Posted on 07/02/2009 9:30:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Sounds far-fetched and, to some, totally implausible. But the Republicans are losing potential candidates at a pace that is downright alarming if you believe in a healthy two-party system. The demise of John Ensign’s political career a few weeks ago and the surreal downfall of Mark Sanford last week is enough to send chills through the even the most optimistic Republican strategist. We know that of the 2008 crop, only Mitt Romney seems likely to stay on as a contender. The old stalwarts like Newt Gingrich may get a lot of press, but it is unlikely they can mount a real challenge to Obama in 2012. Yet, the presidential election of 2012 will be more than a simple coronation of Barack Obama if the economy stalls and there is no progress in two important areas: national security and healthcare.
Ballooning deficits and a sluggish economy could alter the mood of America by the time the 2010 mid-terms come up, giving hope to the GOP for the next presidential primary season. This is why Sarah Palin is maintaining a persistent media presence, whether it is debating David Letterman or being the biggest Republican draw on the lecture circuit. She clearly has her eyes set on the presidency.
The latest edition of Vanity Fair brings this possibility forward, though not in a favourable light. Journalist Todd Purdhom paints a picture of a woman with a narcissistic personality, who’s short on knowledge, disinterested in policy discussion, and not ready for primetime. In the end, the story says more about John McCain’s competence and character than it does about Palin, simply because he flubbed his most important decision as a presidential candidate. That said, Palin brought much needed energy to an otherwise lackluster campaign and, to this day, she energizes the base as no other candidate can. Could it be possible she may someday be a candidate for the presidency?
My experience tells me that no one should be written off in a hypothetical context. Barack Obama is proof positive of this. I still maintain that, without Bush, there is no Obama nomination. Palin is a street smart politician who has benefited from being underestimated most of her career. McCain’s disastrous choice may have been fatal to his electoral chances, but it brought Palin to the forefront of national attention. Since then, she has become a celebrity that transcends her party. However, if she is to be taken seriously and considered a viable contender, she needs to change the negative perceptions of her and develop a political profile that appeals to those outside her narrow base.
To do this, she must gradually reduce her exposure and begin to educate herself on the issues. She will not be ready for 2012 by remaining governor of Alaska and playing the celebrity. The GOP has too proud a tradition to have a re-run of the 2008 vice-presidential candidate. Also, the base Palin relies on for support no longer holds the sway it once did. Social conservatism is losing steam as a political movement thanks to the dubious habits of people like Gingrich, Ensign and Sanford, and the election of an African-American president as well as the increased attention paid to gay rights issues shows that Americans have begun to cast their old divisions aside. The future for the GOP lies with fiscal conservatism and strong national security policy—not with turning back the clock. Palin must embrace the values that created the Republican party in the first place—a belief in the individual, a belief in a limited role for the state, and a commitment to equality. The party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and (the pragmatic version of) Reagan is the path to a Republican resurgence. Palin is nowhere on that radar. She is all about celebrity status and controversy.
In the lead-up to July 4, Americans usually reflect on their great democracy. Overall, it is healthy and has shown resilience through the decades. But the Republicans have to become a viable alternative for this democracy to remain vibrant. So is Palin a real possibility for 2012 or 2016? Will she someday be a formal candidate for the presidency? Most definitely. But can she ever win? Based on what we have observed so far, I would say definitely not, though politics has been known to produce some strange developments.
I am not sure if they are the same person, a married couple, or what but gosh I haven’t seen such gushing since a WH Press Conference.
Good catch, her agenda is to take down Palin to elevate Thune, now when you hear the name John Thune just remember how deannadurbin conducted herself on this thread with everyone here and kept attacking Governor Palin in such a vile manner, the individual freepers may even remember how she spoke to them and associate that with Thunes image, she didn't make many friends here tonight but she sure introduced her guy in an unpleasant manner.
