Posted on 07/10/2009 5:40:11 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin continues to confound political observers. The woman whose sudden entrance onto the national political stage so badly confused the liberal machine last fall has just as suddenly announced her departure, unexpectedly announcing her resignation as Governor last Friday, less than three years into her term.
You can evaluate Mrs. Palin’s political effectiveness by looking at how people reacted to her. The barrage of gutter-level personal attacks after Sen. John McCain chose her as his running mate was swift and vicious. So badly flummoxed was the opposition that they stooped to personal attacks that targeted the Palin children, which successfully demonstrated the lack of class and civility of the attackers, and actually helped Gov. Palin.
This strategy found a new low when comic David Letterman suggested that Mrs. Palin’s 14 year-old daughter had had a sexual encounter with a baseball player during a game at Yankee Stadium. He then made disparaging remarks about the Governor’s appearance.
Is this the best the Left can do?
This behavior epitomizes the undisciplined mind of fringe liberals, who are so hypnotically linked to their ideology that they cannot accept the idea that everyone doesn’t agree with them, and when people don’t agree with them, they lose control.
Gov. Palin’s enemies in Alaska pursued ethics charges against her that lacked merit, but were expensive to defend, and proved to be a substantial distraction. Politics can often be a dirty game.
The Democratic National Committee committed an unforced error with this reaction: "Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way – her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today."
Even if every slam against Mrs. Palin in that statement was true, you’d think the DNC would be happy that its enemy is stepping down. Message to the DNC: Sometimes it’s better to just keep quiet.
What millions of Americans like about Mrs. Palin is her basic “normalness”: She is one of us. An attractive wife and mother, college educated, a church-goer, a person with a simple lifestyle, a woman who willingly gave birth to a Down syndrome child instead of aborting it … she could be our next door neighbor. And that is what freaked out the opposition so effectively. Her broad, “normal American” appeal presented an image contrary to everything the radicals believe in, and the only way they could neutralize that appeal was to attack her personally and try to belittle her. But that tactic failed.
Would Sarah Palin have been a good Vice President? Like everyone else, she has weaknesses, and despite her natural appeal didn’t always come across as someone that could run a country. She isn’t a polished and eloquent speaker, but then, consider Joe Biden’s frequent gaffs. She doesn’t have foreign policy experience, but then neither does Barack Obama. However, unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and Sen. McCain, she does have executive experience as a mayor, the head of a state commission, and a governor. And she has proven that she will take on entrenched political factions and win.
So the jury is still out on that question. But the opposition must have been worried, given its frenzied attack strategy.
Suddenly stepping down as governor in mid-term, however, has everyone wondering what is going on, including her supporters. Even the most positive evaluations say this move is risky if Mrs. Palin hopes to have a future in politics. With the decision to walk away, she has branded herself a “quitter,” despite whatever good reasons she may have for stepping down. And, predictably, her enemies are having a field day playing guessing games.
She’s fed up with the pettiness of her opposition and with the nastiness of politics, and the toll her sudden prominence has taken on her children, who are supposed to be off limits from the normal sewer-tactics of the political game. In her statement last Friday, she said: “Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I’ve been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations – such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters’ questions. Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed.” But there are still hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills to pay. Who could blame her for wanting to escape that?
But maybe there is something ugly lying beneath the surface yet to be discovered, an actual scandal, instead of a made-up scandal. Right now, nobody knows for sure, and until something substantive actually comes to light, everyone would be well advised to keep quiet, behave themselves, and make an honest effort to be mature, responsible adults.
There is a strong feeling that those expectations are too high.
And she drive the Commie ‘RATS nuts! That works for me!
Just shows how out of touch the political class is these days. There's no other way to describe it but political class. They have a world of their own and resent anyone who is not like them but liked by the people. They've been in that class so long they have no idea what the average person on the street is thinking or having to deal with every day.
Face it, I can see Sarah Palin standing in a checkout line or pumping gas or mowing the yard. I can't say that for but a very few others in the class.
Frankly, I'm just as happy they are clueless. If what they've thrown at her so far is the best they can do then I'm delighted!
Just remember, this is the mind set of the people running our government. Kinda scary.
I’m hoping that the real fireworks begin on July 27th, then Palin is FREE to speak, to travel. Let the Palin Revolution begin.
