Posted on 12/01/2008 8:24:37 PM PST by fkabuckeyesrule
7 p.m.: Walked out of the Gwinnett auditorium with Tom Baxter, late of this page, who made this observation: That the thousands who attended the Sarah Palin/Saxby Chambliss rally were the most down-scale crowd he’s seen at a GOP event this year.
In other words, these were white, young blue-collar newcomers to the process.
“They’ve got no money,” Baxter noted. Three weeks ago, the Chambliss rally that featured John McCain in Cobb County drew a smaller and substantially different crowd — still white, but older and in business suits.
At the end of the 35-mile drive back to Atlanta, the Jim Martin rally at the state Capitol — featuring U.S. Rep. John Lewis and hip-hop star Ludacris — was just shutting down. Not as large a crowd as the Palin event, but close to a thousand, who gathered in the open on a cold, blustery night. So not a bad showing.
An emphasis on youth was the one thing both events had in common on Monday. We’ll see which side turns out.
4:50 p.m.: The biggest applause lines so far for Sarah Palin have been on abortion and the Second Amendment. She spoke about the remaking of the Republican party.
“”We recognize there was frustration, disappointment by the electorate,” Palin said. Palin promised a GOP that was both conservative and oriented to the American working class.
She just finished, with everyone again standing. All in all, the speech was very similar to the one she gave this morning. Palin goes from here to the National Governors Association meeting in Philadelphia, where the agenda includes a meeting with President-elect Barack Obama.
4:35 p.m.: Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and former GOP nominee for vice president, just got an extended standing ovation from a crowd of several thousand in the Gwinnett Center.
Palin said re-electing Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, and denying Democrats a 60th vote in the Senate, was essential to “maintaining the checks and balances needed for our democracy.”
She mentioned that she had been here once before — a politician always likes to say, “It’s good to be back” — when her oldest son graduated from boot camp at Fort Benning. “Georgia, you took care of my boy, now he’s taking care of you,” she said.
On Chambliss: “Saxby’s not going to be an easy yes vote, but he’s not going to be an automatic no vote,” Palin said.
4:25 p.m.: The preacher has given the invocation. Among the gathering’s sins, he proclaims, is the “political correctness” to which many Americans have succumbed.
“We have broken your laws and called it tolerance,” he said. The preacher thanked God for the nation’s biblical foundations, and for the refusal by some to “to bow to modern idols.”
State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine led the Pledge of Allegiance. U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson is introducing Saxby Chambliss now.
Chambliss campaign people say 20,000 people have seen Sarah Palin — who hasn’t appeared yet — during the day. Chambliss’ re-election is necessary, Isakson said, “to stop a runaway train.”
4:10 p.m.: Still waiting on Sarah Palin and Saxby Chambliss. But close to 60 people have been standing on the dais waiting for 40 minutes or so. It’s very clear that Georgia’s Republican leadership doesn’t mind being seen with her. Quite the opposite.
You may think that strange, but quite a few Georgia Republicans were more than cautious when it came to being seen with John McCain. Even last month, after he lost.
3:46 p.m.: Just so you realize that very little is impromptu in any campaign, the Insider just spotted an aide passing out a hand-painted “Palin-Chambliss 2012” sign.
This event isn’t far from Ralph Reed’s office in Duluth. He’s here, too. Along with many state lawmakers from Cobb, north Fulton and Gwinnett counties, too. And Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren.
More hand-crafted signs. “Read my lipstick. Vote Sax.” No porcine references.
3:35 p.m.: Runoff? What runoff?
Oh, the Saxby Chambliss signs are plentiful, but it’s clear even before you walk in that this is a Sarah Palin for President event, four years ahead of its time.
Several thousand people are already here at the Gwinnett Center, a majority grouped in front into one large mosh pit.
A decidedly younger crowd than Republicans usually draw to the events like this, and the music is less twangy as well. More rock than country, and many young ladies with tiaras and beauty contest ribbons.
A Chambliss spokeswoman says the press will have to be satisfied with the stump speech that the governor of Alaska will give here — no separate press availability, where news is more likely to be made.
Three previous speeches — in Augusta, Savannah and Perry — have all been similar. The main theme that Palin has used thus far: That the national GOP needs to be rebuilt, and this is the place to start.
Dozens of people are now packing the stage.
Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, a Public Service Commission candidate also in tomorrow’s runoff, has positioned himself so that any straight-on camera that captures Palin will include him in the background.
