Posted on 02/19/2010 11:25:11 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The conservative intelligentsia are starting to take Sarah Palin seriously, but I suspect they have not got her quite right yet. Within 24 hours of each other, heavyweights Dorothy Rabinowitz and George Will have published op-eds critical of her. Here’s Rabinowitz: “The Sarah Palin of election year fame has not been much transformed since last we met. For many who look to her as a presidential hopeful, and a voice for their social views, this can’t be encouraging news.” What, specifically, does Rabinowitz object to? In part, the fact that Palin has endorsed Ron Paul’s son for the U.S. Senate; but, more significantly: “The unsavory echoes of [Palin’s] regular references to ‘the real America’ as opposed to those shadowy ‘elites,’ now charged with threats to the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of all real Americans. [Palin seems not] to have any idea of how that low soap-box oratory — embracing one kind of American as the real kind, those builders in the towns and cities across America — rings in the ear today.” Rabinowitz points out that one of Palin’s heroes, Ronald Reagan, “did not appeal to the aggrieved. Nor did he see in the oratory of grievance, or talk of real Americans and those who were not, a political platform.”
Now, I share — quite intensely, as it happens — Rabinowitz’s dislike of the sort of rhetoric for which she faults Sarah Palin. I would not welcome a continuation of it for all three years leading up to the 2012 election, much less for the four years of the next presidency. But I think Rabinowitz is wrong in saying that Palin is unaware of how that sort of speech “rings in the ear today.” Rabinowitz and I may not like it, but we are probably in the minority. Palin may have found just the right emotional buttons to be a successful politician in our time.
Which brings me to George Will, who writes: “Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska’s governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states. Conservatives, who rightly respect markets as generally reliable gauges of consumer preferences, should notice that the political market is speaking clearly: The more attention Palin receives, the fewer Americans consider her presidential timber. The latest Post-ABC News poll shows that 71 percent of Americans — including 52 percent of Republicans — think she is not qualified to be president.”
When I read this sort of thing, I can’t help remembering that there was a point in 2007 when the Obama campaign was faltering, and I was thinking, What a dumb idea it is for a guy with no experience, no qualifications, and a record of less than half a term in the Senate to think he can be elected president. The sooner he gets out of the race, the less embarrassed he’ll end up being.
Will admits that Palin is “feisty and public-spirited,” and – as if to validate my comment on the Rabinowitz piece — that “millions of people vibrate like tuning forks to her rhetoric.” The gravamen of his substantive objection to Palin – i.e., as opposed to the highly questionable assertion that she can’t win — is that while she has “showed grit . . . she has also showed that grit is no substitute for seasoning.” The thing about seasoning, though, is that it can come with time. I have seen already that Palin is a political natural, so I have little doubt she has the raw political talents to win people’s affections: In this regard, she reminds me of no one so much as of Bill Clinton, who in the 1992 primaries managed to turn catastrophe into political gold. He, too, used every attack against him as an opportunity to make the central political story entirely about himself, and emerged as a result as a highly sympathetic person in the eyes of middle America — sympathetic enough to defeat an incumbent president who not long before had enjoyed a 91 percent approval rating.
Rabinowitz writes: “At a time when Republican hopes are in the ascendancy, as now (and even when they are not), it’s impossible to imagine the Sarah Palin known to the world today as their leader. It would be well for her to begin pondering the reasons.” The first sentence here is true, in a sense, but misleading; the second assumes, perhaps contrary to fact, that Palin has not yet considered the question. In my view, Palin is showing a great deal of skill in her current task: tapping today’s mood to win a lot of support among some highly politically involved and energized Americans. She can hardly be faulted for not yet having moved on to the next task: to demonstrate that she can lead a party, and a nation. The answer on that, we can leave to be determined in an actual campaign.
Serious BULLSHIT ALERT!
They think Sarah would lose 44 states. Romney would lose 57. :D
The “intelligentsia” are usually FOS. Artsy fartsies if you will.
George Will critical of Sarah Palin???? I’m shocked NOT. Geogre Will is turncoat conservative. Sold his soul to ABC News and Disney. His opinion is worth nothing.
George Willis so OVER. A faux conservative. Fold up your elitist tent and go away.
I challenge their “A List” creds. That might have been then but this is now.
