Sarah Palin, the 21st Century 'It' Girl

American Thinker ^ | 6-15-09 | Jay Valentine - OP/ED

[smoothsailing]

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June 15, 2009

Sarah Palin, the 21st Century 'It' Girl

By Jay Valentine

The best and the brightest on the left go into politics.  The best on the right run their own businesses.  So it is no surprise that the left is far more adept, even expert at the art of hardball politics.  And they are telling us something profound.

The left is telling us something many feel, many find as a hunch, that Sarah Palin is the most dangerous threat to the Obama administration with no close second.  The left is telling us this by their  "over the top" attacks.  Not just the Letterman assaults, but the constant barrage of grievances filed against her in Alaska.  The attacks every day on Palin for no apparent reason -- except that the left seems to see her quite differently from any Republican candidate.  A difference of kind, not of degree.

They would never do this to Romney, Huckabee or Newt, at least not to this level.  There is a clear reason -- these guys couldn't fill up a high school stadium unless they were giving out free beer.

What is the Sarah difference?  Well, it's not the issues, at least that is not all of it.  It is the charisma factor.  Charisma is not learned, it is innate.  One is born with it and no amount of training can inject it.  Jack Kennedy had it.  So did Reagan.  Now Obama.  Out of the thousands of politicians who have come and gone over the last generation, not one other person has shown "it."

Money is no longer the life blood of politics.  Charisma is.  Charisma can raise money overnight; money far beyond what a tired, inarticulate incumbent can raise from rich donors.

When you have "it," the conventional rules no longer apply.  Reagan was vilified in 1976 and few thought he could ever be president.  No matter how the liberals berated him as a "dumb actor" who made chimp movies and the actor who never got the girl, he just looked the American people in the eye, gave them a dose of common sense and it was over.  Carter went on to build low income houses and a life of obscurity punctuated by mischief.

The street fighting, world class, lifelong political experts of the left see "it" and it makes them crazy.  They went crazy for Obama; they are going crazy for Palin, although in the other direction.

Palin could fill a stadium if she were reciting a cookbook.  But she isn't.  She is delivering common sense to an electorate that is becoming ever more jaded every day with the Obama nonsense.  Miranda rights for terrorists?  $4 trillion deficit? 

Look at the blow she delivered with one phrase about "styrofoam columns" and imagine what she can do with the material Obama has recently given her.

Opposing Palin's values has no payoff for the left.  They oppose those values for any conservative.  They have to destroy her.  And that is her power because they can't destroy her. 

Whenever she chooses, she will take her first trip to Iowa to campaign for some obscure congressional candidate, and when she does, the liberal media cannot ignore the screaming crowds.  And they will not be crowds manufactured by an advance team.  They will be fired up mothers, working people who do not want to pay for deadbeats' mortgages, people who are now going to grass roots tea parties.

The television age gives "it," charisma, more power than ever before.  Charisma is magnified through television.  How else to explain how a 2 year senator few knew could derail Hillary in a few months.  How else to explain how an anti-charisma John McCain, someone television does not flatter or magnify, saw his crowds surge when Palin was next to him.  Palin, an obscure, unknown governor of our most distant and most unknown state, walked onto the national stage and ignited a burst of energy that may well have taken McCain over the top, until his Queeg-like pausing of his campaign to work on a financial crisis and then vote for a bailout.

The landscape is now quite different.  There are tens of millions of people who never voted for Obama, telling their friends "don't blame me."  There is a growing number who did vote for Obama who have lost their jobs at car dealerships, who have not found work yet even after the massive spending, and there are those who just say "...this is not the change I had in mind."

Some thought McCain would be the anti-charisma candidate against the charisma candidate and that would work.  Now we may be lining up for the common sense charisma campaign against the nonsense charisma.

The left is telling us something and they are the experts.  They are telling us not to make Palin the conservative candidate because if we do, it will be humiliating.  I agree with them and I take them at their word. 

It will be the undoing of Obama, and it may be overwhelming.

Jay Valentine blogs at jayvalentine.com.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/sarah_palin_the_21st_century_i.html at June 15, 2009 - 01:24:27 AM EDT

[ponygirl]

Who else on the right does the left go after with such mouth frothing intensity, other than Sarah Palin?

Any black American who has the gall to call themselves a Republican is attacked with a viciousness that is stunning. So a Michael Steele (who has now bent over to them to try and deflect some of the viciousness) or a Lynn Swann will get both barrels.

Other than that, there is no one the left hates more than Rush Limbaugh. Sarah is a close second. The reaction of the Left to either of them is like throwing water on the Wicked Witch.

[GBA]

Sarah Palin may or may not be the one to run in 2012, but for now, no one else is even close. And the more she is attacked by Letterman and others, especially since the election she was a part of is long over, the more I want to be a part of standing with her.

