Can't touch this....
Posted on 07/09/2009 3:58:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
Does it make any sense, what Sarah Palin has done?
Little that is happening these days seems to make much sense, particularly regarding the Republicans.
But I mean, just up and resigning as governor of Alaska? All the experts say it's the wrong thing to do. That it sends the wrong message - giving up on the only statewide elected post she's ever held. That it confirms she really is the ditz they have suggested since John McCain vaulted her to fame.
A couple of points. First, the political landscape stands dramatically changed from just a year ago - and the media landscape along with it. So, second, it's a landscape regarding which there are no experts. So, third, who's to say Sarah Palin is any more ditzy than the self-styled experts?
Then why would she quit before fulfilling her contract to precisely the Alaskans she says she is quitting to serve better?
Three possibilities. 1) She is a true outsider, as opposed to the ersatz ones most politicians claim to be. 2) She views the unconscionable assaults on her and her family as greatly damaging and beyond the pale, and has concluded her time in politics is up - that, for her, the political game is over. 3) She worries deeply about the future of the country, views the Republican Party as in collapse (Mark Sanford flaming out with an Argentine bar dancer), and - on this new political landscape - sees herself as a possible flag around which Republicans, conservatives and moderates can rally.
Well, what Mark Sanford did with Maria Belen Chapur wasn't so bad as lying about it. And sex hasn't proven fatal to a lot of pols - from Thomas Jefferson to John Kennedy to Bill Clinton. It didn't spell the end for Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gingrich either.
But it did finish off Gary Hart, who in 1987 dared the press to track him, which it did - all the way to the yacht Monkey Business and the spicy blonde Donna Rice. And it finished Eliot Spitzer and too many forgotten pols to count.
So Sanford should have resigned, and Sarah Palin shouldn't have?
About Sanford, probably. About Palin, hard to say. Still, it's difficult to escape the conclusion that many of the comments about her resignation from those who fear her or wish her ill betray a sexism infusing the left. It's a leftist axiom that good-looking conservative women have the intelligence of a bag of hammers. Of course, a corollary holds that the uniformly left-leaning damsels of Hollywood were born uniformly brilliant - theirs being the brilliance of ideological congeniality.
I don't see what all that has to do with Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska, and the Republicans, and what you call this new political landscape.
Okay.
Retrospectively, the Obama election may have been truly revolutionary in many ways - more so than the election of Ronald Reagan. Demographics are running strongly in the liberals' and Democrats' favor. The Obama White House insists on overseeing next year's Census, with agents from ACORN, thereby to redraw the political map even more lopsidedly in favor of the left.
With the Republican Party increasingly leaderless and seemingly on a descent into the maelstrom, the conservative/moderate remnant may require a galvanic force. A leader. An opposition on the British model, the sort of opposition rarely seen in America - if ever.
There's Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. And Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. And Governor, maybe soon a senator, Charlie Crist of Florida. And Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. And there's always former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and former governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.
Sarah Palin may see them as failing or flawed. And with the ethics process in Alaska having been turned against her for partisan/ideological purposes, and proving crippling financially, and a disabling distraction, she may have decided that if she is even to try to serve as a catalytic agent for conservatives and moderates nationwide, she has to devote her energies to that task full-time.
It won't be easy. And does she have the gravitas, the intellectual heft?
They - the nameless "they" who rule the world - said Ronald Reagan was just a B movie actor lacking gravitas and heft, too. What's more, it's a new landscape and a game perhaps never played before. And heaven knows, conservatives and moderates - the Republican remnant - need someone. Someone to start saying....
That government under the Obama administration is the nation's primary growth industry. That the more power government accrues, the more government fails. That deficits and taxes destroy productivity and innovation. That energy independence - including nuclear power - is as important for the United States as it is (as Obama notes repeatedly) for Iran. That one of the two most important things a government must do is stabilize the currency.
