the MSM won’t be able to do a damn thing about it!
“We all see people through different lenses. This is how I see Sarah Palin. (and have never met her)
1. She is personable and with personality.
2. She is purposeful.
3. She is principled.
4. She is proud of America.
5. She is proud to be an American.
She is generous, grateful, gracious and most important, she is genuine.
And one more, She is not a phony as are most politicians.”
I would agree with all those description, but that doesn’t make a person presidential timber.
She lack seasoning, intelligence, fortitude, experience, judgment and so far an ability to handle a debate or interview format.
Huckabee, for all his faults, has at least demostrated the ability to pull off an engaging interview show on Fox. I can’t see Sarah ever doing that, even with cue cards and teleprompters (it’s a bit different then delivering the sports).
I just don’t know who to believe... grassroots or the far superior intellectuals in the media who keep insisting that she’s toast?
Legends in their own minds.
I won’t donate a dime that will help Huckabee.
Let’s make sure we define the battle correctly,
and work on getting the press to acknowledge what the real conflict truly is.
Elitists vs Individualists
The leftist press, though, will never acknowledge this, because they consider themselves elites, and know that the country doesn’t appreciate elitists that think they know better than everyone else.
The Upside:
She seems to believe (and actually live) principles and pastimes that many conservatives relate to; family, monogamy, individual liberty, guns-guns-guns, hunting, etc.
The Downside:
She didn't do well against the lefty media and therefore set herself up to be pigeonholed as the air-headed bimbo which is not true but hey, that's the her present reputation.
When the lefty media in the U.K. took shots at Maggie Thatcher they would draw editorial cartoons of her following her male staffers into the men's room. They never doubted her intellect.
If Palin wants to be taken seriously then she has to take the "Caribou Barbie" stick away from the lefty mediatards.
Many ???? NO real Republicans see the Media as Scum!
Don’t kid yourself. Many of us were actually favorably disposed towards Palin when she was first introduced as VP, myself included. In fact I took a lot of heat defending her last year.
Unfortunately she has demonstrated that she is not up to the job. It is not a matter of her not being an “elitist” like Bush Senior (Reagan, Lincoln and many other GOP leaders were not elitists) it is a matter of being able demonstrate ability, judgment, temperment, and fortitude under fire. Apparently the “grassroots” are so enamored with Palin as to think her the second coming of Reagan or maybe Goldwater. That’s a dangerous path. We all have flaws (as the religious here would well acknowledge).
Should we ignore all those other flaws because Palin is a solid conservative? Apparently the grassroots thinks so. Whether the rest of the country does is another matter.
Your arguments are false and weak.
I’ve seen plenty of interviews where She acquitted herself well numerous times on Fox, C-SPAN, CNBC and elsewhere. she spoke with authority on economic, energy, security and foreign policy issues in each one. She is especially knowledgeable about energy and missle defense matters. She has put Alaska on the map for thousands of Americans who had no idea what her state was about. She has been an effective sales rep. for its tourism, energy, seaffod and export trade.
Seasoning? She has been in elective politics for 16 years at both the municipal and state level. She chaired an important oil and gas commission in Alaska and has been chair of a national oil and gas commission which has international associate members.
She has hosted and met with heads of state, trade representatives and diplomats from The Arctic Circle and beyond (China, Japan, South Korea, etc.) in Alaska. She met with Lithuania’s Minister of Defense while she was visiting the troops recently in Kosovo.
She has been briefed on defense issues by the commander of her state’s Guard and by regular Army, Air Force and Navy brass.
By saying that she lacks intelligence, you are simply regurgitating a leftist Democrat talking point. How do you like the company? Were she not intelligent, she wouln’t have defeated some of the most shrewd political sharks there are in Alaska.
Fortitude? She beat an old boy network and defied her own party in Alaska for years. She has endure charges since last August that her husband in her grandon’s father, that both she and he had affairs, that she hunts down helpless wolf pups from a helocopter, that she banned what few books in the Wasilla library that she didn’t burn, that she’s a racist, a crook, a liar and is cruel to rape victims. Let me see how you hold up when your daughters become the butt of rape jokes on network television and the internet has you baby boy’s picture photoshopped with devil’s heads and worse on the world wide web. Let’s see how effectively you can run a state when you you face a never-ending string of bogus “ethics” charges that threaten to bankrupt you and wedge a monkey wrench in the gears of your administration.
Judgment? She made wise decisions to cut taxes, cut spending and carefully invest her state’s money so that AK’s economy isn’t in the tank like in NY, CA, and most other states. She ended a cycle of decades of inaction on a natgas pipeline for her state, something her presecessors all talked about but none were able to even get halfway as far as her pipeline is right now. she reformed the oil production (raised 2.5%) and exploration (doubled the tax credits) structures in AK, helping to keep her state’s budget balancewd, as required by law. Her enemies all said that the big three oil companies would pull out of Alaska. None did. they said that they would all stop exploring. None did (although they did scale back because of the recession, not the tax).
Everything she had predicted during the campaign about Obama has come to pass. He has but his radical leftist agenda into practice by taking go’vt. deep into the affairs of the private sector. he has effectively nationalized two of the nation’s three domestic automakers. He has taken the side of Chavez, Ortega and the Castrol brothers in the case of one of our longtime allies in Latin America - Honduras. He is raising taxes, socializing medicine, establishing a number “czars” and panel who are no subject to transparency or oversight. And on and on.
Someone has obviouly been giving you bad information.
- JP
I think that determination is premature. She obviously was ill-prepared for the 2008 campaign, and the McCain staff did little to nothing to aid her in the process. Indeed, we now know that many of the criticisms of her came from members of McCain's own staff. I think they were somehow threatened by the fact that she was more popular than he.
That being said, while she was unprepared, I think you are wrong to say she in not intelligent. I also think her decision to step down under the present circumstances is the correct one. It will allow her agenda to advance in Alaska under her lt. governor. It will also giver her time and opportunity to campaign for others, to study the issues, to get more comfortable dealing with the spotlight, and to develop some of the "seasoning" you mention.
Is she ready to be president now? Probably not. Will she be ready in 2012? Hard to tell at this point. Could she be ready at some point in the future (2016, 2020)? In my opinion, certainly. However, it is too soon to make any definitive determinations either way. How she fares in the future will be determined by how she handles the next couple of years.
Hillary Clinton is: seasoned, intelligent, has fortitude, has experience, judgment and so far an ability to handle a debate or interview format. Therefore she is perfect presidential material.
I know Obama has been judged by the media and tha majority of our fellow citizens to have all those qualities you seek in a leader and yet somehow we are getting weaker, poorer, and less free.
I believe Sarah Palin on the other hand will filter every problem she faces as president through this question: Is this decision good or bad for the people? I have no doubt she will use her intelligence to gather the data she needs to come to a conclusion that benefits and protects America. I am certain she will surround herself with trustworthy advisers and capable staff.
I don’t believe that Romney or Huckabee will do what’s best for America in terms of our constitution and our liberties. They are politicians first and Americans second. I stand with Sarah because she stands for me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.