Posted on 04/22/2009 2:10:05 PM PDT by SolidWood
I have referred to 'boxing the compass' as Obama's approach of assailing Sarah Palin from all possible directions and from various quarters. BTC refers to naming the 32 points of a compass in clockwise order. With that in mind here are IMHO the 32 approaches that Obama and Axelrod and their allies in the MSM, the nutroots, amongst the media pundits, in academia, and the entertainment industry will relentlessly employ to torpedo Sarah Palin's potential Presidential run in 2012. They are listed in no particular order of importance or priority:
1)The use of anklebiters and left-wing bloggers in their attempt to first rattle her and then unnerve her
The more time that Sarah has to devote to a legal defense fund and to deal with mattters extraneous to campaigning or getting her message out the hope is the less focused she will become.
2)To frustrate and exasperate her intentions and agenda
This deals directly with her agenda in Alaska and the desire to undermine her at every opportunity. Witness what has happened in the past two months in Juneau. The goal is to dishearten Sarah and to reveal to her that the task of trying to become POTUS in 2012 is too arduous and perhaps insurmountable, that there are too many forces lined up against her for her to gain enough traction.
3)To bait Sarah into an unforced error
The goal is for Sarah to get so angry that she decides to strike back and says something that becomes politically permanently damaging or that can be misconstrued as permanently damaging.
4)To frighten or terrorize Sarah
Remember Obama and his cohorts are from a thug culture that has strong ties to the principles outlined in Rules For Radicals by Alinsky. I'll let the reader interpret what I mean.
5)To pigeonhole or classify her politically speaking
The Left wants to portray Sarah as a 'fire and brimstone' pro-life intolerant bogeyman out of the mainstream and pre-empt her from establishing her libertarian credentials.
6)To mischaracterize her personality, intelligence, capabilities, talents etc so as to badly reflect on how she is perceived by voters and brand her as eternally unqualified to be POTUS.
Quite simply, the first prerequisite to decide whether to vote for someone is to determine whether he or she can do the job.
7)if #6 doesn't work at least to relegate Sarah to a candidate whose worthiness 'the jury is still out on or the category of a 'second stringer'
In other words, should you stay with a proven commodity, Obama or do you want to turn your country over to someone who you are still dubious about?
8)Marginalizing Sarah by diminishing her credibility
For those in Rio Linda, this means driving Sarah's supporters, potential supporters and money away from her to by implying that Sarah is not a major player, that she has no chance of being the GOP standardbearer in 2012, or that she has absolutely no chance of defeating Obama in 2012.
9)along with #8 the use of statistics, polls, graphs, political history to demonstrate why Sarah is 'unelectable'
This is the specious use of 'supposed facts' to prove an opinion.
10)by demonizing Sarah to make her appear to be evil or have evil intentions
Obamatrons already regard Sarah as evil. However there are a number of Obama voters who might consider voting for Sarah in 2012 if they felt Sarah was innocuous, gracious or non-threatening.
11)Assassinate her character and crucify her
This is part of #10 but goes a lot further delving into every aspect of her political and personal life in regards to decisions she made and calling into question her judgment and motives at the time and being very petty and malicious while doing so.
12)Draining the swamp
Mao coined this phrase to assert his belief that if the enemy was not allowed to call upon the comfort or support of sympathizers it would be easier to defeat. Obama's goal is to deny Sarah support and to isolate her from agencies that might come to her aid and assist her. I'll leave it up to the reader how Obama and his allies would accomplish this.
13)erect a 'straw man' that can be easily refuted and make Sarah appear misguided
For example Obama could claim that Sarah believes in a capitalist system where there is no regulation whatsover and then slam the GOP and Sarah for Bush's incompetence that led to the financial meltdown.
There are a countless number of straw men that can be conjured up. This why Sarah needs a team around her who understand the potential in this area and who can refute every single one as they are brought up to the arena of ideas.
14)Exploit the inconsistency and expose the hypocrisy
When you utter thousands of words in speeches you are bound to contradict yourself eventually. What the Left will endeavor to do is to convert these apparent contradictions into episodes of lies, flip-flops, and damning examples of personal hypocrisy.
For example many on the Left wanted to seize on the thought that because Sarah, for a fleeting moment considered 'making Trig go away' that this automatically made her a hypocrite.
15)Cite the establishment of a legal defense fund as proof of wrongdoing by Sarah
Why do you need a legal defense fund if you have not done anything wrong?
16)Attribute McCain's words to her or cite her positions in the campaign that run counter to 'Reagan conservative' philosophy
Of course, the Left will never cite the primary axiom of Presidential politics for VP candidates is that they must support the message of the ticket, regardless of how he or she personally feels.
17)Consistently repeating moments on TV or radio which were less than flattering to Sarah
The 'turkey' episode and 'I don't know what I read' epsiode will be repeated thousands of times in 2012 to make Sarah appear foolish
18)along with #17 to consistently mock and caricature Sarah amongst late-night comedians and SNL
This is to convince apolitical types who only get their news from this source to discount Sarah as a worthy candidate and label her a bimbo or a moron.
