Hello Carl...I've got some really great stuff to tell you about Sarah Palin....
Posted on 11/07/2008 6:20:56 AM PST by Leisler
Facing reporters the day after she and John McCain went down to defeat, Sarah Palin professed not to be thinking much about the next presidential election.
“2012 sounds so far off,” she said.
Of course, that’s exactly the kind of answer that any potential presidential candidate is supposed to give now and for the next two years or so – until the 2010 midterm elections signal the more formal start of the next White House campaign cycle.
And make no mistake: the race is very much underway, and it has been for some time. In fact, there’s already been a poll, conducted on Election Night by pollster Neil Newhouse. It found that among Republicans, 33 percent believe Mitt Romney should be the party’s new leader, with 20 percent choosing Mike Huckabee and 18 percent for Sarah Palin. (Granted, the poll wasn’t actually asking who should be the 2012 G.O.P. nominee, but it’s good enough for now.)
That’s probably a fairly accurate representation of the Republican race at this early stage.
Romney essentially began his 2012 campaign the instant he dropped out of this year’s contest. Instead of pulling the plug with a subdued press conference, Romney tried to use his withdrawal to curry favor with the party base, dramatically announcing at the February Conservative Political Action Conference that he didn’t want “to be a part of aiding a surrender to terror” by weakening John McCain any further.
Then, after months of bloodying McCain as a traitor to the conservative cause (even though Romney had defined himself in Massachusetts in opposition to the conservative wing of the G.O.P.), he abruptly threw himself into McCain’s effort in a transparent effort to win the No. 2 slot on the G.O.P. ticket – which would have given him a significant leg up in 2012 (or 2016, had he and McCain won). But the Romney-for-VP effort fell apart because of McCain’s lingering distaste for Romney and his spineless opportunism and because some conservative leaders in the party – whose minds were also on 2012 – aroused McCain’s suspicions by aggressively and publicly pushing against Romney’s competitors for the running-mate gig, most notably Joe Lieberman.
Still, even though he didn’t get his wish, Romney has emerged from the 2008 campaign as the early ’12 front-runner. He has solid support among the conservative base, though he struggled to connect with some religious conservatives because of his Mormon faith. But because of his corporate background and style, his youthful energy and his impressive communication skills, Romney has the ability to sell himself as a more mainstream (read: less threatening to moderates and independents) conservative than other candidates who pander to the Christian right. With this potential and the support and name recognition he already has in place, Romney is the clear G.O.P. leader.
That said, Romney dodged a big bullet these past few months, because his ’12 preeminence was initially jeopardized when McCain chose Palin as his running-mate. Palin immediately connected with the culturally conservative heart of the Republican Party, a subset of the Republican base (which also includes more traditional economic conservatives who don’t dabble in the kind of resentment politics that defines cultural conservatism). That bond was only reinforced during the fall campaign, with cultural conservatives rallying to Palin’s defense against what they convinced themselves was a concerted push by the liberal media to destroy her.
The threat to Romney was that Palin would expand on this intense base of support during the campaign, creating the kind of broad appeal for herself that Romney can still potentially achieve. Had she done that, she would have supplanted him as the ’12 front-runner.
She got off to a solid-looking start. A week after McCain picked her, Palin delivered a mesmerizing convention address in which she showed poise, polish and humor. In the week leading up to her speech, Americans had heard Democrats tirelessly raise questions about her experience, but her command performance set their concerns at ease. Polls in the wake of the G.O.P. convention found most independent voters buying into the Republican line that Palin was being unfairly singled out for criticism. They were warming up to her and she was a clear asset for McCain.
But she couldn’t keep it up. Instead, she spent the rest of the campaign systematically undoing all of the good she did for herself with that convention speech. The Sarah Palin that voters saw on the campaign trail this fall – and in interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric – confirmed to independent and mainstream Republican voters that Palin was in well over her head. By Election Day, she had become Tina Fey’s impersonation of her, and just 30 percent of voters believed she was qualified to serve as president.
Palin, therefore, emerges from this race as a tremendously polarizing figure. She retains a large and fanatical fan base among cultural conservatives – one that would make her a factor in any G.O.P. primary campaign, and a contender in some states, like Iowa. But she has also alienated much of her party and most independents; it is difficult to envision her assembling a winning coalition in a ’12 campaign for the G.O.P. nomination.
That leaves Romney sitting pretty (for now, anyway) and suggests that Palin might be a bigger threat to Huckabee, who dealt with the same kind of ceiling this spring that Palin now faces (virtually no appeal beyond religious and cultural conservatives). As of now, Palin and Huckabee will be scrapping over the same basic turf in ’12. Obviously, this would hurt both of them – and help Romney enormously.
But, as Palin said on Wednesday, 2012 is a long way off. She and Huckabee can both try to use the next few years to broaden their appeal. Huckabee has been hosting a late night variety show on the Fox News Channel for a few months now, and Palin could be in line for a television offer of her own at some point.
