Posted on 09/14/2009 5:46:34 PM PDT by Al B.
Despite some estimates the September 12th march on Washington approached a record 2 million American citizens, Rasmussen is reporting today that President Obama’s approval index has experienced a stunning turnaround over the past week.
From an approval rating low of a minus 13 on September 7th, Obama has seen his positive numbers jump over 10 points since his health care speech to Congress last Wednesday. In other words, up to 2 million colorful and passionate defenders of limited government flooding in to the nation’s capitol had no effect on a steady and continuing rise of Obama’s political fortunes at this critical moment in American history. Although a Wapo-ABC News poll has uncovered less of a bounce for Obama, we still should take the Rasmussen numbers seriously.
Over the weekend Mark Steyn penned in my opinion his most prophetic, serious, and depressing column of late. Steyn lays out what’s in store for an America that, despite the White House’s amateurish obfuscation and bumbling with respect to health care, will probably succumb to the inevitable:
“As I’ve written before, the appeal of this issue to [Obama] and to Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, et al., is that governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture — one in which elections are always fought on the Left’s issues and on the Left’s terms, and in which ‘conservative’ parties no longer talk about small government and individual liberty but find themselves retreating to one last pitiful rationale: that they can run the left-wing state more effectively than the Left can. Listen to your average British Tory or French Gaullist on the campaign trail pledging to ‘deliver’ government services more ‘efficiently.’”
Steyn’s depressing conclusion:
“My sense from Wednesday’s speech is that the president’s gonna shove this through in some form or other. It may cause a little temporary pain in Blue Dog districts in 2010, but the long-term gains will be transformative and irreversible.”
In light of this remarkable admission from Steyn, the question on many conservative minds is: where’s Sarah Palin? In response to those who have defended Palin’s gutsy political instincts one can only wonder about a woman who seemed to be AWOL during and after last Saturday’s heady demonstration. In other words, without a clearly recognized conservative spokesperson willing to passionately articulate the desires of millions of frustrated Americans, the poll numbers will probably continue to favor the rhetorically unchecked Obama.
Either Palin has decided not to run for President in 2012, or, huddled with her advisors, she is carefully calculating how to plod into her party’s nomination a couple of years from now. If the latter, this dynamic, popular, and talented woman is making a profound mistake.
There’s a righteous wind blowing – a conservative righteous wind – but so far no conservative politician has been prescient enough to ride the gale force that may be the only deterrent to what Steyn envisions as America’s left-of-center future.
In other words, even if Palin does get elected in 2012, her passion may well be condemned to pledges about how she can “deliver government services more efficiently.”
Someone very soon needs to take a leap of faith – the time for calculation is long past.
Sarah is doing just fine!
Hong Kong.
Obama's poll numbers are getting the typical bounce that we see after a major Obama "event". These bumps are fighting against a general downtrend in his popularity that started in January and continues to this day. Mark Steyn is smart guy but he missed the target on this one. Give the poll a week and you will start to see things heading back to -10 from today's -3.
OK. Obama has won on healthcare.
There is no turning back, we are finished.
Pols are ignoring the conservative majority.
And it is all Sarah Palins fault!
With conservatives like this, who needs liberals?
She’s refusing to eat dog soup politely.
read later
All this negativeness doesn’t help Conservatives at all.
I know what’s happened though.
The Progressives have used Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals so effectively that many “Conservatives” have unconscously picked them up and unknowingly use them.
We must work to change the Alinsky Rules into Sarah Palin ROCKS!
Thats exactly what obama does and it deminishes his cred every time.
Shes picking and choosing her words and her timing. Exactly the way to go.
Gee, who did they poll; 75% democrats and 25% republicans?
When is this icon of history laid already suppose to come to light?
Enough of this Sarah Palin as Joan of Arc hogwash!
Stop waiting for a conservative warrior on a white horse to save us.
It’s not her job to do the work that we - conservative individuals working at the local level - must do.
I was a big fan of Palin and was very hopeful that she was the real thing, but her conspicuous absence on 9/12 shows that she’s not interested anymore. After the way she was treated by the Left and the Elite Right, I can’t really blame her for staying out of politics and focusing on being a pundit.
I would guess that she is being careful not to look as though she is taking over the march on DC.
The march belongs to the people that took the time to go.
This is a very touchy area and it is not smart to look as though she is trying to steal the show.
I would expect that after a reasonable period of time, Sarah Palin will be very much in the arena.
Flying from AK to DC is takes 2 days of plane travel. Plus, a week from today, Palin will be in Hong Kong. Palin is probably preparing for the Hong Kong financial speech.
Also, other potential contenders were absent. No Santorum, no Romney, no Huckabee, no Newt, and no Pawlenty.
Perhaps, GOP politicans decided to let the Tea Party citizens to have the glory.
Great analysis, someone is thinking!
Considering a mere twitter statement from her hit Obamacare like a nuke, I think she is being quite effective so far! LOL
What’s the point in actually trying to advance conservatism when “everything leftist” that’s already in place through many decades of legislation really can’t be undone? There’s still leftist crap from FDR’s days as POTUS that isn’t undone!
This guy doesn’t make sense. He sounds like he doesn’t even know what he’s complaining about.
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