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 is the Republican establishment going to wake up to the change that has occurred. The Republican leadership best embrace people like Palin and the rest of the Tea Party or else it’ll become irrelevant.
Yes. If she doesn’t have a lock on winning it all, she will throw her support behind the best conservative that can (and will) win. Then she’ll turn her energy on the house and senate races our sides needs to win to give our new president the Congress he needs.
That is of course assuming she runs in the first place, which I doubt.
I don’t think she takes the VP slot. She already got what she/we needed out of that.
Not to say you are wrong, but do you have some information on the thought processes that could cause any thinking person to turn 180 degrees based on those two candidates?
Yeah, name some friggin' names. We've heard enough from Anonymous.
I take it McKinnon knows Perry will hire him, should he run. I also think Perry would run as a conservative when the field, other than Palin, is filling up with moderates—so she’s in his way.
I've been here twelve years.
So, other than Palin, who i would support, tell me who you support if she does not run?
As much as we don’t want to hear it - Sarah alienates a lot of women.
Look at CT, NV, CA, SC, and many other places.
Women will not vote for other conservative women in the amounts we will need in 2012 to defeat obama if Sarah is the nominee. Its stone cold fact.
sorry - I will support her and campaign for her if she wins, but to believe she is our strongest against OBAMAO is not true.
To me, we need to win, if only for the fact that SC will have 2 seats up in the next few years.
Right now - I will support Sarah 100000000%, but I cant honestly say I am convinced she can win considering the mid term results.
I love Sarah and think she could beat Obama, but I also think she’s the only one who could also lose....We saw what happened to Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle. Do you want to risk 4 more years of this tyrant?
Sarah Palin is among the most politically savvy candidates in recent memory. She will be relentless in campaigning against Obama, Hillary, or whoever they run. She will also clean out the crooks and libs in the Republican Party.
So how could other candidates lose? They already have. They have sat by quietly twiddling thumbs while Palin opposed Obama’s agenda and his people. If one of them is nominated, voters will know that we really aren’t against Obama. We really aren’t against bigger government and more control of our lives. We just want to be the ones calling the shots.
From the election of 2010, we learned that out of our Republican leaders, only Palin and Jim DeMint were brave enough to stand for conservative values and accept considerable risk for it.
Other than Sarah, I support Thune, Christie or some dark horse from the private sector, even say a Donald Trump or someone like that.
If Sarah runs, I will support her, I will volunteer, raise money, campaign, ect, but saying she is the best person to defeat Obama is delusional.
People don’t think rationally when they make a lot of these decisions. Much of the swing voters vote on personal appeal, and Palin basically has zero appeal outside of our base. Obama is an incompetent boob, but he got elected on nothing but personal appeal.
Chris Christie may be a RINO on some things, but hes a straight shooter and I think would be deadly to Obama and would annihilate him among independents. Compare that to Obama, who is basically a pathological liar - it wouldnt even be close. Obama would hold the west coast, NY and MA, but he would struggle to win just about any other state.
Im a social conservative, but lets be honest here: its the fiscally promiscuous RINOs that get us in the most trouble with the body politic. As long as hell appoint originalists to the courts (who will eventually overturn Roe) and reinstate the Mexico City policy, thats good enough for me.
Palin also made a big mistake in getting involved in Delaware as well both the PA and NJ GOP apparatus are similarly displeased. As am I.
They now have Republican houses in New England and in NY. Seems a little ungrateful to criticize Palin for a few losses among many victories.
If the GOP rejects Palin and the tea parties after this great victory, it will be to their regret.
Hillary would get the black vote. They would vote for her in a heartbeat. Some may stay home, but not many.
They sure won’t turn GOP and you can take that to the bank.
Thune/Christie is our best best.
Two alpha males - win the womens vote
2nd amend vote - Thune is a A+
Pro-life Vote - Thune is pro-life
Heartland Vote - not even close
Fiscal Cons - - no doubts on that.
Plus - Thune and Christie are not at all gaffe prone.
Again, the need for insults why? Maybe I didn’t comprehend your post because it is incomprehensible to me why you can’t accept disagreement with grace and dignity instead of resorting to school yard nonsense.
True, Palin is a better candidate than O’Donnell or Angle - I’ll give you that. However, that’s not to say she’s strong either. She is prone to making mistakes (Couric), maybe she’s learned, maybe she hasn’t - I still don’t think she’s completely recovered from it among the swing voters either. That’s the plus side of an “establishment” person - they won’t make the kind of mistakes that can undermine their campaigns (or at least the risk is lower), for as much money as they can raise. Look how much money Angle had.
We’re not going to get a pass from the media like Obozo got. That’s just a fact of life. They’re going to do anything and everything to bring our guy/girl down. Obama is going to be tougher to defeat than you think. If we vote with our heads instead of our hearts, we’ll be ok.
We need a 1984 election like reagan had, not a 1964 election like Goldwater.
Tell me which states Sarah picks off in 2012 away from Obama.
Maybe he will or won’t. My statement was merely one of saying he’d be a much better candidate than Palin. But that said, Sarah Palin has stated she’d only run if no one else does. Since it’s HIGHLY unlikely no one else will run for the GOP, I assume she’s a woman of her word and won’t run if there are other GOP candidates.
Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas history.
The electorate is not going to replace Obama with another unqualified candidate, and the base wont allow another RINO to be nominated.
Which leaves almost no one left except Perry with the charisma to win.
If Obama was standing next to Perry he would look like the little urkel that he is. Perry (love him or hate him) is a very handsome man.
Dems continually try to marginalize Palin. You never see them refer to her without a first name of dumb, stupid or ignorant. This is exactly what they did to George Bush. It's a part of their method of trying to promote a weak candidate, but I don't think the new Republicans will fall for the fake again. I do wish we had closed Primaries though. That said I agree that we had better go with our heads rather than our hearts, but we must not sacrific our integrity, then we'll be no better than Democrats.
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