19)to discredit Sarah through the choice of who is advising her
As we still don't know yet who that will be it would be hard for me now to tell you what Obama's plans are but suffice it to say he will develop some.
20)to honeycomb Sarah's organization with spies or fifth columnists to undermine its efficiecy and effectiveness
This is self-explanatory.
21)To accuse Sarah from being out of step with the 'new world order'
This is a deliberate attempt for the Left to hang on to the eastern elitists who still call themselves Republicans and who reject the founding documents, American rugged individualism, cowboy diplomacy, and American exceptionalism.
22)To build up Sarah's potential GOP Presidential opponents to the detriment of Sarah
Nothing could be sweeter for Obama and his merry men and women than to bleed some of Sarah's conservative support away from her into Huckabee's, Romney's or Sanford's camp.
23)The use of tabloid rumors about Sarah, Todd or her family
These stories are not only meant to titillate but are an attempt to accuse Sarah of having skeletons in the closet and thus question her honesty and sincerity.
Of course, the Messiah doesn't have any himself, does he?
24)The use and distortion of the English language to depict Sarah in the worst possible light or to cause her to retract what she said
During the 2008 campaign a Leftie tried to accuse Sarah of racism because of her focus on and sarcasm directed to community organizers.
25)Disinformation and propaganda
This is of the same magnitude as exhibited by Goebbels in Nazi Germany. It is completely orchestrated, always has a set purpose in mind and targeted on a 24/7 basis towards diminishing and destroying Sarah
26)The insinuation that Sarah cannot do her job as POTUS and take care of children at the same time-that you cannot mix kids with business or bring your kids to work with you
Read the second entry by Ugafish and you'll get the gist of this argument
27)Consistently convince GOP turncoats or fifth columnists to sell Sarah out on TV and why Sarah should not represent the GOP.
Meghan McCain appears to be the gift for Obama that just keeps on giving.
John Feehery is a close second.
28)Have academics and media pundits continually slam Sarah for supposed political miscalculations or being a lightweight
David Gergen, Ed Rollins, Jeffrey Toobin, Katrina van der Heuvel, Margaret Carlson, Gloria Borger all have Sarah's best interests at heart, don't they?
29)Deny Sarah the recognition or credibility that she deserves or is entitled to
Taiwan has been a viable entity since 1949, but since 1971 when Red China entered the UN it has not been allowed re-entry. The world acts like Taiwan does not exist.
And Obama's goal is to deny Sarah legitimization. That was the main reason he stopped Hillary Clinton from appearing with Sarah in front of the UN at the end of September 2008 to protest Iran and Ahmadinejad's presence at the UN.
Obama wants to make it appear that he doesn't recognize Sarah, while all the dirty work is done sub rosa or perpetrated by his nefarious allies.
30)Accuse Sarah's supporters of being aligned to white, racist militia groups or being right-wing extremists
By inference, the attempt is to make out that Sarah is a right-wing unhinged lunatic herself as well and anti-American.
31)Accuse or imply that Sarah wants to impose a Christian theocracy on America and throw women who have abortions and doctors who perform them in jail
This is a traditional tactic perpetrated by the Left to scare the bejesus out of young women voters and to keep them voting Democratic
32)Saturation bombing
This is part and parcel of the first 31 strategies but overall a strategy to destroy the victim regardless of collateral damage.
Obama is not into taking prisoners or giving a sucker an even break. What he is all about is pre-emptive strikes, unrelenting pressure, the insidious erosion of an opponent's credibility, and administering the knockout punch while the opponent has both hands tied behind your back.
There are probably more than the 32 strategies than Obama and Axelrod will employ but to those unfamiliar with the inner workings of politics I think this is a good starting point.
That looks good.
Yeah. Looks better than your incoherent rambling.
"In advance of charges"?
She has to settle a debt of $ 500,000 for past charges. And yes, the democrats will come out with new creative complaints to harrass her. And you want to fault her for trying to defend herself?
You want her to use taxpayers' money? Are you a Conservative... wait, no need to reply. You are indeed implementing strategy #15.
You are another little screw in the liberal machine.
Pathetic.
Shilling for a legal defense before charges is admitting guilt beforehand.
You are another little screw in the liberal machine.
Again, whatever. Take your screw and shove it.
In this case it just seems like a smart thing to do. Knowing the enemy (Democrats) are going to try to bring you down via legal controversy, then planning for it is simply smart. These people are evil personified, ignoring them is not possible.
Remember the Clinton Defense Fund.
Reading comprehension is not your strong suit. She has to settle bills for PAST charges.
Take your screw and shove it.
Since you are the screw, I should do WHAT with you?
Anyone who is any good, and shows any promise, will be attacked mercilessly by the left. The level of attacks directed at Palin show that they fear her.
I could certainly imagine someone better, but all of the choices we have are flawed. That's the nature of politics.
