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Obama Can't Win Against Palin (Karl Rove)
Wall Street Journal ^ | Sept. 11, 2008 | Karl Rove

Posted on 09/10/2008 10:43:47 PM PDT by Clairity

Of all the advantages Gov. Sarah Palin has brought to the GOP ticket, the most important may be that she has gotten into Barack Obama's head. How else to explain Sen. Obama's decision to go one-on-one against "Sarah Barracuda," captain of the Wasilla High state basketball champs?

It's a matchup he'll lose. If Mr. Obama wants to win, he needs to remember he's running against John McCain for president, not Mrs. Palin for vice president.

In Mrs. Palin, Mr. Obama faces a political phenomenon who has altered the election's dynamics. Americans have rarely seen someone who immediately connects with large numbers of voters at such a visceral level. Mrs. Palin may be the first vice presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to change an election's outcome. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking her, the odds of Gov. Palin becoming Vice President Palin increase significantly.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: electionpresident; elections; karlrove; mccain; mccainpalin; obama; obamabiden; palin; rove
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1 posted on 09/10/2008 10:43:47 PM PDT by Clairity
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To: Clairity

Very interesting!


2 posted on 09/10/2008 10:45:49 PM PDT by GVnana ("The American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery.")
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To: Clairity

Gooooood. How very Rovian. Since he is the left’s boogyman, they fear whatever he says so they will likely do the opposite of what he says to do...which means more of the same. :)


3 posted on 09/10/2008 10:46:26 PM PDT by smith288 (Maverick - Barracuda 08! Http://www.cafepress.com/smith288)
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To: Clairity

Rove’s taunting the Rock Star!


4 posted on 09/10/2008 10:47:11 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Clairity

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/09/10/barbara-kay-sarah-palin-a-feminist-revolution-without-the-feminists.aspx

How I wish I’d been the proverbial fly on the wall watching the changing expressions on Barack Obama’s face as Sarah Palin delivered her already-legendary speech at the Republican convention last Wednesday.

I imagine his pre-speech expression as alert, but relaxed paternalism, like a chief surgeon set to supervise a lowly resident’s clumsy initial attempt at an appendectomy. Then puzzlement as the surgeon realizes that he’s to be the patient, and finally horror as, strapped to the table and, before a nation of fascinated onlookers, he is subjected to ... a palinoscopy!

Oh, she got through to him all right. For eight months critics haven’t really laid more than glancing blows on Obama, because they were jabbing away at his exterior. Sarah got him right in the gut.

Humour is permitted entry to dark cavities closed to straight criticism, so Palin used steady-handed wit as her probe. As every comedian and experienced public speaker knows, failed on-stage humour is first cousin to death. Factor in the supreme importance of the occasion, an audience of 39 million voters, the greedy gaze of slavering media hyenas and the enormous additional risk of “dissing” an African-American saint: What we witnessed on that Minnesota stage, my friends, was an awesome demonstration of raw courage.

Palin’s mockery tickled Obama’s worrisome polyps of swollen self-regard (the “styrofoam pillars”), his history of words over action (”two memoirs, but no major bills”), his curious pattern of risk avoidance (unlike community organizers, mayors have “actual responsibilities”) and his tendency to solipsism(presidential journeys are not “voyages of personal discovery”).

Peggy Noonan, doyenne of American political-trends commentary, was galvanized by Palin’s performance: “It is starting to look to me like a nation-defining election ... This campaign is about to become: epic,” she wrote in the weekend Wall Street Journal.

I agree. But win or lose the election, Sarah Palin has already altered the cultural landscape of America, possibly of the Western world. In years to come, social archeologists will mark her speech as the official beginning of an end to the gender wars, and, one hopes, a return to trust and collaboration between the sexes.

Because Palin proved you don’t need the Sisterhood to pierce the glass ceiling. In her single calculated comment about women, she said, “This is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity.”

Got that? It wasn’t Gloria Steinem that put me on this podium. It was my made-in-small-town-America traditional social values combined with old-fashioned patriotism and Alaska-instilled pioneerism.

Palin isn’t “redefin[ing] the feminist ideal,” as Jonathan Kay put it yesterday in his column’s misguided paean to Palin as a kind of multi-function iFeminist for the postmodern woman. Ideologybased behaviour of any kind is irrelevant to Palin, and millions of other small-town women — and always was. Love of family, community, country — not conspiracy theories — is what guides their political compass.

The ultimate American individual, Palin wasn’t ever committed to any collectivity but America itself. She was never “I am Woman, hear me roar.” She was always, “I am Sarah, watch me act.” Palin represents what would have happened to American women without a feminist revolution. For legal and social equity for women was bound to arise organically through political and cultural reform, as more and more women entered university and the work force, a process well underway before feminism became an organized movement.

more.....


