Posted on 09/16/2010 10:22:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Delaware Republicans have proved it: Sarah Palin is the best asset the GOP has right now.
There has been a lot of carping about Republicans' prospects for November since Palin-backed candidate Christine O'Donnell defeated longtime Delaware officeholder Mike Castle for the Republican Senate nomination Tuesday. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the 2008 vice presidential nominee has kept the party strong. How? She has kept the Tea Party faithful inside the GOP tent. Had she instead encouraged these disillusioned voters to mount third-party challenges across the 2010 general-election ballot, dozens of Democratic incumbents, not to mention challengers, would be smiling like Woodrow Wilson in 1912.
That year, a simmering feud between two wings of the Republican Party resulted in the "Bull Moose" independent presidential candidacy of former president Teddy Roosevelt. The Rough Rider's support four years earlier landed William Howard Taft the GOP nomination, but the two had a falling-out. Their disunity allowed Wilson, the governor of New Jersey, to claim the White House with the lowest winning percentage of the popular vote since the two-party era began in 1864. Wilson was only the second Democrat elected president since the Civil War; a GOP united by a temporary, even testy, marriage of convenience would have triumphed easily. But egos proved too large. It did not matter that Wilson was, in TR's term, the "coiner of weasel words."
Establishment Republicans, including former Bush aide Karl Rove, have said this year that the strength of the Tea Party movement has sometimes forced the nomination of contenders with weak prospects for winning a general election. This is surely right; O'Donnell's upset on Tuesday is merely the latest example, but there were similar complaints about the Nevada Senate contest.(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
TR was a progressive Republican himself, I wonder if he secretly wanted to split the vote so that the Mega Progressive Wilson would get in.
There must not be any Jack Nicholson's left.
??? interruption?
Great article. We aren’t walking out, we’re taking over!
You must be a fan of Boxer or Campbell.
The reason Palin endorsed Fiorina was to stop Tom Campbell, who before the endorsement seemed to be the easy winner of the primary.
Voting started in 6 days and Tom Campbell was well ahead with 35% of the vote, and climbing.
“Campbell supports abortion rights and gay marriage, and argues that Boxer’s greatest asset against either of his two Republican opponents, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, would be the state’s decidedly un-conservative social views.
“She has always been able to move the debate over to the social issues. She will not be able to do that against me,” Campbell told POLITICO.”
“During the campaign for U.S. Senate in 2000, Campbell touted his 100 percent pro-choice voting record. He opposed a ban on “partial birth’ abortions, one of the most horrific abortion practices. (”Conservatives Agonize Backing Campbell,” Roll Call, August 7, 2000.)
Campbell in 1992 made abortion the center stage of his campaign. In the 1992 election, Campbell’s TV ad ran with the following caption: “For choice, for jobs, for U.S. Senate.” In another ad, he said, “I’m pro-choice and one of the most conservative members of Congress when it comes to spending.”In a Republican debate, he described his abortion views, as good for voters “looking for someone who is willing to break with the party line from time to time.” (Gerry Braun, “Herschensohn Won’t Pledge to Back GOP Pick; Senate Opponents Renew Acrimony in Last Debate,” San Diego Union Tribune, June 1, 1992.)
I love Palin, I hope she runs in 2012, that being said Palin played a major role in advancing conservatism. The GOP is not yet saved, “We the People” have to work to reform the GOP and put true conservatives in power. There are Republicans that I like (Ryan, Bachman, DeMint, Bill Brady (our next Governor in IL) but we have a long way to go before the GOP is saved. The Tea Party is the major reason why the GOP might be saved. If conservative politicians like Palin listen to it and implement our suggestions thereby remaking the GOP, it will be saved. Until then I’m not holding my breath.
Saved him from the same fate as Castle and Murkowski.
Vice presidents are usually new to the country, unless you think the public is hip to who the Mondales, Quayles, and John Edwardses are.
Palin was one of the hottest political properties in the country, being the most popular Governor in the nation, and that speech on the day that she was chosen (pre convention)was perhaps the best speech ever given by a woman in America. Palin has continued to set new standards for drawing audiences from the very first day of the announcement of her being chosen. That is how she has driven this conservative movement.
I was thinking about this scene from 5 Easy Pieces:
Conversations with Intellectuals. It’s 3 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6utMlqMCkg&feature=related
You’re missing the context. As of August 2008, McCain and Biden had been in national office for decades and were old names. Obama was still relatively new, but people knew of him due to the drawn-out Democrat primary (thanks, Operation Chaos!).
Palin was completely unknown. No one had heard of her before.
LOL
What do you guys have against arugula?
I love arugula and radicio in my salad and made with micro greens and butter lettuce. Sprinkle in some red onion, hearts of celery and cilantro, Voila!
A delicious salad that requires no dressing.
The fellow who owns the liquor store next Jansens taught me how to like scotch.
Super nice guy and he let opened bottles for tasting. He even opened some Cabs and Merlots to ask what I thought.
Sometimes wish I lived there still.
Just the nicest people.
She’s in the process of saving the GOP. And they hate her for it.
Mark my words.Republican Sarah Palin will be the President of the United States in 2012!
You are missing the context, people don't know who the Bidens and Mondales are, and people wanting to hear Palin speak was triggered by that extraordinary first speech on 29 August and her being such a breath of fresh air in McCain's campaign, and it has never ended. Palin is famous for drawing people that want to hear her speak, and that applied at the GOP Convention. Palin speaking = crowds, even in a Nevada desert, it is what helped launch this massive conservative movement.
Good scene.
Palin always attracts massive audiences, that is one of the things that she is famous for and a source of her power, now proceed to tell us how well known all of the veep candidates every four years for say the last half century are always well known to the convention TV mass audience.
It is a flip of the conventional wisdom. The political game previously said that you have to compromise your position to win over swing voters.
The new wisdom which has not been accepted by everyone, is that the party with the motivated base wins.
4 million voters who went for Bush, stayed home for McCain. The Mombasa Moonbeam also turned out about 3 million "new" voters, many of whom, but by no means all, were citizens, and alive at the time.
With overall turn out in the 5o% range, the field is wide open for fraud. Many of those who stayed on the couch, or had been dead for a while would be be surprised to learn that they actually voted, or were voted.
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