2ndDivisionVet at it again. Scours the internet for anything to post against Palin.
The anti-Palin commentaries from the Right post here on FR I believe are coming from 6 main sources and this frequent anti-Palin poster falls into one of these groups. IMO
1) Ron Paul supporters.
The Paulista’s hate the idea of a rejuvenated GOP for it spells trouble for Ron Paul of ever getting more than 2 or 3 % of any Primary vote. Paul will fair better by having the GOP drag out the old horses from 2008, McCain, Romney, the Huckster, etc - so look for them to drag down any new faces, especially if they are Reagan conservatives.
2) Lyndon Larouche supporters.
You’ve seen their information tables outside of post offices equally bashing Republicans and Democrats. You’ve seen them infiltrate Tea Parties and Town Halls with their provocative signs that draw news cameras like flies on you know what. If they’re not holding a sign they are still easy to spot by the black sharpie in their pocket, used to draw Hitler mustaches on any politician that’s not Larouche Remember the Obama Hitler mustache signs? That will be them
3) Berthers.
I’m talking about the hard-core tinfoil hat Berthers. The ones who see Palin, Scott Brown, or any Republican as an enemy if they don’t latch on to their conspiracy theory and endorse their Berther candidates. Look folks, birth certificate or not, Obama is with us until 2012 like it or not. The war must be fought on a front where we can win, his socialist background and the path he wants to take us on that is where the fight is and must be if we want to win in 2012.
4) Scorched Earth Libertarians.
They see a RINO around every three. I don’t know how they grade conservatives, but ask one to name a Republican that is conservative enough to vote for, and they can’t give you a name. Much like the Ron Paul people they see Palin and Scott Brown as a catalyst for the rebirth of the GOP, and a reborn GOP scares the hell out of them. I really believe they are angry at the resurgence of the GOP, because it means no chance of their Party from ever becoming any thing more than an annoyance. The scary thing is they are also trying to hijack the Tea Party and use it for their own purpose. They truly want to see 3 main parties on the Nov 2012 ballot, Republican Party, Democrat Party, & Tea Party. They need to learn a lesson about what Ross Perot did for us when he ran.
5) Hard-core Romney, or Huckabee supporters
Not everyone who supported Romney or Huckabee, or any of the other GOP candidates fall into this category, but there are a large number of them that are very jealous of this young Caribou Barbee upstart from Eskimo country who knocked their candidate off the radar screen. They fall prey to the news media stories about Palin being dumb as a box of rocks, and they are eager to assist the media by forwarding to forums and their e-mail address books any story critical of Palin. These are the most annoying of all because they really should know better than to assist liberals in dragging down conservatives.
6) IVY League Republicans .
Intellectuals who look down their noses at people from Alaska, or Fly-over Country.
Your a day late. The George Will story was posted yesterday. We didn’t fall for it then, and we don’t now. Go back onto the Ron Paul web site and find something more current.
Most of the remainder have mainly logical positions with a couple of moonbat fringe issues which taint them.
who is Robinowitz? George Will is not conservative
You are correct about that. But why I added them is I have seen them at Tea Parties and Town Halls. Either holding provocative signs or passing out their pamphlets.
Governor Palin's administration developed and implemented a competitive process to initiate construction of a natural gas pipeline through the passage of the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, or AGIA. Under AGIA, the Legislature authorized the administration to award a state license to TransCanada Alaska to permit, develop and build a 1,715-mile natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope to the Alberta Hub in Canada. No one has been able to do this, except Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin is past chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a multi-state government agency that promotes the conservation and efficient recovery of domestic oil and natural gas resources.
She was elected by her peers to serve as president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors. As governor she was the Commander of the Alaska National Guard. For her leadership she has won high praise.
..
Ron Paul? Ummm, I’m the one who posted the George Will column, and you might want to take a look at my tagline.
Sorry, but that is not the A list of conservatives.
Your threads only prove, the MittWitts and PaulBot type
are the Palin haters and will never be nominated to
any high office.
They will never draw the crowds and have the base of support as Sarah Palin has.
Thank you!!! You saved me the effort! A-list? How about FAILED list.
LLS
will is a failed dim basball writer.
LLS
Pills okay, no shots please.
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