She and Todd are already $500K in debt to lawyers because of bogus, nuisance “ethics” complaints in Alaska.
There ought to be some way to prosecute people who file bogus complaints.
What's your point?
Moby much?
Why the Republicans did not respond by filing a false testimony clain in ethics against that piece of filth is a question I would like answered.
Face it Freepers we will have to use the tools of the left to drive them back or we are lost for the next fifty years.
In point #26 when I referred to ugafish, I was referring to an article written today by Suzy Welch in US News and World Report after her interview with Tina Brown editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast who criticizes Sarah Palin for being a Governor and a mother at the same time.
You are amazingly obtuse! Have you not read about the MULTITUDE of lawsuits she has endured over the last few months,mostly based on frivolous ethics complaints? Do you not comprehend $500,000 in ALREADY incurred legal costs because of all these libnats filing these stupid ass lawsuits?
Stupidgunner is what I’d call you, probably hold your gun just like Dukakis held his!
Actually every one on the left that I know are dying to have Palin as the 2012 candidate.
“Actually every one on the left that I know are dying to have Palin as the 2012 candidate.”
Then why would they go to all of this effort to try to discredit her? Just for sport?
Very interesting, and we have all witnessed these 32 points put into operation already. Surprisingly, I don’t detect that they are getting much bang for their buck.
First big clue is the wildly enthusiastic reception she got in Evansville, not just inside, at the event itself, but by the large crowd of people not attending the event, but who had assembled in the area of the building just to get a glimpse of her, ask for an autograph, shake her hand of take her picture. The cops eventually had to close off the street to traffic due to safety concerns.
Second clue, the last RAsmussen report shows that her favorable number has increased to 52 percent, including a big increase among independent voters.
Third big clue, the almost desperate form of attacks they are launching, such as the pathetic “ethics” complaints, the deliberate twisting of her words, especially regarding her fleeting thought of abortion, when anyone who is actually interested can watch the speech for themselves.
The pathetic and wretched smearing of her family does not sit well with anyone except the leftist choir. Most people don’t have perfect Leave it to Beaver families, and most can identify with a lot of the aspects of Palin’s family.
Most of the attacks launched against her by Axelrod and co., essentially sing to the choir. Those who are opposed to her already eat it up, and those who like her disregard most of them. Both ends of the spectrum follow every move the other side makes on a daily and even hourly basis, but the vast majority of people don’t pay much attention to any of it at all.
The very best thing that Palin can do is to continue attending events throughout the lower 48, attending as many as possible between now and when the legislative session of 2010 opens next January.
It is these events that will be seen by a far greater number of people than the phoney “ethics” complaints, and the rest.
Any event she attends will be wildly successful, local news coverage of her has always been far better than the national MSM coverage. That local coverage will be spread throughout the internet, via email, via posts here at FR, Team Sarah, Conservative4Palin, and by the numerous blog sites that have been supportive of her throughout this trial by fire.
Palin will be on the Chopper show on April 30th, how much does anyone want to bet that the show will have its best ratings ever.
The NRA is preparing to present her with a custom made AR15, all of this is a testimony to the level of real support she has out there.
There is an amazing network of grassroots support for Gov. Palin, and the grassroots are still very much alive, and growing from what I’ve seen.
Axelrod and co. and their attacks are nearing the level of overkill, and have probably reached that with most people, and the law of dimminishing returns has clearly set in.
Remember Obama and Axelrod are relentless. They know their playbook and feel it is just a matter of time before Sarah succumbs to pressure; as Evander Holyfield once said pressure burst pipes.
With all respect to the people you talk to they are probably not the Lefties in the know.
They probably still believe the caricature by Tina Fey that Sarah Palin is a moron and that Sarah can’t read.
Rasmussen is showing Obama with a 46% disapproval rating, the same vote as McCain-Palin got in Nov. 2008.
Anybody with half a brain would surmise that Obama and Axelrod would not be spending this much time, energy and money focusing on the fortunes and misfortunes of Sarah Palin if she did not pose a threat.
This is the supreme test, there is no doubt about it. But, what I saw in the video of her speech in Evansville was a very tough, determined woman. Like she said, she’s inspired, and is going to restart her engine, that to me did not indicate a woman anywhere near the breaking point. I believe Trig keeps her really centered, and he serves as her release valve.
Look for her to appear at a number of events in May, June and July. The success of each event will feed on the other, giving her more strength in the weeks and months ahead. This will be followed by the release of her first FEC report for SarahPAC. My hunch is that it has been far more successful than we know, even without much of an actual fundraising effort, most likely outraising Romney and Huckabee combined by 2 to 1. This will be a huge boost.
I think the only way that she would pull the plug on her political career is if her family, especially Todd and her dad, apply pressure, but something tells me that they are a pretty tough bunch.
I assume Sarah is on the alert for these techniques. It wouldn’t hurt to read up on Alinsky’s writings. I hope she had good radar for honest and capable staff to help her if she intends to run for higher office again.
Palin Ping
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