Posted on 07/13/2009 9:07:22 PM PDT by Steelfish
Republican pundits open fire on Sarah Palin
Their harsh views conflict with those of grass-roots GOP voters, revealing a serious split within the party.
By Mark Z. Barabak July 13, 2009
Since announcing her resignation, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been pummeled by critics who have called her incoherent, a quitter, a joke and a "political train wreck."
And those were fellow Republicans talking.
Palin has been a polarizing figure from the moment she stepped off the tundra into the bright lights last summer as John McCain's surprise vice presidential running mate.
Some of that hostility could be expected, given the hyper-partisanship of today's politics.
What is remarkable is the contempt Palin has engendered within her own party and the fact that so many of her GOP detractors are willing, even eager, to express it publicly -- even with Palin an early front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Some admit their preference that she stay in Alaska and forget about any national ambitions.
"I am of the strong opinion that, at present day, she is not ready to be the leading voice of the GOP," said Todd Harris, a party strategist who likened Palin to the hopelessly dated "Miami Vice" -- something once cool that people regard years later with puzzlement and laughter. "It's not even that she hasn't paid her dues. I personally don't think she's ready to be commander in chief."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
You represent us, Sarah. That’s what you represent in a conservative movement. When they attack you, it feels like they are attacking us because you’re one of us. That’s why so many of us believe in you almost instinctively.
To note, Stuart Spencer ran Ronald Reagan’s gubernatorial campaign in California in 1966. That’s 1966. As Reagan’s campaign manager in 1980, he stated that “there was no way Reagan was going to pick Bush.” He picked Bush. In 1988, he was assigned to improve Dan Quayle’s image. Enough said.
In 1993, he speculated that Cheney would seek the presidency in 1996. He didn’t. Spencer is a pro-life advocate. If you analyze many of his statements, he has been on the wrong side of ‘thinking’ on numerous occasions. Like Peggy Noonan, his days have passed him by.
Maybe Noonan and Spencer are just tired of working at being a conservative. Perhaps they’re just a Reagan Democrat who’s heading back home. Today, Noonan makes Martha Stewart sound practical.
Noonan swoons over a well-turned phrase and ignores the thoughts behind them. She judges people by their accent not the ideas they offer. She has a way with words, but nobody ever said she was some great conservative to begin with.
Noonan is all about ‘perceived intangibles’; speech-giving as ‘visionary leadership’, vague notions about ‘character’... and she has never cared too much about conservative policies, though she writes as if she does.
I view Spencer, Noonan, Colin Powell, McCain and his chump puppet Lindsay Graham, Bill Bennet, the Beltway elitist, as old news. These are the good ole boys of yester-year. These are different times. And their problem - they always believe their own propaganda, like Democrat’s.
Todd Harris, McCain’s communications director, and Mike Murphy, a Romney guy, both have contempt for Sarah and for the ordinary Americans that Palin represents. Although Murphy worked for McCain in 2000, he switched to help Romney for the 2008 race. He now is a token Republican and works for Palin-deranged MSNBC. Mike Murphy is a Romney hack.
Republican pundits are either cowards or irrelevant. They’re guilty of the same “screwing” of intellectual integrity they falsely charge Sarah Palin with. I’m so sick of the politics of the moment or yester-year. It’s time to take back the country. And, a good starting would be to replace ALL the incumbents in the next election cycle. Palin can help do that regardless of what these pea brains say.
Palin is capable of reviving a modern-era Reagan coalition of the entrepreneurial middle-class and blue-collar workers .... who unite traditional economic conservatives (that believe in smaller government and tax relief) with blue-collar workers who hold traditionalist views on culture or morality.
Yet another example of GOP infighting - infighting that must be done with. DC political elite, bluebloods & moderates cannot lead the GOP party. I’m not surprised at this infighting. Reagan also had difficulty with the elites in the GOP. And after 20 years of the Bushes and their friends purging Reaganism out of the GOP, a principled person like Palin is going to face a lot of resistance.
