Posted on 08/27/2010 10:20:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Win or lose when the votes are counted on primary night, one thing is certain, Sarah Palin gets headlines. As analysts ponder the results, inquiring minds search for answers. What is she up to? Is she collecting chits for a 2012 presidential run? Or is she just having fun building the family bank account and jerking the chain of more traditional politicians? Her endorsement track record so far has been mixed, though her choice for the Senate in Alaska, Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, has a narrow lead in the GOP primary over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Palin's win-loss ratio is unlikely to improve in November since most of the candidates she favors tend to be so far to the right that if they get through the primary, they're outflanked in the general election. Sharron Angle in Nevada is Exhibit A. The GOP was on track to win the seat of the Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid until Palin boosted Tea Party favorite Angle to the front of the pack. Enough of these losses and it's possible that Palin could be damaged goods after the November elections.
There's a difference between having a sliver of the electorate love you madly and reaching out to 50 percent plus to win a national mandate. Lining up with Dr. Laura Schlessinger to shout the N word to your heart's content can't be smart politics. Most political professionals doubt Palin will run for president, but she is the wild card going into the election. Newt Gingrich, who gained national prominence on the strength of his inflammatory rhetoric, has found himself eclipsed by Palin when it comes to inciting the Republican base, veering into Nazi analogies to oppose the Islamic cultural center in New York in large part to set himself apart from Palin.
Even as she sets the gold standard for conservative rhetoric going into the 2012 presidential election, there is this sneaking suspicion that she's in the game for reasons that have nothing to do with saving the country from socialism and everything to do with keeping her name on the marquee and making money. To do that she's got to maintain the persona of a potential presidential candidate and keep everybody guessing about her political future. So far she's doing all the right things and with little professional help of the kind that she blamed for her crash-and-burn exit from the 2008 McCain campaign.
Maybe that will change if she gets serious about running, but at the moment Palin doesn't seem to have what Washington types would consider experienced people around her. The McCain people were probably enough politicos for her for a lifetime. As the other candidates sign up their rosters of consultants and pollsters, Palin's main links to Washington's political and policy elites are Fred Malek, an operative who goes back to the Nixon era, and Randy Scheneumann, a neo-conservative activist and lobbyist who Palin bonded with when he played Joe Biden in the mock debates during the campaign. Malek opens doors for Palin in Washington and was the go-between when she appeared at the 2009 Gridiron Dinner, and Scheneumann traveled with her to Hong Kong last year when she gave a speech assailing President Obama for scaling back defense spending.
Neither seems to be the Svengali-like strategist that most presidential aspirants have whispering in their ear. Malek's role is to assure more traditional Republicans that Palin is not the caricature they see and could be good for the GOP, a mostly losing cause. Scheneumann reinforces her hardline views when it comes to foreign policy. A New York Times article on what it called Palin's growing cast of advisers and support system shows it to be pretty thin on closer examination. It says she talks with a bipartisan nobility in Washington, which I guess means Malek and John Coale, a noted attorney and husband of Fox News host Greta Van Sustern, who helped Palin set up her PAC as a favor, he said. The Times list includes Mary Matalin, former Bush adviser, who praised Palin's book, "Going Rogue," and talks to her from time to time. One aide in Alaska, Meg Stapleton, the closest to a longtime confidante, resigned in May to spend more time with her family.
The Times list even includes Bob Barnett, the super-lawyer who negotiates book contracts for political celebs from the Clintons to Laura Bush, and who did Palin's book deal. But that doesn't make him an adviser on anything else other than maximizing her earning potential, which really is what she's about. There's a spokesperson, Pam Pryor, for Sarah PAC, and a conservative lawyer, Kim Daniels, a specialist in "conscience of health issues" who briefs Palin on domestic issues, but neither appear to be heavyweight image-makers.
As much as it pains the professionals, the First Dude is a major player in what is truly a Mom and Pop operation. His job is to absorb a lot of the anxiety and criticism and leave her free to work her magic. Palin has a gift for social media and is largely self-taught. In fact, she seems to do better in terms of gaining in celebrity when she does things the media regard as totally nuts. That formula works for her, but may not be good for the GOP as the Palin inspired Tea Party wreaks havoc on more mainstream Republicans.
Palin is living in the moment and having a grand time. Whatever she decides about 2012, if Obama is the failed president Republicans believe he is, will the country really want to go with another candidate with such a thin resume? Maybe that's why the Washington pros aren't signing on with Palin. They don't want her any more than she wants them.
Meanwhile, the PDS Posse nods their collective heads in agreement with her.
And that drives you absolutely crazy, doesn't it, Eleanor?
Elenor “Rodham” Clift
It’s startling to see how much naked hatred have to Palin. Really, it’s educational in terms of shattering a lot of myths about the “sistahhood” they’d have you believe has been created in the wake of Oprah, Lifetime, The View.
