Last thing we need is Palin. It is my honest opinion that she foisted herself onto McCain and that he wasn’t actively seeking her out. I don’t like Palin. I do believe that she cost us a lot of votes. Hispanics and women did not like Obama. However, when Sarah Palin got on the ticket they suddenly put away their anger and hate because of their honest distaste for her.
We should have run a Hispanic, a Hispanic woman or a woman who could have at least held her own intellectually which I never got the feeling that Palin could. Kay Bailey Hutchinson would have been inspired politically. Women like her, a lot of the same women that liked Hillary and that combined with the fact that we were running against a black opponent would have won us the election.
I would say though that the best candidate for 2012 would be someone like Riley or Barbour though I get the feeling that Barbour is going to become damaged goods as he’ll soon begin taking the blame for Mississippi’s economic woes.
What we need is a strong ethnic Catholic.
This woman (and Texan) thinks that Kay Bailey Hutchison is a major RINO.
My guess is you're a troll, but I'll try to address this honestly. First off, Palin is the ONLY reason McCain did as well as he did...he was a disastrous candidate.
Palin is the victim of a vicious, unfair, and unwarranted attack by the media. Compare the way the disaster that is Joe Biden was handled, compared with the "intellectual lightweight" Sarah Palin. Joe shows little of anything resembling intelligence, IMO.
The only reason "Hispanics and women" didn't like Sarah was the constant, dogmatic pounding by the press. I actually know several women myself who love Sarah, so the feeling is by no means universal even after the smear campaign.
I think if Sarah sticks to core Reagan Republican principles and policies as we go towards 2012, she'll do exceptionally well. I hope she sharpens her tongue and wit so she can skewer some members of the press (Katie Couric!) along the way.
Palin 2012!
Character, Values, clear Conservative track record. Telegenics are important but trails the other three.
If the masses don't vote for Conservative Values over identity by 2012 the country is doomed plain and simple.
Last thing we need is Palin. It is my honest opinion that she foisted herself onto McCain and that he wasn’t actively seeking her out. I don’t like Palin. I do believe that she cost us a lot of votes. Hispanics and women did not like Obama. However, when Sarah Palin got on the ticket they suddenly put away their anger and hate because of their honest distaste for her.
Interesting observation. Palin who? She came upon the scene much like Dan Quayle did under Bush. Both were unknowns nationally. Why Bush picked Quayle I have no idea but I think McCain picked Palin because of her gender. He was trying to offset one minority candidate with another. He failed big time and Palin sorta got Quayled in the process.
Kay Belout Hutchison is more a creature of the Beltway than a daughter of Texas. And please explain just how in the hell Palin “forced herself” on McCain?
You don’t have clue one what you’re talking about.
- JP
“I do believe that she cost us a lot of votes.”
BullClinton...
She added 10 points to McCain.
The fact is, Obama had the momentum and the glassy eyed fanatical part of the electorate behind him. He would have been hard to beat in 2008.
Palin is a true conservative who electrified many of us. She opened our eyes to seeing that true conservative ideas could be articulated and won with.
She got me off my butt to make phone calls and give money.
“We should have run a Hispanic, a Hispanic woman or a woman who could have at least held her own intellectually”
so you mean someone like Linda Chavez?
You obviously don't know what you're talking about.
After reading your post, all I can say is “You’re kidding, right?”
I disagree with pretty much everything you said...not much else to say ;)
Nobody Boos a Nobody
Redstate July 2, 2009 Fred Malek
To summarize baseball legend Reggie Jackson: nobody boos a nobody. That is definitely true in the case of Governor Sarah Palin. I don’t think I am going out on a limb here when I speculate that individuals who repeatedly attack her anonymously view her as a threat. And that includes members of the media hell-bent tearing down young Republican up-and-comers as well as some in Governor Palin’s own party — a party desperately in need of redefining — who are motivated, for whatever reason, to try and crush their rivals.
The most recent and grossly unfair attack came from Vanity Fair magazine. The writer clearly had an unshakable point of view from the start and talked only to those who would criticize. For example, he personally asked me at event preceding the White House Correspondents Dinner if I would talk to him about Governor Palin. I agreed. He didn’t call. He didn’t email. He never once tried to get my take. I also know he never contacted campaign manager Rick Davis, or John McCain.
I have known many political leaders over four decades including all Republican presidents and VPs. I have come to know Sarah Palin over the past year and can state unequivocally that she is smart, curious, hard working, charming, and effective. She also has something her detractors clearly lack – a sense of honor and loyalty.