To: 2ndDivisionVet
I love Sarah personally but I don’t think she’d be able to beat Obama in 2012. I don’t think anyone of the big names like Huckabee or Romney or Jindal could either.
I think the Republican Party needs fresh conservative blood. It’s been so corrupted the last few years, leaving Reagan conservatism behind in many areas.
We need to fight fire with fire: we need a young, handsome, well spoken and articulate MAN, with a solid conservative record, a clean family life that the libs couldn’t poke fun at, and something intangible that people respond to, like a sense of humor.
I think the Republicans have a few people who could fit the bill and they should be grooming them right now, but quietly. Someone like John Thune could come from right field and impress both conservative Republicans and Reagan Democrats."
65 posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009 10:09:45 PM by deannadurbin
The ones where you claim she is DOA because she is ignorant, bitchy, a redneck, annoying, and dumber then a box of rocks.Please show me where I used any of those adjectives.
You know dang well that is basically what you were alluding to.
What else does “Woefully Unqualified” and “Grates on peoples nerves” mean to you LOL!
Here's an honest comment for you.
You're not debating Sarah Palin's qualifications for running for the office of President. You're simply hashing and re-hashing your opinions about her, which are 100% negative.
What exactly is the point of that? We got that you don't like her a couple of hundred posts back. That you've continued your tirade all throughout this thread speaks of an agenda, which places you under a cloud of suspicion.
And that's my honest comment to you.
Did I say woefully unqualified or “grates on peoples nerves”?
I don’t believe I said either.
I said that moderates and independents find her personality to be grating.
And the polling responses bear that out.
“She is all about celebrity status and controversy”
=== a classic example of the meathead myopia that passes for commentary, yet is nothing more than Freud’s concept of
“projection”. The Media, from the beginning, saw everything that was honest , direct and ethical about her as its opposite: “parading” her kids,especially the baby around in front of the public as a desperate plea for sympathy is just what a Liberal would’ve done, if that liberal hadn’t aborted that child in the first place.
I could go on for pages, but I just woke up my wife, and will have to go back to bed.
My thoughts exactly and I like her. I know plenty of Dems who would never vote for Palin, period. I also know plenty of Rep who still think she’s the problem with the party. If Palin can’t get the Republicans to vote for her then how is she to get the moderate Dems to vote for her so she has a chance of winning in 2012?It wasn’t her fault he lost, but the theory that she could attract enough votes to beat Barack 0bama was tested, and it failed. By nearly 10 million votes and 10 points, no less. If she was the only thing making John McCain competitive, she sure didn’t do a good job. They lost in acertified landslideseven-point race which was a lot closer before the banking disaster hit with a Republican sitting in the WH.Perhaps if the race had been close, then Palin supporters could have some credibility to their claims. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to being close. Either Palin can pull in the votes, or she can’t. People had to opportunity to choose her over 0bama, and they passed by the millions.
6 posted on 07/02/2009 9:36:46 PM PDT by counterpunch
She doesn’t have the tools to do this.
Poppycock. McCain was going nowhere until he selected Palin - and even after he nominated her, when he tried to campaign separately from her he couldn't draw flies. With or without McCain, Palin drew crowds. Name a prior example of a VP candidate doing that for a ticket!!It is no more complicated than this: Republicans can run strongly and even win landslides with conservatives who stake out defensible conservative positions and stand by them. Republicans who aren't conservative retreat from defensible conservative positions to indefensible "moderate" positions - and get cut to pieces. You give the electorate a clear choice, and you may win. You give them an echo of the Democratic position, and you stand next to no chance. Big Journalism was as hard on McCain - who until he had the Republican nomination in hand was the reporters' darling - in the general election as they were on Bush or Reagan. You can't run away from journalism, you have to run at them.
Ah yes... it’s just us “fringe extremists” who like her.
You’re right, I’m not debating her qualifications for running for office, I’m debating her ability to defeat Barack 0bama in a rematch.
You are trying to short circuit that discussion by making it about something else.
