Despite setbacks, David Frum beats on ("we still have the 'Palin problem' with us")

Even if the former governor of Alaska fades away before the 2012 presidential election, David Frum thinks “the Palin problem is still with us.”

And as long as that’s the case, Frum — the conservative pundit and former George W. Bush speechwriter — will be here, too.

“Why were conservatives vulnerable to somebody like this?” Frum mused about Palin recently in an interview with POLITICO. “The things that prevented them from seeing her are all still there. And we see them during this health care debate.”

It’s been seven months since Frum parted ways with National Review to launch his own website — NewMajority.com — in an effort to rally new voices and cure the Republican Party of its “psychotic episode.” It’s a long-term project that’s fighting against the tide.

While Frum is aiming to build a moderate-minded Republican audience on the Web, the current political culture is dominated by incendiary language and ever-deeper entrenchments. Republican officeholders, motivated by a half-year of Barack Obama’s presidency and galvanized by three weeks of town hall protests, now tilt even more toward their base.

On a practical level, the Internet is proving to be a little more complicated than Frum first thought it would be, he says. He admits to shortcomings in his Web acumen, and NewMajority.com has already undergone a redesign since it went online. The site has gotten about 800,000 unique visitors. By comparison, the conservative site Townhall.com receives 2 million unique visitors per month.

>She is attracting millions to the GOP, she is bringing excitement and enthusiasm to the GOP

Those are good things but
it is the internet age age
and attention spans

can be very short.
Folks who jump on bandwagons
and make a big crowd

just as easily
jump off for the Next Big Thing.
It's gonna be fun

to watch if passion
and the energy levels
for Sarah stay high

year after year when
issues accumulate and
politics drags on.

We are not a nation of moderates, we are a nation of conservatives, with about 20% of the population completely dependent on government, and about 10% who wish to exploit that dependency for their own gain.

The problem is is that about 40% of the population is conservative, but doesn’t call themselves this, they call themselves “moderate” because they don’t want to carry the name that gets trashed 24/7.

I have not met one person who called themselves “moderate” who was not far more socially and fiscally conservative than liberal.

"“Why were conservatives vulnerable to somebody like this?” Frum mused about Palin recently in an interview with POLITICO
Because they are sick and tired of the cowardly Liberal RINO's that have abandoned the Principles the Republican party used to stand for, ie: the constitutional republic that IS this country?

KMA Frum. We know we can't blame Bush completely for the idiotic speeches he gave, the person that wrote them is just as much the idiot as well.

As Frum tells it, he began despairing over his party’s future the day after Bush won the 2004 presidential election. He says he instantly recognized that victorious moment as marking the last drop of success Republicans would be able to squeeze out of the Nixon-Reagan coalition. That is when he began his first stage of grieving, something he thinks the rest of the party is just beginning to deal with now. By the 2008 election, he was ready for action, with Palin’s nomination as McCain’s running mate serving as the final straw.

I guess Frum failed to notice that Palin's nomination was the ONLY shot McCain had to win. And that McCain's poor debate performances and his waffling on the bailout sealed his fate.

IMO with Frum, it's all about the fact that he doesn't draw like Rush or Levin or Coulter or Palin. It isn't for a lack of snark - despite his calls for civility, Frum is a rank hypocrite who called Rush a big fat drug addict in a Newsweak essay (memo to Frum - of course the MSM will always publish a Rush-bashing essay from a RINO - but that does not mean they otherwise give a fig what you think - does the term 'useful idiot' ring a bell?) Instead, it is because he lacks core principles - moderation in defense of liberty is by all means a vice, and beltway throne-sniffing is no virtue.

The McCain/Palin ticket was up ++8 pts. days prior to September 18th, 2008.
So the RomneyTeam attacked Gov. Palin and her children to throw Election2008.

"Frum was indeed a critic of Palin, calling her nomination a "huge mistake" during an October 13 Early Show appearance."

David Frum: "Two of our most plausible candidates for president in 2012 are leading Mormons: Mitt Romney and Utah governor Jon Huntsman."

David Frum: "I have a lot of regard for Mitt Romney as a man and politician.
Let me say for the record: If Romney emerges as the Republican nominee, I will support him without qualm."

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House,
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin.
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
He's in charge on November 5th.'"
The Prowler added: "Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."
The Romney supporters in the McCain campaign had access to internal polling which indicated well in advance of the November 4 election that McCain had no chance to win.
So they began working to position their man Mitt for a run in 2012. Just two days after the election,The Palmetto Scoop reported:
"One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
These aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.
Erick Erickson, who organized Operation Leper, said:
"Here’s what I think: I think there are some staffers on the McCain campaign who seriously screwed up the roll out of Sarah Palin, to which Governor Palin herself objected.
These staffers are now out trying to finish her off thinking, as typical D.C. types do, that if they don’t do it to her, she’ll do it to them. They just never understood who Palin is or what she is about."
"Likewise, I do think there are some staffers and others who expect Mitt Romney to run again in 2012,
they decided McCain could not win, and decided to undermine Sarah Palin and her chances hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."

"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign? (Mark Wallace, Romney pimp)
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

Who benefits most from Sanford meltdown? Californian (that's right) Mitt Romney

"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

Let’s look at this from Frum’s point of view. Like most self-satisfied politicos writing on prominent politicians Frum is confident in his political positions but savvy enough to know that if his viewpoint is rejected by the hoi polloi that there is still an upside of him being considered a bogeyman by traditional-type Americans, more hits on his web site by fellow RINO’s and a flashpoint for mounting conservative anger over his futile attempts to diminish Palin and her abilities and by default stupidly taking away time and energy that he, as a right-winger, should be devoting to attacking Obama and his agenda.

David Frum is a “fifth columnist” writing a sixth-rated column.

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.