5 posted on 09/10/2008 10:48:08 PM PDT by roses of sharon (READ MY LIPSTICK!)
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To: nutmeg

bttt


6 posted on 09/10/2008 10:49:19 PM PDT by nutmeg (Imagine Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama... appointing US Supreme Court justices)
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To: Clairity

the liberals are even having strange dreams and fantasies about her.

http://www.slate.com/id/2199661/?from=rss


7 posted on 09/10/2008 10:50:46 PM PDT by ari-freedom (We never hide from history. We make history!)
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To: Clairity

Ever since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the VP nominee, Obama has said practically nothing about John McCain. That is TWO FULL WEEKS of dead time only 2 months before the presidential election.

In the meantime, Palin has been hammering Obama mercilessly and, BTW, said nothing about Joe Biden.

Whoever is running McCains campaign is doing a MASTERFUL job the past 2 weeks.

Rove nails the situation perfectly.


8 posted on 09/10/2008 10:51:18 PM PDT by Bryan24 (When in doubt, move to the right..........)
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To: Clairity
Obama is trapped. There's someone more popular than he is and the media for the first time in history went live with a vice presidential candidate's homecoming. Obama no longer has all the media attention.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

9 posted on 09/10/2008 10:54:58 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Clairity

Lets see... Obama vs. Palin.

Palin likes guns. Obama doesn’t like guns. Palin brings gun to fight, Obama brings knife.

Advantage: Palin.


10 posted on 09/10/2008 10:55:13 PM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free
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To: smith288

You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
11 posted on 09/10/2008 10:55:49 PM PDT by ari-freedom (We never hide from history. We make history!)
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To: Clairity

Yep

Sarah can do in the Midwest what Lyndon Johnson did for JFK in the south. Kind of run as the regional candidate and shovel in critical electoral college votes.


12 posted on 09/10/2008 10:56:35 PM PDT by se_ohio_young_conservative (Reagan conservatism is back ! .. Thank God for Sarah.)
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To: roses of sharon; All; Attention Surplus Disorder
palinoscopy!

Classic! Folklore and Urban Dictionary bump!

13 posted on 09/10/2008 10:56:41 PM PDT by Partisan Hack
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To: roses of sharon

“Got that? It wasn’t Gloria Steinem that put me on this podium. It was my made-in-small-town-America traditional social values combined with old-fashioned patriotism and Alaska-instilled pioneerism.”

And right there, you have the HEART of the visceral hatred for Sarah Palin by the liberals. She has C*R*U*S*H*E*D one of the main pillars of liberal orthodoxy, which is ‘Women can only achieve greatness through liberalism.’

She has rendered 40 years of ultra-liberal, feminists dogma as irrelevant. It is killing the liberals and they are lashing out in any way posible to tear down Sarah Palin.


14 posted on 09/10/2008 10:56:51 PM PDT by Bryan24 (When in doubt, move to the right..........)
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To: Clairity

“And Mr. Obama is not running his campaign’s day-to-day operation. His manager, David Plouffe, assisted by others, makes the decisions about the $335 million the campaign has spent. Even if Mr. Obama is his own campaign manager, does that qualify him for president?”

not only that but they are blowing money like crazy. All that $$$ on greek columns only for it to be used as a nice little zinger by Palin.


15 posted on 09/10/2008 11:00:07 PM PDT by ari-freedom (We never hide from history. We make history!)
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To: Bryan24
It is killing the liberals and they are lashing out in any way posible to tear down Sarah Palin

...without success.

16 posted on 09/10/2008 11:04:06 PM PDT by NoControllingLegalAuthority
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To: Clairity

It seems to me that as long as Palin, McCain and the Republican party stay the course, there is nothing Obama can do to stop his fall and ultimate political demise. I pray.....


17 posted on 09/10/2008 11:04:38 PM PDT by Gator113 (Drill here, drill now...... or die.)
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To: Bryan24

Very true. Sarah is the example that the feminists had said they wanted for women. Sarah has the professional career and the happy home and family life. She has it all. That’s what feminists had wanted.

I can’t believe that the National Organization for Women released a statement saying that Sarah isn’t strong on women’s issues, and that they don’t automatically endorse women running for any office. I can appreciate not automatically endorsing any woman running for any office, but certainly the NOW crowd should take note that for only the 2nd time in our history, a woman of a major political party is a vice-presidential candidate. That in and of itself should be a milestone worth noting in the history of women’s rights.

But I guess the NOW crowd only recognizes liberal women in their tracking of women’s progress.


18 posted on 09/10/2008 11:04:42 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Bryan24

they also can’t use the class warfare line against someone whose husband is a steel union member. Can’t say you love ANWR more than an Alaskan.

This is a very inspired pick on so many levels.


19 posted on 09/10/2008 11:06:29 PM PDT by ari-freedom (We never hide from history. We make history!)
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To: roses of sharon
Barbara Kay hit that one out of the park...and this is exactly what I say here to those looking for a fembot silver lining:

Got that? It wasn’t Gloria Steinem that put me on this podium. It was my made-in-small-town-America traditional social values combined with old-fashioned patriotism and Alaska-instilled pioneerism.

Just like Rush always sez....just put a real conservative out there.

20 posted on 09/10/2008 11:09:48 PM PDT by wardaddy (Obama/Pol Pot 2008)
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