I wish a good, non-biased documentarian would study this—not make a political movie but merely examine the reactions she creates, and why.
Clift is the perfect example of a commentator who’s enslaved by her deep, deep hatred of people who don’t see things as she does. Compare with, say, Michael Barone.
She's just in it for the money.
Sorry, “to turn off”.
Glad to see Eleanor Rodham Clift has such a concern for the future of the GOP.
Frankly, this article would make more sense if it were written in the mid 1990s and we didn’t have as a President a man who thinks more of Islam than he does his own country and whose socialist policies are intended to enslave at least 51% of our people.
This kind of conventional wisdom promoted at DC cocktail parties that Clift parrots is meaningless in these pre-revolutionary days.
I’m no Palin fan but this article again shows how feared she is by the left.
No single group of self-adsorbed, incompetent cretins has done more to destroy this nation than "Washington insiders".
A pox on them all.
Counting your chickens a bit early I see. If you think that race is such a sure thing for Harry, you should maybe stop over to London an place a bet on it, Eleanor. Seems it was neck and neck last I saw, with Harry stuck at 43%, a level that almost always spells doom for an incumbent senator.
I think it’s safe to refer to poor old Eleanor as a Palinphobe. I do hope that she feels better after her little tirade.
The ever rancid Eleanor oozes forth once more.
“...if Obama is the failed president Republicans believe he is, will the country really want to go with another candidate with such a thin resume? ...”
WOW, with support like that, The Usurper better be scared!
Of course, Eleanor’s libtard logic has no relationship to the normal rules of logic. Cliff’s perception of “the country” is entirely fictitious drivel, flowing from a diseased, self-serving mind that is long, long overdue for retirement.
Corollaries are found in their absolute silence in the face of Clinton's savage rapes and Islam's atrocities against women.
The "sistahhood" is not, and has never been, about supporting women - that's a cover lie to recruit the pathetic. Rather, it is an political army focused solely on organizing power for communism to destroy America - that's it. And it's as savage, brutal, merciless and and obsessively sadistic as all the other subversive communist organizations in history.
Most "sistahs" only find this out when they suddenly become expendable for one reason or another, and get voted off the group hug island right into shark infested waters.
In this context, Obama was used to teach Hillary that even she has finally - finally - proven herself no longer ... useful ... to the group.
A lesson which is continuing to communicate it's trickle-down horror through the cement skulls of her crawling minions.
I agree.
Is this a Freudian slip?
Did she just admit that Obama is not qualified to be President? Did she really say that Obama has a thin resume?
Compared to Obama Palin’s resume is golden.
[Sharron Angle in Nevada is Exhibit A.]
Reid and Angle are now tied in Nevada and Reid has already shot his wad trying to paint Sharron as a fringe nut. What if a lone Freeper had a book that showed Harry Reid had taken unreported campaign contributions from pimp Joe Conforte at the Mustang Ranch brothel? Who would you bet your money on then?
Eleanor, you should begin your screed with, "I asked Mrs. Palin for an interview and was turned down, so I must speculate from my insulated beltway perspective."
Oh? You didn't even try to find out, from the primary source, answers to your questions?
And yet you wrote 2000 words on the subject.
yitbos
Did you get that book out yet? Hope so. Time is of the essence.
It is out and on Amazon.com. I’ve done three radio interviews, Don Williams (my key source has done one). Just gave a copy to one of the producers at the Hannity concert here in Nevada. Trying to get on Jerry Doyle. Just need a little break and away we go.
In fact, she seems to do better in terms of gaining in celebrity when she does things the media regard as totally nuts. That formula works for her, but may not be good for the GOP as the Palin inspired Tea Party wreaks havoc on more mainstream Republicans.
I sense a bit of admiration in her comments about Sarah. No one has done what she is doing. She is setting forth her views, opinions, and basic agenda without any advisers. Greta affirmed that when she spent last week in Alaska with Sarah, the only people she saw were Sarah, Todd, and the kids. Most politicians don’t know what they think about any subject unless they consult policy advisers and take polls.
On another level, Gov. Palin has also demonstrated a political savvy that probably can’t be taught. Eleanor’s statement that she is living in the moment is not correct. She is thinking several moves ahead. Palin is not only thinking about how to get the nomination, but also about how to get elected, and how to be in a position to govern effectively when elected. You can see this in her endorsements.
When Palin said that Obama lacked the cojones to solve the illegal immigration problem, she must have known that the comment would get a lot of attention and that he could not respond. What would he say, “I do have cojones, see!” She followed up with the mosque issue knowing that Obama was seething and waiting for an opportunity to slap her down. He could not resist the chance and even had his speechwriters put his response into a speech to a Muslim group. She lured him into stepping into a steaming pile and then she sat back and let the public weigh in, a public she knows very well.
In Sarah Palin, the pundits see what they want to see, a non-candidate, but soon will see what they fear to see, a winning Republican.
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