Posted on 11/08/2010 11:06:14 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Top political strategists said Monday that Sarah Palin isn't just a potential presidential candidate -- she's almost surely going to run in 2012.
"You can't count her out," said Mark McKinnon, former adviser to President George W. Bush. "In fact, there are a lot of reasons to count her in. ... Established Republicans are worried sick about her."
But Karen Finney, a former member of the Clinton administratiion who's now a political consultant: "They owe her."
The comments came during the Securities Industry and Financial Markets annual conference in New York City today. McKinnon, Finney and another Democratic strategist, Cornell Belcher, were asked to give their views on what recent election results mean for Wall Street -- but spent much of the time talking about the next presidential race in 2012.
McKinnon, who's now vice chairman of Public Strategies, said Texas Gov. Rick Perry is one of the few Republicans who could give Palin a run for her money. Perry recently won his third term by a wide margin. Despite the tooth-and-nails battles other candidates faced, Perry has been on a tour promoting a book titled "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington."
"The Tea Party loves him; the base loves him," said McKinnon. "He's got nothing else to do -- he just came out with a book!"
Still, McKinnon noted that Palin would be the sole woman in a group of eight to 10 male candidates -- giving her an edge just by nature of her gender. He believes she'd be able to win two or three of the initial round of primaries "easily," which is traditionally a straight path to the nomination.
In analyzing the past two years of Obama, the panelists generally agreed that he's done a poor job of finding common bipartisan ground, as voters expected him to do. Congress, by their assessment, performed even worse in aligning their agenda with voters' biggest concerns. "If you turned on your television during the health care debate, it looked like a kindergarten playground," said Finney. "It looked ridiculous."
McKinnon said he worries Republicans will similarly waste their time "getting into the weeds" on procedural mumbo jumbo to undo some of the sweeping legislation. Voters may oust them similarly in the next election if there's no sign that legislators are getting their message.
In the next election, said Finney, "I'm inclined to believe we'll get another round of 'throw the bums out.' "
When will they learn that the bigger problem is them?
Any time you get too nostalgic for Bush, remember that, at heart, he is an establishment Republican whose views are in line with this McKinnon and Frum (he hired both of them). These anti-Palin articles within days after the election are sickening. Give it a rest for a couple months before you start in with this nonsense.
Mark McKinnon isn’t even a Republican is he? Isn’t he just the liberal guy who made campaign commercials for Bush?
Perry is the King of the RINO’s with his Nanny State Policies and will be destroyed by Palin in the GOP Primaries and be little more than a speed bump on Sarah’s path to the White House.
If a Clinton flack is telling the GOP to go with Palin, that should be a huge red flag right there. Besides, no one is owed anything. Palin campaigned for GOP candidates for the good of the country and I would hope that would be its own reward, not the expectation that the party would "owe" you. The GOP has always gotten itself into trouble when it ran presidential candidates they thought were "owed" something or because it was "their turn."
Perry? Please, no.
The establishment candidate in 2008 was John McCain. I didn't recall anyone being upset about his lost which everyone else in the country could see coming even before he won the nomination.
Exactly backwards. The inside-the-beltway ruling-class RINOs and the inside-the-beltway ruling-class socialists are not on the side of the American people, and the RINOs do not owe Sarah anything. Sarah made their job much harder. It is the new blood that owes her. Our new Senators, Representatives, and the American people are the ones who should be grateful to Sarah and to the few other prominent republicans who made this year's elections a success for Americans.
Sarah scares the daylights out of the GOP establishment because she got rid of a bunch of Old Bull GOP establishment in Alaska. They don’t want to be constantly looking over their shoulder.
He’s worked for Dems and RINOs pretty much exclusively:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McKinnon
I am a Texan and not really a fan of Perry, even though I always vote for him.
That said, I will support Palin so long as she has a real shot.
I do know this nation cannot afford another term with tge Kenyan.
I’d vote for SP in an instant....but i think she’d be better NOT running. She’d be the king-maker. Figure there’d be 2 or 3, maybe 4 , running in a pack during the primaries, Whoever she supports, wins. and whoever that is would be a fool NOT to pick her for VP. if they win, she runs in 4 or 8 years. If they lose, she runs in 4 years...
Bingo.
As I recall, the GOP “Establishment” was a bit worried about Reagan when he ran in 1976 and 1980.
Do you guys still get free pizza and lattes there in Chicago or did Mr. Soros tire of paying for all that? Cubicle, office, Starbucks wi-fi or Mom’s basement?
Has anyone else noticed that governor good hair has changed his hairstyle? It looks to me like he’s trying to copy’s Reagan’s hairstyle.
Yeah, that worked out sooo well for Hillary!
(eye-roll)
RINOs need to start picking out their seats in the back of the GOP bus or buy some new shoes for all the walking they will soon be doing.
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