My “agenda” is pretty straight forward.
It is to present the historical evidence that a Palin/0bama rematch is political suicide to anyone who might think it is a good idea. If your agenda is to reelect Barack Hussein 0bama, Jr. in 2012, then it is a good strategy to run him against someone he’s already defeated as his opponent. You eliminate most of the unknowns in a situation that has proven to heavily favor your candidate. You can’t get much more of a sure thing than that.
It was rather ignorant of you to make that claim. In fact, every post you continue to make, further solidifies my suspicions. You are nothing more than a moderate Republican/Independent trying to masquerade as a Conservative.
Don't forget, there are many still here who helped establish this forum and have seen a wide variety of impostor and can easily tell the difference.
10 million votes is more than what separated Reagan and Carter or Bush and Dukakis. The popular vote percentage of the 2008 election is nearly identical to that of the 1988 election.
Would anyone have suggested running Lloyd Bensten against George H.W. Bush in 1992?
That would have been insanity.
“Did I say woefully unqualified or “grates on peoples nerves”?
I don’t believe I said either.”
People just don’t take her seriously.
They don’t like her personality.
They think she’s a lightweight.
In post 322 you stated;
She was like an “’annoying celebritie’”
In post 292 you stated;
“Sarah Palin’s personality grates on most people”
“People had to opportunity to choose her over 0bama, and they passed by the millions.”
I disagree that the choice people made was between Palin and 0bama. That masses were swept up in a sugar high of “hope and change” without a clue as to what they mean for the country at large. McCain at the head of the ticket was an absolute turn-off for millions of voters. The man had no vision other than not being 0bama. And frankly, any differences between his and 0bama’s positions on immigration and cap-and-trade are indistinguishable.
The “win theme” for Sarah will be a conservative vision for America — broad themes for a positive, hopeful future based on what individual Americans (not GOVERNMENT) can accomplish. Americans and even some liberals want to believe their country is the greatest in the world and Sarah can restore that Reaganesque pride if she chooses to do so.
You’ve got an odd way of analysing elections.
The election was a test of votes Palin could generate verses those 0bama could generate.
That’s how people actually voted when they went to the polls.
No one compartmentalizes an election the way you are suggesting. Supporters of a candidate come out to vote for that candidate. Everyone who wanted to vote for Sarah Palin did. Just like if there was some big Joe Biden fan out there, they would vote for his ticket.
Sarah Palin just didn’t have enough supporters in the end. Not more than 0bama had. He got more people out to the polls than she did. A lot more.
0bama’s supporters outnumbered Sarah Palin’s supporters. His supporters outnumbered Sarah Palin’s supporters and John McCain’s supporters combined. The two of them together couldn’t get enough people out to vote to overcome the number of people 0bama got out to vote. It has nothing to do with Sarah Palin being ‘defeated’ by Joe Biden of all things, and I never came anywhere near suggesting it did.
It was her (and McCain’s) supporters vs. 0bama’s supporters.
She came up short. The votes just weren’t there for her.
Your logic is pretty faulty. It isn’t about a VP costing a ticket the election. That’s not how elections work. It’s about that VP candidate not having enough supporters of their own help their ticket win.
Lloyd Bensten didn’t have enough supporters to help Michael Dukakis overcome George H.W. Bush’s supporters. Not even in Texas. Already knowing that Bensten supporters were outnumbered by Bush supporters, it would have been insane for the Democrats to nominate him in 1992, as his loss would have been a forgone conclusion, just as it was a forgone conclusion that Walter Mondale was going to lose 8 years earlier.
Mondale only got the nomination in 1984 because the Democrats didn’t want to sacrifice Gary Hart to the coming Reagan landslide. That’s why they threw a spent candidate at Reagan. Little did they know Hart would implode on the Monkey Business 4 years later.
“ut the Republicans are losing potential candidates at a pace that is downright alarming”
They’re losing supporters and voters, too. They seem to have become irrelevant.
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