Posted on 07/09/2009 8:07:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Gov. Sarah Palin is the political train wreck that keeps on giving. First, she was an awful choice last year as John McCain's running mate. I came to this conclusion with regret - I am one of McCain's biggest admirers.
But facts are facts. An inexperienced governor of a small state, she lacked the experience to be President and brought nothing to the ticket except a surefire knack for exciting voters who were already reliably Republican. It was a strategically awful choice, and I said so - both on and off microphone - at the time. Most pundits thought I was wrong. Look at the crowds she can draw, I was told. She "excites the base."
Phooey. Every presidential election year brings forth some new nugget of conventional wisdom from the media elite that totally misses the real picture. Last year, the big wrong idea was this notion that base voters have somehow become the new swing voters. We are now told the party base - those voters who will vote for a bag of cement if it has an R or D attached to it - must be carefully appealed to, romanced and appeased.
Under that funhouse reasoning, Palin was an inspired pick.
Unfortunately for McCain, the actual swing voters, the independents who do determine the winner of the election, didn't buy into this fantasy at all. After a three-week sniff, most couldn't run away from Palin fast enough.
Yet even after she helped cost McCain the election, Palin's great charm endured, at least among many grass-roots Republicans. At least until her astonishing self-immolation during a hastily organized backyard press conference last week, where she gamely competed with honking geese to resign midterm as Alaska's rookie governor. Today, in the wake of that debacle, it is puzzling to many outside our party how some Republicans can still see her as an appealing candidate for the party nomination in 2012. This begs the question: Why is there still so much Republican love for Sarah Palin?
Other politicians are more reliable conservatives; Palin ran for governor on a set of populist issues usually linked to Alaska Democrats. She lacks any real accomplishment - no military or private-sector career of note, no academic achievement beyond a frenetic bounce between five colleges, including a sun 'n' surf-oriented outfit in Hawaii. She has served only two years as governor of a small and uniquely easy-to-govern state (other governors pine for Alaska's small population and billions of dollars in easy revenue from oil production), a job she has now abandoned.
The answer is that Palin profits mightily from a Republican blind spot. She has all the right smirking enemies in America's media elite. To them, Palin reeks of flyover America, that vast and corny collection of Nebraskas and Alabamas where the Army can always meet enlistment quotas and Tina Fey's private jet stops briefly to refuel. Red state Republicans see the snarky, elite attacks on Palin as an attack on them. And in some ways, they are.
The enemy of their enemy is just fine, thank you.
So even now, after a bizarre resignation spectacle that should lead any levelheaded Republican to cringe at the idea of letting Palin within a thousand miles of the GOP nomination, she may have enough support to attempt a run for President.
She'll lose, of course, almost certainly the Republican primaries and certainly the general election. Palin's GOP is still only one part of that Republican base, and her slice will shrink after last week's hara-kiri. Many of her one-time admirers will shake their heads and grumpily admit to themselves that those liberal jerks in the media elite might have been right about this one after all.
But for some in our demoralized party, the romantic joy of fighting the good fight alongside the most hated enemy of our own enemies is still a seductive idea, at least for now.
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Murphy is a writer and Republican political consultant who has advised John McCain, Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jeb Bush.
Jesus hisself could not get elected on the west coast or northeast today except maybe NH in a good year...neither could Reagan now for that matter....the demographics have killed us and we let it happen.
we cannot make latinos become conservative and never will we move enough blacks...they are a lost cause.
motivate more whites off their butts or give it up and become a GOP more like Scoop Jackson Dems ...
it might be too late anyhow but Palin is the best true conservative out there and she draws folks...I'd like to see if it works and yes, she will have to run head on against the media like no one ever has
this is where we are as conservatives...the cold hard facts.
3-4 senators and half dozen critters, maybe a couple of pragmatic governors, Rush, Sean, some lesser knowns and SARAH...that's it
anything outside that and it's bullshite GOP Daddy Bush-Queeg-Rockefeller garbage...almost always a loser
Am glad to see you are on board with Gov. Palin.
Yes, it is a fact re some groups of voters.
They are kept as wards of the state and enjoy
every min. of it.
So many transplants in CAlif. besides the illegals
makes for an bad situation.
Here in San Diego 3 of our 5 congressmen are Conservative Republicans.
For a woman who is done and committed political hari kari she sure gets a hell of lot of print.
Understood and agreed, but it just doesn’t seem like the time is right for that. No-one really stands out to me though, I can think of no conservative, male, charismatic leader at this time. It takes a dynamic person to win a national election.
Remember how utterly boring it was to listen to McCain speak? He seemed on the verge of falling straight asleep sometimes, whereas Palin seemed to be able to capture an entire audience repeatedly. Not only does she have this X factor, her politics are solid as well. We would be extremely foolish not to support a person such as this, at least, in my opinion.
Hmm... This is beginning to be fun! :) Seriously, we should learn who these guys are. These are very powerful people... Politicians depend on them (they 'morph' into political hacks / Lobyists / "contributors" to Lefty rags to name a few.)
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This guys credibility is based on what?
This washington bottom feeder is part of the problem if you ask me.
The grass roots has to re-assert control over the party despite this washington bull-manure they’re spreading about Sarah.
He was finished when he did that.
If forward = left then this article is spot on.
Unlike liberals, conservatives WILL stay home on election day if they don’t like what’s on the menu. What the inside-the-beltway elite within the GOP are missing is that the base Murphy so easily assumes would have supported McCain regardless of his running mate are the very folks turned off by moderate positions on immigration such as McCain advanced (or tried to). They are NOT “reliably Republican.”
The RNC/Bush White House and the McCain amnesty crowd turned off conservatives to the extent that they lost the Congress in ‘06. Had McCain not chosen Palin (or someone equally able to reenergize the ‘base’) McCain would have been lucky to get 40% of the 2008 vote.
Whether Sarah Palin chooses to go for the GOP nomination in ‘12, and whether she should be the nominee are questions for another day. But she will surely know who to hire and not should she decide to make it a run. These guys are revealing themselves in extraordinary ways.
This guy is delusional. The fact is the McCain-Palin ticket was ahead in the polls until the late September financial crash...chiefly due to Palin. This guy obviously didn't like her from the get-go. Does he believe that anyone other than Palin would have come closer? That's extremely doubtful.
Who is your candidate? Nobody else in the Republican Party has the appeal of Sarah Palin. That is the facts.
Murphy sucks at his job. Maybe if he was good at what he does I would take him more serious.
McCain was an awful choice for her running mate.
you must not have read my tag...i am one of Sarah’s biggest supporters here and only donated large to Queeg because of her
but I don’t much cotton to the “no old guys” logic.
for one I am quite pleased (overall) as to how they ran this nation for nearly 200 years until the Civil Rights-Great Society-Out of Control Supreme Court- Uncontrolled Immigration era of 35-40 years ago began...which along with FDR is what got us to where we are now...in an abyss....I’m not sure Palin can cure all that but she’s our best hope for now but her sex has nothing to do with it other than she’s very pretty. It’s what she says, lives and how she delivers it.
It’s really simple. Out of all the “contenders” she’s the only real social conservative with a chance.
Look around at those here who hate her and glean their posts and you find they have never been big social conservatives
So many McCain cockroaches, so little time...
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