That socialized medicine and cap-and-trade are the wrong ways to go. That having Hawaii or Alaska or Des Moines targeted by North Korean nuclear missiles is unacceptable. That joining the Fidelista-Chavista chorus regarding Honduras is idiocy. That Islamo-jihadists still are warring against us - and the other crucial thing the government must do is defend the citizenry.
So is Sarah the one to say such things?
We may be about to find out.
She’s *our* bag of hammers dang it!
I’m thinking the “experts” are about to get beaten with a bag of hammers.
Ross Mackenzie fails to rise to the intellectual level of a bag of hammers. His 3 options for why she resigned do not encompass the actual reasoning she cited, therefore he must consider her a liar.
It’s all the same - this guy is trying to shade his commentary more toward the neutral (with some success), but he makes a basic assumption that is unsupported by evidence. Namely, that Sarah Palin is just another typical politician.
prisoner6
Just go ask Mclame. He played by their rules. He took their advice. Look where it got him -- right where they wanted him.
The same experts that gave us McLame.
Excellent point.
Sarah Palin: Crazy like a fox!
The last election with two conspicuously capable and qualified candidates was in 1956.
I posted here, after meeting W in the summer of 1999, "He is our Clinton", meaning, among other things, that a national electorate that was able to be sold on Clinton (twice) could probably be sold on W.
But times have changed. As Yoda said, "matters are worse".
We just elected an entirely symbolic candidate, a fictional man with a made-for-television story.
Under the circumstances, all the attacks on Sarah seem so last-Century.
WE love her because of what she symbolizes, and we see that, as Bush was our Clinton, she can be our Obama. That, of course, is why are so passionate, and why the Left is afraid and filled with hate.
Of course, there may be more to her (on the good side) than there is to Obama. Time will tell.
But if we've arrived at a place where the major qualification to be nominated is how deeply you move the hearts of your tribe, then we are a lot closer to war than we've been in a long time.
7 posted on Thursday, July 09, 2009 07:08:53 by vg0va3
I think we are on the same wavelength
Perhaps Sarah Palin took a few days off around a long weekend to think carefully and contemplate her future before deciding whether to “cross the Rubicon” or not.
I do that, every time I make a significant career change. I take some time to think it thru, and from one moment to the next my decision might change a few times. It is a cooling off period, a time for reflection and planning and soul-searching...
...and this is what “normal” people do. You all do the same, I bet. It’s as normal as taking the occasional shower or pulling your trousers on one leg at a time.
Sarah Palin is normal. So she is doing exactly what the rest of us are doing. Nothing more, nothing less. The pundits should therefore Buzz Off and give her some space.
So should we.
Let’s hope it’s evidence of a truly unified conservative front prepared to fight hard and long to save America.
Libs hate her.
So do pro-abort, country clubbers and socially moderate pubbies.
Y’all go and vote for Barack in 2012.
Given that we still have a nation in which to vote.
“So is Sarah the one to say such things?”
Pay attention, Kaslin. She has ALREADY started saying it. And we hear her loud and clear, thank you.
She has seen vaunted quacking “conservatives” go down in flames one by one, picked off like sitting ducks.
Sarah is not a duck. But her detractors better.
Do this mental exercise in you mind. Imagine any of the above coming to speak in your town. Imagine the venue that would be required to accommodate the expected turnout.
Then
Do the same exercise with Saarah Palin.
Compare and contrast.
Can't touch this....
/Kaslin. Sorry ‘bout that. Meant Mackenzie.
Reagan had that advantage. He had years of putting his face on a "brand" every week. It was clear to all what he considered to be attributes of American Heros and he became associated in folks minds with those attributes. Also folks understanding of what "American" meant were shaped by the years of that show. In his writings subsequently he drew heavily on all that stock. The history and the ideas.
That is what Palin could use but is there time and would that model work today. I doubt there is time and we have newer means of communication. I don't know that I would advise Palin to read but rather to go back and watch a bunch of old TV shows. Figure out a way to put all of that, the brand, the ideas, educating folks about what being American is. That is what she needs, and simultaneously telling America show she is. That will win.
IMHO.
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