Posted on 03/20/2011 9:21:53 PM PDT by Libloather
Palin: I could have brought change in '08
By Jordan Fabian - 03/19/11 12:52 PM ET
Republicans would have been more successful in the 2008 presidential elections if she was at the top of the ticket, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin suggested Saturday.
Speaking at the India Today Conclave in New Delhi, Palin was asked why the GOP ticket did not defeat then-Sen. Barack Obama (D). Palin said that Obama ran a strong campaign and effectively billed himself as a change candidate.
Pressed by India Today editor Aroon Purie that she also represented change, Palin replied, "I wasn't at the top of the ticket, remember?"
The 2008 vice presidential nominee said she was not claiming she should have been the nominee over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), but her comments provide a glimpse of her potential appeal to voters should she choose to run for the nomination in 2012.
Palin reiterated that she has not yet decided is she will run.
"I don't think that there needs to be a rush still to get out there as a declared candidate," she said.
When asked about the greatest lessons she learned from 2008, Palin did not mention the friction between McCain's camp and hers. Instead she said the experience informed her public relations strategy.
"One thing I learned is that you cannot trust the mainstream media to accurately report on [your record and accomplishments]," she said. "You have to have the boldness, the courage to set the record straight yourself."
She even accused Republicans of not defending their records vigorously enough.
"Too often, Republicans have the fighting instinct of sheep sometimes," she said. When it comes to correcting the record, "I will put my foot down."
Rebutting a criticism often used against her, Palin said, "It's not victimization, I'm not playing the victim card."
Palin also touted her role as a key figure in the Tea Party movement, saying that it helps enforce accountability amongst politicians on both sides of the aisle.
"It's going to grow, it's going to be more influential and it's going to hold our politicians accountable," she said.
Palin even compared the Tea Party movement to the pro-democratic uprisings that have sprouted up across the Middle East.
The Tea Party is "all about empowerment of everyday, independent patriots ... to change the balance of power," she said. "The changing balance of power throughout the world today is driven by empowerment of the individual ... That's what we are seeing throughout the world today."
....and for the better. Drill baby drill.
Unfortunately, the maggots weren’t looking for “change” in 2008. They were looking for freebies and government handouts. Government freebies are the new American dream.
The headline misrepresents the body of the commentary.
Unless I missed something?
>>Government freebies are the new American dream.<<
The multitude of “obama gonna pay my rent” and the paramilitary “obama uh huh” and little girls who have no idea of what they sang of “obama gonna fix the world” are going to boomerang with a ferociousness that even Samuel Jackson would gape at.
If only we could find a candidate that could capitalize on such a huge negative weight. So far, no one in sight (and IMHO Mrs. Palin nor Paul the senior ain’t them).
She said something to the effect of that she wasn’t at the top of the ticket and not that she deserved to be ...
The usual bastards totally edited out that rather important qualifier.
No republican ticket could have won in 2008. After 8 years of W it was near impossible.
Just look at 1980. It would have been much tougher for Reagan if we was trying to succeed a failed and unpopular GOP President. He’d probably have lost.
It’s tough to win 3 straight terms even in good times, ask Al Gore. He had a good economy under Clinton, no wars, and he still lost.
When you look at the the 8 years of Bush, the unpopularity of the Iraq War, the bad shape of the economy, Obama’s massive 400 million dollar spending edge, the GOP was pretty much doomed. And that was before the market crash and Lehman collapse and the implosion of the economy.
I’ll always wonder what would have happened if Lehman hadn’t collapsed and the economy stayed as it was through the summer. I think McCain would have won a very narrow win.
But once the economy collapsed in September the election was over.
Fortunately, in 2012 Obama won’t be an agent of change. He’ll be representing more of the same.
Perhaps someone can explain how this can be when she doesn't even advocate ending any programs or agencies of government, even those that are plainly unconstitutional such as the Dept. of Education.
Happy talk, at a time in history when that won't be anywhere nearly good enough.
>>She said something to the effect of that she wasn’t at the top of the ticket and not that she deserved to be ...
The usual bastards totally edited out that rather important qualifier.<<
Maybe I misread or misunderstood the OP — was this supposed to be a friendly/supportive piece? Or was it yet another in a long line of anti-Mrs. Palin spots.
*sigh* It is getting hard to tell anymore.
This was news to her? Oh boy!
Tell what My Leader.
Feel free to Bring about change in 2012 and take the trash out too.
Sarah Palin/ ? 2012!
All true.
But I didn’t help that McCain acted more like Obama’s enabler or partner than his opponent.
McCain ran a very pucillanimous and apologetic campaign.
I knew McCain would do that before he'd even won the nomination.
Well, I thought it was sort of snarky but not even close to the really bad ones...they’re sort of polite snarks.
Yeah, he did. Almost intentionally. Almost as if he was thinking "I'll get back at those 'right wingers' by throwing the election away to my good friend Obama"
You people are nutty, why don’t you wait until she actually runs, if she is asked such question about eliminating any departments and she says no then you have a right to complain, now having said that she has said programs like NPR and PBS are a waste and should be gone from the budget
Then why didn't she run in '08? This is an odd statement. Was she suggesting that the GOP party apparatus install her on the top of the ticket to beat Obummer? I don't get what she was trying to accomplish with this part of her answer.
Why is it “nutty”? There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between any position she’s ever held and John McCain’s positions.
Do you know any real conservatives who don’t advocate for an end to the federal Dept. of Education?
I think it’s nutty to call someone a leader of the TEA Party if they won’t even tell you any part of this bloated government that they’re willing to eliminate.
If you were to compare what she actually said in the Q and A compared to what the writer “interprets” and “ad libs” about what she said, then you get a slight twist here and there that takes it out of context -— my suggestion to any FReeper is to after reading these headlines or stories about Palin or anybody else, if there is video out there go look for it and find out for themselves what someone said.
That's not pertinent right now. Palin's cornerstone issue is energy. Everything revolves around energy because high energy prices drive up the costs of all goods and services.
If you've bothered to look at her record as Governor rather than touting a political party who's total membership is the equivalent of a local fitness center, you'd discover that she drastically reorganized the state government and discontinued funding redundant and obsolete programs. I'm confident she'll put forth a plan on reducing the size of the federal government or endorse Rand Paul's plan.
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