All that I can relate is that, not only have I been solicited by the RNC, but my mother, who lives half a continent away, has been as well.
We, both, without knowing that we were being called, said basically the same things.
The party has left us, we both voted for Sarah Palin instead of the old cranky white guy, and...
we will not give them any money.
The one thing that we differed on is that I told her I hope McCain is primaried out.
Mother didn’t think of that.
I won. ;o)
You should post that as a vanity!
Sir...or madam...you rock!
Thank you!
Thanks mam!...
Any candidate who had no chance to win would be ignored by the press and pundits.
Sarah Palin is a VERY formidable opponent and the "insiders" of both parties know it.
The women critics are the most transparent because they are consumed by the green-eyed monster called "jealousy."
Sarah Palin is a "babe" and the cackling hens of Washington can't stand it.
One of the greatest pieces of mechanical art in history...
read transcripts of gw bush, they read great until you hear gw reading them, also read gh bush's "thousand points of light" speech, it reads great except when he is doing it.
transcripts will always read great, and sarah was not that bad but there were moments when you had to stop and say "huh" when watching the video.
Lets be honest
Many so called conservatives on this website would hate Barry Goldwater today
Good luck with your candidate. But if it isn’t Sarah, I sincerely doubt you will beat Obama. Some Conservatives sitting out the last one may well have cost the GOP the last go round. A lot more of us sitting this one out will guarantee it. To paraphrase a saying from the Army when I was in, back in the day, “We had to destroy [the GOP] to save it”. And it won’t be much of a loss.
If that is true then I say CONSERVATIVES ARE TRAITORS FOR LETTING OBAMA GET ELECTED. A POX ON CONSERVATIVES AND MAY YOU ALL ROT IN HELL FOR IT. (If it is true)
Having said that, take a look at some of the candidates the GOP has put up for the White House, you know, the ones with all the experience you tout. Do the names of Senators Bob Dole and John McCain ring a bell? Is the GOP a union that runs on seniority? Is the GOP theme song Diana Ross’ “It's My Turn?” Because the almost sum total of their experience is the Senate. Advising and consenting.
As for the rest, Nixon was indeed a candidate of wide and varied experience. Ford was in the Congress until Nixon's VP had to resign. Ford became President because Nixon had to resign. Ford then lost to Carter[ almost anyone would have after Watergate]. Reagan and George W. Bush were both Governors. So is [at the moment] Palin. George H.W Bush was a bureaucrat who rode Reagan's coattails into the White House, and then burned the coat.
If you guys at the GOP want to turn left [or as the MSM calls it, “the middle”], feel free. But we're not playing anymore. You lose anyway. And as for the comments, put your brain in gear before you engage your mouth.
frankly, the word traitor is freely used to describe any “rino” that does not vote “correctly” on any given litmus test issue like abortion, amnesty, trade, CFR, 2nd amendment.
Before Obama was elected, I got called “freetraitor” about 3 times a week. Now that Obama is in, they call Obama a traitor instead.
Personally, I feel any conservative that helped elected Obama to be a traitor and that especially includes Colin Powell.
The best known of these guys are hardly stealth RINOs. Stuart K. Spencer got his start running Rockefeller’s vicious campaign against Goldwater. He did work for Reagan, but otherwise has been a liberal Republican. Mike Murphy has generally supported liberal and RINO GOPers throughout his career. He was on that program with Peggy Noonan on last September 3rd in which they were caught attacking Sarah Palin that early in the campaign.
As someone who was a state leader of Youth for Goldwater and volunteered for Reagan starting in 1968 I strongly disagree. The RINOs who commend the Goldwater of the 1990s would have never supported the Goldwater of the early 1960s.
Precisely whom I was thinking of when I posted about the ACME Catalogue.
My ACME Catalogue Super Deluxe model BS detector is still one of my most valuable assets.
Ahhhhh for the good ol’ days sniff, sniff.
one of the best cartoons ever
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