I posted this in another thread, but I’m reposting it here, because a lot of folks just don’t get it.
Look. Here is what all the Sarah bashers are missing, and here is why she has SO much pie-eyed support.
She articulates, represents, and lives the middle class value system and worldview better than ANYBODY. Name one, JUST ONE conservative, that represents *REAL* Conservative values better than she does? The Cheney’s are soft on homosexuality. Really soft.
She’s an NRA member, a hunter, a fisher. She’s not afraid of firearms, knives, blood and guts.
She’s taken her downs syndrome baby to term and calls him a blessing. It just brings you to tears when you see her and her husband embracing that little fellow.
She struggles with the challenges many middle-class families face, including youthful rebellion and out-of-wedlock birth.
She isn’t afraid to pray or mention the name of Jesus in public. She’s not ashamed of her faith or her Savior.
She has been the most attacked, most reviled, most slandered, most badly treated person ever to run for any pubic office that I’ve seen in my lifetime. I have never, ever seen anything like it.
I’d rather have Sarah Palin or even JED CLAMPETT as president over any of the perfumed, elitist, sissy-boy, metrosexual pansies heading up the RINO party.
At least Sarah Palin and Jed Clampett won’t apologize for America or for being Americans!!!!!
I’m just SICK AND TIRED of these hoity-toity, pinky-fingered, nose-picking, bed-wetting, hand-wringing, RINOs and MARXISTS!
LET THEM ROT!
Until the RINO party can give us something better, WHICH THEY AIN’T SO FAR, we’ll take Sarah!!!
Thanks for re-posting.....some of us aren’t online 24/7.
You have said it all very well!
Which is why she’ll be president four years hence, unless we allow ACORN/Black Panthers/DNC/the Daley Machine to steal another election.
> Which is why she’ll be president four years hence, unless
> we allow ACORN/Black Panthers/DNC/the Daley Machine to
> steal another election.
It’s about time we had some community organizers of our own at the polls.
Enough is enough!
Thank you for that.
It's more than just about PALIN. It's about how the OLD ELITE-LEFT MEDIA used to deal with the ones they did not like: PALIN. We must be aware of how they operate so we can defeat them when they try as in Palin's case now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in the days when William Weld resigned as Governor of Massachusetts, was the same case against him that is now being made against Palin?
and another one filed today. could this nonsense backfire on democraps?
If 2010 is obviously rigged,
the left better get ready for the patriots to
reach for the next and final “box of liberty”.
And BTW, the Guv was on a local talk radio show in Fairbanks tonight talking with Ted Nugent, who called in. They talked about gun rights. Lotsa fun. Ted was gushing about the Governor.
I'm sure the audio will be up on C4P before too long.
As I posted on another thread about the hit piece Noonan has in the WSJ, quoting:
"What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits." So said Noonan of Palin!
In making such a sweeping judgment of a woman who actually has done something, as opposed to just writing about things, makes her judgments simply irrelevant.
Noonan, in retrospect, like a chameleon, may have absorbed the glow of Reagan, heard his ideas which he so clearly expressed, and was able to put them to paper in such a manner that she accumulated an overblown resume--one which has followed her till today.
She has overstepped her own "personal limits" in her analysis of Palin, the millions of Americans who do understand Palin, and where her small mind believes Palin will be in the future. In so doing, she has revealed things about herself which she may not have intended.
> I’m sure the audio will be up on C4P before too long.
What’s C4P? Got a link?
Yes.
”This behavior epitomizes the undisciplined mind of fringe liberals,”
It epitomizes the vile mind of a Columbian Drug Lord. Even the Mafia does not attack families. The Kenyan Pretender’s Regime could stop this Mau Mau behavior if it wanted. Failing all else, the Regime could order the Toadies of the Press to hit the perpetrators with enough disagreeable publicity to shut them up. Or, the Pretender’s Regime could send some Chicago Mau Maus up there to break a few legs. Personally, I would prefer to see the latter course of action, but I expect either would work.
The fact that the Democrats will do nothing to stop this Mau Mau behavior, simply proves that the whole party is infected with a Columbian Drug Lord mentality. The Media Pukes are no better. Worse, the fact that many in the Republican apparatus (and their media buddies) exhibit the same behavior, simply means they are no better
The Guv was on for an hour. Nugent called in for about 10-15 minutes or so.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.