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

[SoCalPol]

The same type of people who are against the Iraq War
are the same type who didn’t think we should have fought
Hitler.

This goes especially for the Third Party loons who share the same views with the Marxist code Pinkos.

I have delt face to face with both kinds and they have the same propaganda line.

[TChris]

It’s blindingly obvious that the vast majority of Obama voters agree with the The FourthMagi.

Yup.

Good company to be in, eh FourthMagi?

Heck with the truth, go with the Dem flow.

[TheFourthMagi]

Wrong again.

[TheFourthMagi]

The majority of Americans period agree that the Iraq War never should have happened.

Their votes reflected that agreement last November.

Those are two facts that you conveniently neglect to mention.

[saminfl]

The majority of Americans period agree that the Iraq War never should have happened.

Same as the Vietnam war. They were also wrong then. The Drive-bys convinced the majority we were losing.

[TChris]

Those are two facts that you conveniently neglect to mention.

You and others have already mentioned those facts. What a media push-poll concludes is beneath irrelevant.

The facts I'm referring to are the core facts of our involvement in the War. You and the (purported) majority of Americans (according to liberal polls) have ignored or forgotten those critical facts. The whimsical tide of public opinion cannot alter them.

It was not foolish to eliminate Saddam. It was not foolish to go to war against terrorists, and to do so in THEIR back yard instead of OURS. It is not foolish to continue until we have won.

Those are the facts.

[snowrip]

Go back to getting your news from ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBC, DUmmy.

That, and you should change your homepage. This is a political forum, not the Personals section of the Seattle Post.

I’m done with you.

[TheFourthMagi]

If all that boils down to that you're going to stop posting to me...

...THANKS!

[FlashBack]

Gov.Palin has certainly got it going! I voted for her in ‘08 and at this point she’s my choice for ‘12 as well.

[smoothsailing]

Thanks for the backup.

My pleasure, though you hardly needed it! :)

[smoothsailing]

They're the "Seminar Callers" of Free Republic.

That fits perfectly, we've got our share of them.

[snowrip]

Thanks! Some newbies never let facts get in the way of a good irrational delusion.

[smoothsailing]

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.

I do support the Iraq War, it was and remains a noble and necessary endeavor. Others here have explained the logic of it to you already.

On the matter of so-called "trickle down" economics, I don't support that , as no such thing exists. It is, however, an invention of the political left that is employed to perpetuate their class warfare template. The uninformed and illinformed fall for it, even use the term, and that explains in no small part, Obama's election.

Here's a little something that might be of help to you,TFM, in understanding the trickle down lie:

One common strawman argument routinely employed by the Left is to assert that, "Trickle-Down" economics was a failure. Barack Obama even used this polemic against John McCain in the most recent campaign without a persuasive rebuttal from the Maverick. The fact that Barack Obama's argument is so intellectually bankrupt makes it a travesty that few Republicans know how to respond to it.

Well, below I have outlined a guaranteed way to destroy any Democrat in a debate on this issue.

Step #1) When your Democratic friend tells you that "Trickle-Down" economics failed, ask your friend to quote one Republican politician in history who ran on "Trickle-Down" economics, or argued for an economic policy where wealth "Trickled-Down" from the rich to the poor;

Step #2) When your friend responds with "Ronald Reagan," ask again for a quote where Reagan ran on "Trickle-Down" economics. When your friend concedes that Reagan supported supply-side tax cuts and no Republican ever advocated "Trickle-Down" economics, proceed to Step #3;

Step #3) Your friend will now claim that supply-side tax cuts are the equivalent to "Trickle-Down" economics. Proceed by asking him to cite one business in the history of Capitalism where the owner takes his or her profits before the employee. Explain to your friend that all employees are a business expense, and therefore get paid before the owner makes a single penny. Moreover, this does not even guarantee that the owner makes a profit at all;

Step #4) Explain to your friend that all profits trickle up from the employees to the owner, and therefore large profits are simply evidence that all workers have received their agreed upon paycheck. The absence of, or decrease in, profits means that some workers are likely to get laid off;

Step #5) Then explain to your friend that since the bottom 40% of Americans pay zero income taxes because they get all their deductions back, it is impossible to give anyone other than "the rich" an income tax cut;

Step #6) Your friend at this point will argue that the bottom 40% pay payroll taxes, to which you respond that the Republican Party advocated a payroll tax holiday to get out of this economic crisis and the Democrats rejected that idea;

Step #7) After declaring victory, ask your friend why he supports the Party that is against profits and cutting payroll taxes?

For more economic rebuttals, read Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics 3rd Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

From "a Trickle Down Economics Rebuttal"

[TheFourthMagi]

I didn’t say that you weren’t selling it; I said that the majority of Americans aren’t buying it.

[Katarina]

GREAT article thank you so much.

[Piers-the-Ploughman]

agreed, wars that last longer than a few months are never election winners unless there is some immediate direct threat the the US. The Afghanistan war is one thing, to get BinLaden, but Iraq should have bombed to the stone age or other limited action. Conservatives correctly chided Clinton for nation building in Haiti but this 6 year war is OK?
we need to spend political capital on US.

Liberals on SCOTUS have done more damage to this country by far than the Muslims.

[TheFourthMagi]

When X amount of political capital exists, it can be spent at home or abroad. Republicans spent it on the Iraq War, pouring all the goodwill they once had out on the desert sands of Iraq.

It should have been spent at home: on social issues, privatization, border security, improving the economy, and such. If those things had been the focus, McCain would not have been the GOP nominee and Obama would not be President.

[smoothsailing]

Thanks Katarina, I appreciate it. I just checked and the thread and article have had 1,841+ views. I’m glad so many folks took the time to check it out. Sarah Palin is quite a woman.