A Reply to Mona Charen’s "Why Sarah Palin Shouldn’t Run"

In a National Review Online column on November 19, Mona Charen provided an explanation of why she believes Sarah Palin shouldn’t run for President. She argued that after the 2008 campaign, Palin “quit her job as governor after two and a half years…and seemed to chase money and empty celebrity.” She asserted that “Palin seems consumed and obsessed” by the media, labeled Palin’s new TLC show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, a “cheesy entrant in the reality-show genre,” and took issue with the fact that Sarah and Todd sit in the Dancing with the Stars audience “cheering on their unwed-mother daughter.” She opined that Palin’s “endorsement of Christine O’Donnell was irresponsible and damaging” and suggested that “She would be terrific as a talk-show host — the new Oprah.”

First and foremost, let’s address one of Charen’s opening points as to why Palin should sit 2012 out. She stated, “Americans will be looking for sober competence, managerial skill, and maturity — not sizzle and flash.” Perhaps a walk down policy lane is in order.

As Governor, Sarah Palin actualized AGIA, the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, the largest private sector infrastructure project in North American history. Palin’s administration opened up drilling for oil and gas at Point Thomson for the first time in several decades. As Governor, Palin reduced earmark requests for Alaska by 80%, established Alaska’s Petroleum Integrity Office to oversee safe energy development, placed the state checkbook online, and reduced spending for Fiscal Year 2010 by over one billion dollars from Governor Murkowski’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget. Palin signed ACES, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share bill, into law, incentivizing development and ensuring that Alaskans would receive a “clear and equitable” share of oil profits. She cut costs by selling a private jet purchased by the previous governor and saying “no thank you” to the Executive Mansion’s personal chef. She has served as Chairperson of the AK Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and Vice Chair of the National Governors Association Natural Resource Committee. Prior to her time as Governor, Palin served as Mayor of Wasilla, AK, and city council member in Wasilla. She has also been involved in running a commercial fishing business with her husband Todd.

Charen asserted that Palin’s statement to Barbara Walters that she believes she could defeat President Obama “has dimmed hopes cherished by sensible Republicans that she might decide against a run for the White House in 2012.” Well, it’s not the first time I haven’t fallen into the “sensible” VIP league of the Washington elite. On that note, let’s shift on over to Sarah Palin’s Alaska, Dancing with the Stars, and all that drives the GOP highbrows wild.

Sarah Palin has done something that no-one since President Reagan has been bold enough to do: just be herself. Sure, she’s a prominent political figure. Yes, she was a 2008 Vice Presidential candidate. But she’s also a mom, a wife, a hunter, a fisherwoman, and a plain old American just like you and me. In her new TLC show, Palin’s not afraid to show you how proud she is of the beauty of her state, a state which is so often discarded as unimportant – despite extensive energy and national security clout – by the likes of New York and California elites. She’s not afraid to speak in her folksy accent, to invite you inside her very regular American home, to let you watch her accept the challenge to climb Mt. McKinley, and do the dirty work of wiping slime off of newly-caught halibut.

Simply put, she’s not afraid to just be Sarah Palin. And in our phony, snobby, chameleon-happy political world, that is priceless.

Kudos to Sarah Palin for cheering on her daughter, who has had the commonsense wisdom to express, “They’re going to criticize me no matter what I do, so I might as well dance.” Kudos to Palin for placing principles over party by endorsing the only conservative choice in the Delaware Senate race this 2010 election season, Christine O’Donnell. Palin seems to understand that a Republican “gain” by a closet lefty isn’t a gain at all.

Also, when faced with frivolous, baseless ethics charges made by political operatives, which was costing her state millions of dollars and her staff thousands of hours to refute, kudos to Palin for having done the right thing. That’s right, she resigned. And it wasn’t to preserve her political future. It was to ensure that the Governor’s office could get back to what was important – the day-to-day work of protecting Alaska and its citizens.

As a parting thought, let’s revisit a segment from radio host and bestselling author Mark R. Levin’s November ninth monologue: [In] 1976 … Ronald Reagan was running against Gerald Ford. There were conservatives all over the country who were lining up behind Gerald Ford. ‘Reagan’s too extreme, Reagan is a B actor, Reagan is this, Reagan is that, he can’t win, he can’t win.’”