Interesting analysis. I have always thought something similar, and it explains why the left and the upper economic classes are so fanatically pro-abortion. Abortion is somewhat like a sacrament of initiation to the left and the upper classes: it is a sign of belonging to their group.
The GOP in general did poorly with Hispanics and took a terrible approach.
First of all, Hispanics are NOT all illegals, and treating them this way did nothing but alienate them and make them feel they would never be considered real Americans by the GOP. Don’t forget, the people the GOP should have reached out to were voting Hispanics, who were therefore legal immigrants or even second or third generation Americans but still living in largely Hispanic areas. Many of these people do not even speak Spanish anymore, or at any rate, not more than a few words to keep the abuelita (grandmother) happy.
They represent a larger minority than blacks, who will never be weaned away from the Dems, and they could have been instrumental in a GOP win. But I think some of the negative rhetoric used by GOP candidates - not McCain, who said virtually nothing - was so toxic that it’s going to be hard to win them now.
She will have an easier time of it because who believes anything the media say any more?
It’s actually now 59.4m, only 2.6m less than Bush in 2004 (Wikipedia)
I didnt know the GOP was alienating the hispanics sounds like they were bending over frontwards to make new citizens. Probably half the hispanic voter might have taken the conservatives stance against illegals as racist and probably the other half wanted the illegals to follow the rules, wait your turn like everyone else. quite frankly I dont care if we lose half of them.
Sarah Palin represents good ol' fashioned social and fiscal retro-conservatism, not the pseudo-liberal "compassionate conservatism" or any other designer flavor, but the real deal. What her candidacy revealed was the national hunger for the real deal retro-conservatism and it was very satisfying to see how strong that hunger is.
I hope that conservatives are emboldened by that hunger and the response Sarah Palin received and that others like her come forward. The contrast between McCain and Palin and the Rinos'absolute butt kicking defeats should be proof enough where the heart and soul of the country lives and breathes. Retro-conservatism wins when it is on the ballot.
“But I think some of the negative rhetoric used by GOP candidates - not McCain, who said virtually nothing - was so toxic that it’s going to be hard to win them now.”
As I recall, practically all the negative rhetoric used by GOP candidates was directed explicitly toward illegal immigration. However, the left, and some in the GOP cried
xenophobe and racist every time conservatives criticized illegal immigration. That is what was toxic.
If they were bending over frontwards to make new citizens, they sure did it quietly enough. We have excellent Hispanic citizens here and we could actually stand more.
One thing that you neglect is the fact that not all illegal immigration is Hispanic. In NYC, the majority of illegals for a long time were the Irish; now it may be Poles and Russians. On the West Coast, there are huge numbers of illegal Chinese and other Asian immigrants. Some parts of the MidWest have large numbers of African illegal immigrants.
The only thing the GOP seems to be bothered by, however, is Hispanic illegal immigrants. I’d take the concern about illegal immigration more seriously if they occasionally addressed some of the very real problems caused by these other groups, the health care and welfare costs they generate, and the crime and security risk they pose. But the only illegals the GOP seems to fixate on are Latin Americans.
She can’t say it yet...to close to the recent election... but she knows that McCain disappointed BOTH social and fiscal conservatives.
He did not offer his own tax cut plan.
He did not feature issues like life, abortion, marriage, guns, self-defense, judges, etc.
I’d really like to see Sarah reading (and governing) from the same playbook that such heroes as Margaret Thatcher,Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan used. After her return to AK, I suggested as much to her in my “Thank You” email to her.She would be a force to be reckoned with,and that’s putting it mildly. We will see a much smarter,much stronger Sarah in 2012,and all I can say is, look out leftists!!!
There's the Republican mindset in a nutshell.
To paraphrase Richard Pryor,
"Don't go messin' with them Republicans if you ain't got no MONEY!"
One way that we conservatives can assure more of the hispanic vote is to make a point of working from now until 2012 to “convert” every legal hispanic family that we know to the conservative side. Educate them to the facts of political life and how their best interest is with the GOP. We have got to stop being afraid to push for our ideals.
Yesterday we were talking about GOP turnout, voter #s and the like. See Reply No. 23 above for an interesting analysis and cause for hope...