I know this is petty, but it reminds me of the 2004 presidential election where it was commonplace and accepted in much of the mainstream media to call President Bush stupid and Senator Kerry smart and insightful. At the end of the day, when Senator Kerry finally released his college transcripts, wouldn’t you know: he did quite a bit worse than President Bush.
I have seen Sarah up close with leading heavyweights, and have seen her hold her own and then some. At the dinner at my home referenced in the article, she engaged comfortably and deeply with people ranging from Alan Greenspan to Madeleine Albright to Mitch McConnell. She asked for a foreign policy discussion on her June 7 trip to Washington, and I saw her engage in an informed and spirited manner with Frank Carlucci.
Governor Palin has many admirers and defenders out there who will not allow her to be branded by jealous rivals with their own agenda and the elitists in the national media. I am not sure who the unnamed Vanity Fair sources are, but without question they lack chivalry and have acted in a craven manner. They also lack the facts. I am ashamed of my former campaign colleagues, whoever they are.
Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin
I know Maggie Thatcher. The two women have a lot in common.
"Not One of Us"
Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
If Barack Obama has been the most remarkable phenomenon of the recent political scene, Sarah Palin must be second. The emotional responses to each-- especially by the media and the intelligentsia -- go beyond anything that can be explained by the usual political differences of opinion on issues of the day.
That liberals would be thrilled by another liberal is not surprising. But there are conservative Republicans who voted for Barack Obama, and other conservatives who may not have voted for him, but who are quick to see in various pragmatic moves of his since taking office an indication that he is not an extremist.
Anyone familiar with history knows that Hitler and Stalin were pragmatic. After years of denouncing each other, they signed the Nazi-Soviet pact under which they became allies for a couple of years before going to war against one another.
Pragmatism tells you nothing about extremism. But the conservative intellectuals who seize upon President Obama's pragmatism to give him the benefit of the doubt are obviously bending over backward for some reason.
With Governor Palin, it is just the opposite. The conservative intelligentsia who react against her have remarkably little to say that will stand up to scrutiny. People who actually dealt with her, before she became a national figure, have expressed how much they were impressed by her intelligence.
Governor Palin's "inexperience" is a talking point that might have some plausibility if it were not for the fact that Barack Obama has far less experience in actually making policies than Sarah Palin has. Joe Biden has had decades of experience in being both consistently wrong and consistently a source of asinine statements.
Governor Palin's candidacy for the vice presidency was what galvanized grass roots Republicans in a way that John McCain never did. But there was something about her that turned even some conservative intellectuals against her and provoked visceral anger and hatred from liberal intellectuals.
Perhaps the best way to try to understand these reactions is to recall what Eleanor Roosevelt said when she first saw Whittaker Chambers, who had accused Alger Hiss of being a spy for the Soviet Union. Upon seeing the slouching, overweight and disheveled Chambers, she said, "He's not one of us."
The trim, erect and impeccably dressed Alger Hiss, with his Ivy League and New Deal pedigree, clearly was "one of us." As it turned out, he was also a liar and a spy for the Soviet Union. Not only did a jury decide that at the time, the opening of the secret files of the Soviet Union in its last days added more evidence of his guilt.
The Hiss-Chambers confrontation of more than half a century ago produced the same kind of visceral polarization that Governor Sarah Palin provokes today.
Before the first trial of Alger Hiss began, reporters who gathered at the courthouse informally sounded each other out as to which of them they believed, before any evidence had been presented. Most believed that Hiss was telling the truth and that it was Chambers who was lying.
More important, those reporters who believed that Chambers was telling the truth were immediately ostracized. None of this could have been based on the evidence for either side, for that evidence had not yet been presented in court.
For decades after Hiss was convicted and sent to federal prison, much of the media and the intelligentsia defended him. To this day, there is an Alger Hiss chair at Bard College.
Why did it matter so much to so many people which of two previously little-known men was telling the truth? Because what was on trial was not one man but a whole vision of the world and a way of life.
Governor Sarah Palin is both a challenge and an affront to that vision and that way of life-- an overdue challenge, much as Chambers' challenge was overdue.
Whether Governor Palin runs for national office again is something that only time will tell. But the Republicans need some candidate who is neither one of the country club Republicans nor-- worse yet-- the sort of person who appeals to the intelligentsia.
AzaleaCity5691, please explain to the reader why you should be believed and not Messrs. Malek, O'Sullivan, and Sowell.