There will also be other candidates in ‘12, any of whom might emerge as the new front-runner, or at least alter the dynamics in a way favorable to Romney, Palin or Huckabee. Newt Gingrich, for instance, is plainly itching to run. A governor or two, along with a few senators or House members, will also inevitably toy with the race, and some of them will enter.
But for now, it can be said that Romney will get what he wanted the day he dropped out back in February: another shot at the nomination
Send Palin money....Lots of it.
Yep, that’s why I said I’m looking for some fresh faces over the same old lineup from 2008. Heck, as rotten as Bill Clinton was, I think I’d take him over BO too. Bill was an opportunist. BO is a true believer. Maybe I’m wrong, but the true believer scares me more.
Look on the bright side. 67% think he should NOT. ;)
Yes, it means 67% don’t want him.
The last thing we’re going to unify around is the notion that what really killed McCain was Sarah Palin.
Those “insiders” (I think many of them are previous Romney supporters who want to kill her and Bobby Jindal off because Romney wants to run in the next presidential race) blaming Palin for McCain’s loss are the very people who reneged on their promise (done-deal-negotiated) to allow O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly to interview her, choosing rather to set her up for interviews (to be “edited” later) with their friends and former working colleagues. Nicolle Wallace (a CBS news analyst until February 2008 when McCain hired her as his campaign adviser) kept her away from them in favor of her friend, Katie Couric, et.al.
Lots more on that score, here: http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2008/11/worthless-gop-campaign-hacks.html
And in addition, Ann Coulter wrote this:
“..Like Sarah Connor in “The Terminator,” Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That’s why the Democrats are trying to kill her. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is involved somehow, too.”
The Reign of Lame Falls Mainly on McCain
by Ann Coulter 11/05/2008 ET
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=29385
74.9% of FReepers said they would support him right before Super Tuesday. IOW, He passed the most conservaitve litmus test there is on the web. Sure it was after Fred and Duncan dropped out but a Bronze medal finish on FR is something to brag about.
The "rumors" are lies. The true sources like Nicolle Wallace were outed here on FR the week before the election. The Spectators source was CNN. Of course the RDS crowd tried to keep the lie going through the election. Their anti-Romney bashing served to keep the anti-Palin story alive and emphasized GOP divisions the last week of the race. The MSM played some FReepers like a fiddle hurting both Palin and Romney at the same time. by keeping the story alive the subject was not how good Palin was but how unprepared. By falsely crediting Romney they also premptively attacked him.
The same thing occurred during the primary with the anti Fred rumors. The MSM attributed them to a former Romney aide. Novak heard the rumor and repeated it. It turned out to be a former McCain staffer Mike Murphy. The MSM kept the lie alive as long as possible. The story had two effects. They could show how terrible Fred was and falsely attribute to Romney.
Hello Carl...I've got some really great stuff to tell you about Sarah Palin....
Cute. Do you have anything else to add?
Excellent observation! You hit the nail right on the head.
Mitt is/was a liberal, from a dying strain of Northeast, upper Mid-West, elite prep school liberal Republicans. Even GW bailed out on his father's brand. HW only got elected from the momentum of Reagan and covering his nature. Once exposed as a raising new taxes, bi-partisan, he couldn't beat Clinton.
Now, McCain, another bi-partisan, mish mash economic/liberal put the pillow to conservative enthusiasm. Can you imagine where he would be without Palin?
Real conservative Republicans and even conservative Democrats did well in this election.
Mitt has had one single uninspired term of a decaying, dying leftist state, of which except for Federally funded RomneyCare, he left no impact. None. Zero. Zip.
For Mormons only Mormon voters, their best chance is the more accessible, true conservative Jeff Flake. Mitt's day has come and gone as far as the Presidency is concerned. I do hope is excellent organization skills, true decency and patriotism will be used. There is plenty to do, and not enough people to do it. But I don't see Mitt as a ideological leader of non liberal Republicans.
Are you kidding? Swing voters don't care if some candidate has an "economic background." If they think the economy is good, they tend to vote for the incumbent. If they think it's bad, they tend to vote for the challenger. They couldn't care less about the qualifications of either one.
Good to see you are still there.
From this hatefest, one would think Romney had been the candidate and had lost.
This hatefest is what gave us McCain.
At least Romney would have been an articulate fighter.
You are right about the people not caring about qualifications though. If they were, Obamarx bin Biden would not have won.
Ok then. The GOP should name the latest American Idol winner as it’s nominee. Qualifications (including age and status of citizenship) be damned!
Let’s face it, even if this a$$*ole bombs out, he’ll still get re-elected. They will be blaming GWB for everything from the Hindenburg to the Challenger space shuttle up through today and tomorrow. Hence my tagline.
When is Willard going to get the message that the base of the Republican party is never going to accept him as a Presidential candidate?
No need to add anything else. Romney and his people are trying to take out Sarah before she has a chance to regroup and solidify the base around her. Romney can go pi$$ up a rope!
State your proof. I haven’t seen any.
It seems to me you are doing to Romney just what you accuse him of doing to Sarah.
I’m reading this thread and get the impression I am looking in on a “Jim Jones” rally drinking in their “kool aid” of rumor, narrow mindedness and hate.
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