You made a lot of good points. Just by registering new voters in IN,NC,FL and NV we would have won 50 EVs more. In OH, the conservatists just sat on their butts. I don’t think, the black and latino voters will turn out in great numbers for Obama in 2012. They will soon find out that Obama is only 50% black. Once, they find out that Obama just used them to get elected, things might get ugly. Those brothas and sistahs just won’t sit home in 2012. They will come out in droves and get him out of the office. Meanwhile, Palin has to just pound each and every battleground state and appeal to the young and conservative voters.
well, just about everyone has “but for x they would have won”.
McCain had many of the same things though. Horrible economy? check poor natl security(in form of 65%+ against Iraq War)? check Watergate albatross? I’ll see you that and raise you 75% unpopular W and 90% wrong track poll numbers add on being outspent by close to 300M dollars. add on the black/hispanic vote being its highest ever and the white vote being it’s lowest ever. add on any number of loads of other factors.
historically though, holding 95% of the votes from the prior election, in a year where a party loses the WH, has been clobbered in 2 straight congressional elections losing 13 Senate Seats and 60 house seats, when youre outspent by 300M and outadvertised by an unprecedented margin, and especially under all the other bad circumstancds McCain was facing, was a pretty good showing all things considered.
I’ll always wonder what would have happened if 9/15-9/22 hadnt happened and Lehman, AIG, Fannie/Freddie never collapsed all in a row. I think we could very well have won an extremely close election. The economy was the final nail. Unprecedentedly bad economic news for 6 straight weeks right before the vote.
4-5X Bush over Kerry? Bush won by 3M votes. Obama by around 8M at my last count. That’s like 2.5X the margin, not 5.
I wouldnt exactly say a # of southern states. Id say 2, VA and NC, and NC was actually around 50-50 if you look at the total. FL isn’t really a southern state in my book. Clinton won in 96 and it was basically a tie in 2000(which Gore would have won comfortably if not for the whole Elian Gonzales thing which shattered him among the Cuban vote. Also you had the Jeb Bush factor). Not exactly a GOP stronghold. In NC Obama won by around 14,000 out of more than 2,000,000 cast while having a dem winning the gov race big and Dole getting clobbered, McCain outperformed both Dole and the rep Gov by quite a bit. But VA and NC are becoming less “southern”. In 2005 they had 4 Rep Senators, now they have 1. Both have dem governors. Other states like SC, GA, AL, MS, LA ALL have rep governors and 9/10 senators are rep. VA in particular seems to be trending away. I think McCain wins NC comfortably if the economy hadnt collapsed in Sept, although Obama’s massive spending played a big role there.
As for the fembot thing, I think she does get that as she doesnt really bring it up unless asked directly. Although she clearly seems to have a soft spot for title 9. And I have to be honest, I have way bigger issues than that at the moment.
Our local Atlanta political go-to guy (who is usually very astute) said this a.m. that unless Martin gets out every left wing voter in the state, Chambliss wins big.
So we know at least around 60M see through the Obama facade. At least 60M didnt buy the media spin and the hype machine. Thats’s a good place to start from. It’s not like we got 30M and are hopelessly behind or something like that.
That’s the 2nd highest GOP vote total of all time. I know it doesn’t mean much because it was a loss, but I still think that counts for something and is something to be proud of.
From a Palin-specific POV, that means close to 60M already thought she was ok as President now. With 4 more years of experience that will likely only rise. Also, 60M and 22 states voted for a woman on the ticket, compared with 37M and 1 state who voted for Ferraro. That’s a big step forward in that regard. Add on the 18M votes Clinton got and the states she won in the primaries(and the fact she would have beaten McCain just as easily as Obama did) and I think this year clearly showed that a woman President, like a black president is no longer a pipe dream.
Compared to the previous 220 years where the WH has been the sole province of white guys, the performance of women and the black guy this year I think will ultimately be seen as a good thing.
But just look at the raw facts. Given all that happened, is it really so shocking McCain lost votes from Bush in 2004? No. What’s shocking is that he held as many as he did.
Just for comparison, LBJ got 47M votes in 1964. The dems imploded to 34M in 1968 and 27M under McGovern in 1972. They lost close to 50% of their support in 8 years! Even though McCain lost from Bush in 04, he still got around 10M more than Bush got in 2000. It took the dems to Clinton in 96 to match the 47M(32 years) from 64 and to Gore in 2000(36 years) to exceed it. That’s a slide.
Simple: Palin will not run again.
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