The attacks on her and her family are the same kind of crap I saw in grade school through high school by the same type of pussies who delighted in antagonizing kids younger or smaller or less popular than them that are doing it now. It pissed me off then and it really pisses me off now.

[Vigilanteman]

Correction to my previous post:

Obummer didn't even crack 41%.

[CedarDave]

Saw just a bit of Meet the Press repeat on MSNBC before bed last night. Had two RINO’s on - one Joe Scarborough and the other a Pubbie “strategist” (name Mcluskey or something like that). They said the GOP was going to be out in the cold for many years because the demographics have changed due to Hispanics. The party had to realize that, drop social conservatism, become more moderate, blah, blah, blah. Jumped all over Palin for her tiff with Letterman saying its a fight she shouldn’t have made, etc.

They are all so clueless in DC.

[ken21]

bump.

[Clyde5445]

Palin Ping- I already posted it.

June 15, 2009

Face of a GOP Serious About Good Policy? How About Sarah Palin

[AUH2O Repub]

We need to purge the party of RINOs now, before the 2010 elections. Sarah can campaign for the true conservative candidates and show how much clout she really has. She WILL be President in 2012 when she beats the Obomination with at least 60% of the vote.

[TheFourthMagi]

Most Americans want the Iraq War over, period.

And most wish that it had never begun.

Foolishness is what started the war.

And it, along with the poor economy, put Obama into office.

That is quite the price to pay.

[TheFourthMagi]

Sarah can draw tons of people.

Beyond that, what specific positions does she advocate?

[TChris]

Foolishness is what started the war.

Odd.... I thought it was a madman in the Middle-East who was giving the world the finger after they had tried to contain him.

...oh, and that little 9/11 thingie with the airplanes might have played into it a bit as well.

Foolishness? You have a genuine gift for ignoring the elephant in the room, FRiend.

Once your enemy has begun the war without you, it is wise to join the fight quickly and see it through to the end.

[Kandy Atz]

Palin could fill a stadium if she were reciting a cookbook.

That was too funny and true. And I bet she would not need a telepromopter.

Her appeal for me came before her nomination as a reformer who returned tax money to Alaskans and championed drilling in her state. To my knowledge, she is the only candidate that understands that we CAN drill our way out of energy dependence. Allowing the private sector to drill and extract our natural resources is a winning stimulus plan that creates real "SHOVEL READY" jobs that don't cost taxpayers a dime.

[snowrip]

Most Americans want the Iraq War over, period.

You sound like a liberal media commentator. If you're trying to make the point that most Americans want the war over regardless of the outcome, you're also painfully wrong. Perhaps you could link some statistics that prove your point?

Foolishness is what started the war.

Silly me. I thought it was intelligence from six different countries, combined with Iraq breaking 17 different UN resolutions plus their cease-fire agreement, coupled with the reports issued by Saddam Hussein himself. Of course, I may just be one of those stooges who believes the three independent investigations that cleared the White House of "cherrypicking" intelligence; however, I prefer to subscribe to the fact that the Senate Select Committee on Intellegence picked the intel that was presented to the President, because that is their role.

Next you're going to tell me that it was all for oil, right? And that 9-11 was an inside job. And that we've killed over 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 civilians.

Save it for DU.

[Vigilanteman]

She is fiscally conservative as evidenced by her management of the State of Alaska. She is strong on national defense and respectful of social conservatives. I'm sure at some point, if she decides to run, she will be putting out a website offering all of her policy positions just like Obummer did. The difference is that hers will be actually factual and credible.

What more do you want?

[smoothsailing]

TFM, a highly reliable (Sarc) CBS Poll apparently agrees with you. Congratulations.

It would be interesting to know how many from each group(R,D,I) were polled. One thing CBS couldn’t hide was the wide disparity between R’s and D’s. It’s blindingly obvious that the vast majority of Obama voters agree with the The FourthMagi.

.......................................................................
CBS News Poll. March 12-16, 2009. N=1,142 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).

.

“Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the U.S. have stayed out?”

.

% ......... ....... Right Thing .......... Stayed Out ......... Unsure

ALL ................. 40 ........ .......... 55 .................. 5
Republicans ........ 79 .......... ........ 18 ............. 3
Democrats .......... 17 ..... .......... 79 .................... 4
Independents ......... 39 .... .......... 55 ................. 6

[snowrip]

Thanks for the backup.

I can’t imagine that SeeBS would ever stack a poll to achieve a desired result, not in a million years./s

[TheFourthMagi]

You are holding a conversation with yourself, making up stuff and then rebutting what you made up.

[TheFourthMagi]

It is highly obvious that objections to the Iraq War, along with objections to trickle-down economics, are what put Obama into office.

I oppose both of those things, whereas you support the Iraq War and presumably trickle-down economics too.

Thus, it is your stances in those areas, and the Republican embrace of those stances, which handed the country to Obama.