Regardless of what her future plans may be, Sarah Palin is certainly qualified to step up to the plate in 2012 if she so chooses – Facebook posts, mountain climbing, and dancing daughter included.

I am still just a bit on the fence about Palin For President.

However:

We know where she got her education and if she had not achieved reasonable grades, had cheated or had been backed by a foreign billionaire, we certainly would see it splashed everywhere. What is not credible about State universities? What is not credible about being educated at more than one of these institutions? Is it that her major (Communications, IIRC) was not law and political science? Or is it that she was not inculcated in the memes of the ruling class?

She was elected mayor of her town by people who knew her before anyone else had even heard of her. She had more accomplishments than failures, by all accounts and her tenure has been looked at with a loupe for the past 3 years.

She served on an important State-wide energy commission in Alaska. Her accomplishments are well-known in that position.

She was elected Governor even after going against her own party. The State of Alaska is still running smoothly while retaining her policy implementations.

As Governor, she dealt credibly, by all accounts, with huge industries, foreign governments and the military. No evidence of fraud or corruption has come to the attention of the electorate and had there been any, it would be loudly proclaimed everywhere.

She, not McCain, brought that ticket to within 6 points of winning against a media assault, a media coverup of the winning party/candidate, and vast fraud in the opposition party from the early caucuses onward.

She and her husband earned every dime they have through work and talent, even though, after the General Election, she was subjected to a concerted attempt to bankrupt her personally, not to mention totally destroy her ability to govern her state. There is no evidence she is owned by any interest, anywhere.

She has written two books, by herself. She found a publisher and the books have sold well, despite a campaign to discredit them and her. In today’s publishing climate, that is a huge accomplishment.

Her life is an open book. We know her parents. We have seen her home. We have watched her and her husband deal with imperfect children. We watched her pick herself up after an electoral defeat and come out strongly, with grace and without constraint to organize the American people and lead them to victory in many Congressional Districts, while articulating and refining the political platform that supported that victory.

The far left, while bewailing Palin’s media success have suggested (Michael Moore) that a media star be run for the Democrat Party in 2012. Of course, they mean a Far Left media star.

What credentials does she still need? Are you certain she will not acquire them in the next few months and be able to show them plainly to the electorate over the next 2 years?

I have great admiration for Sarah Palin, who has been able to do all of the above against organized enmity from the world elites. Her detractors state piously that she is a one-woman show and has no *organization*. HA! I doubt she has been able to accomplish the political goals I have listed and more without advisers and gofers. Just organizing book tours, let alone political appearances, takes organization. What the opponents mean is that there is no one they have personally worked with and can therefore destroy in Sarah’s organization. They have no moles in a campaign that is succeeding, open, and very public. They have no leverage, either.

Simply repeating the meme of the LSM and the elites (”She isn’t qualified”) means only that the repeater seems to accept that the only credential is established Party endorsement. That party, has, of course, failed miserably in a majority of House elections the past cycle and a few Senate elections, as well. The higher echelons of the GOP do not own more than a fraction, if that, of American politics. They are a legend in their own minds, while Palin has become a legend in the minds of a significant portion of the American people.

Another sin of Sarah Palin is she does not seem to be making backroom deals in return for power and exposure. She owes no one except the people who vote for her and all she owes them is to keep her promises.

Her main failure is being a Christian conservative, having a charismatic presence and articulating the positions of a sizable portion of the American electorate. She did that in 3 years, against all odds and in the face of unapologetic sabotage of every sort by the putative rulers of the world. In fact, she has brilliantly taken that opposition and turned it into a strength by campaigning directly against her detractors and forcing them into the light. It is political jujitsu of the highest order.

In an era sick of corruption and totalitarianism, her lack of those particular credentials is, in itself, a huge positive. If she manages to stay strong and keep going from strength to strength, I do not see how she can be stopped. I will vote for her, although I fear for her in this climate. However, I fear an Establishment continuity far more.

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