Posted on 04/19/2010 5:52:15 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Sarah Palin, 55 percent unfavorable poll ratings notwithstanding, is a political phenomenon the likes of which American public life rarely has seen. There's something distinctive, something deeply personal, about the way her legions of strong supporters rush not just to defend her but to counter-attack any and all of her critics. Palin has a way of establishing a sense of connectedness with her backers -- such a strong, attitudinal sense that she is not just like them but one of them -- that she has created what amounts to a one-woman, conservative "identity politics" writ very, very large.
Yet if conservatives are to continue a political love affair with this admirable and galvanizing woman, we need to insist on more than mere identity. And more than mere attitude.
We know that Sarah Palin shares our conservative values. But is she the leader conservatives need?
IN HER RECENTLY RELEASED memoir, Going Rogue, Palin tells a story about how she approached the first state budget she handled as governor. It sounds like something right out of the 1993 Kevin Kline movie, Dave, except that Palin's tale is fact instead of fiction.
We worked late into the night with the warm midnight sun still pouring through my office windows....Pens in hand, we combed through the budget, line by line, page by page -- my inner nerd coming out again, just like Wasilla City Council days....I had to know what was in there, or I wasn't doing my job. We spent days trying to decipher who put in what and why. Late one night, I looked up from the table and asked our veteran staffers, "What did past governors do? How did they get through these budgets with so little detail?" "They didn't," was the response.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
That’s part of the chicago thing — da bearsss.
Gee, another insult, what a surprise.
You Palin bashers want a one way war...it doens’t work that way.
Get used to it.
This will give you insight into the Amerian Spectator mentality:
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/t-coddington-van-voorhees-vii/page/5/
Governing Alaska does have some challenges California does not, but they are nothing like governing a state with more than 50 times the population and an economy more than 40 times as large.
Reagan had to face a serious recall attempt less than two years into his governorship, when his approval ratings were at 30%. He survived it to serve another term and face two more recall attempts.
The Presidency offers some buffers against frivolous law suits, but I’d say that’s outweighed by a host of other distractions no governor needs to face. Palin’s inability to both govern and defend against frivolous ethics complaints does not give me a great deal of confidence in her ability to manage the far more overwhelming demands of the Presidency.
Also, those “peculiarities of Alaska law” are, as the author of this article points out, the direct result of the ethics reform package Palin herself pushed through state legislature and one she and her supporters still point to as a great success of her governorship. That she unable or unwilling to endure the consequences of her own reforms also does not look like the stuff of a President.
Defending Palin from the disgusting personal smears against her and her family is something I wholeheartedly support. Comparing her to Reagan or inflating her experience to paper over legitimate concerns over her qualification to be President is not.
If FR represented the majority of American voters we would not be in the mess we are now. The hard fact is that we freepers are a minority faction in American politics. If we here (and I see that you have been here quite a while) cannot unanimously buy the Palin resignation story as described by her FR supporters then what chance does she have of convincing the exponentially larger voting bloc that has never spent a minute here?
In return all I see are insults. But, hey, if that's all you've got then knock yourself out.
You are a tiny part of FR ...lol
FR supports Palin as do many conservatives and Tea Partiers across the country.
You Palin haters are merely a vocal minority.
I dont like Romney. I’m leaning toward Paul Ryan right now.
JM
He’s already announced he’s not running.
It’s going to be Romney or Palin. That’s the way it works in the GOP. We don’t get big surprises like the Dems do.
NO ONE currently serving in either house of the Congress will get my vote, no matter how much I personally support them. We need an executive not a legislator.
That's what happens when someone has to "untrain" themselves from a long-practiced "lipth".
I am just getting here and have read the comments 1 - 45 but not the article. I’ll go read the article now and use your ping as my placemarker.
I definitely prefer executives to legislators, but Romney and Palin are damaged goods. One wont distance themself from RomneyCare and the other quits when the going gets tough.
JM
I thank you for giving reasons for you opinion. Regarding why did she accept the nomination knowing of her daughter’s pregnancy. I’ll answer that by paraphrasing Rush Limbaugh. Sarah accepted the nomination with her daughter’s pregnancy because she has class. Can you imagine the guilt Bristol would bare knowing that her careless actions may have prevented her mother a chance to become President? Refusing the nod would have been damaging to Bristol.
LMAO.
Palin is so in the fight.
And did you read her speech the other night from Louisville? Yes or no?
So who do you think is "electable"?
I think he was bored and thought he'd write a piece about Sarah to please his colleagues.
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