Palin's 2012 Strategy: Move by the Right Flank

To get some idea of the scope of the shellacking delivered to the Democrats in the 2010 midterms, it is worth noting that the new 112th Congress which convenes in January will be unprecedented in the lifetimes of most who are reading this now. No. It is not the first time the GOP has held the Majority. But it is the first time that the Democrats have failed to field a House caucus of over 200 members. Their 63 seat drubbing will leave them with 193, the first time they have fallen below the 200 member threshold since 1946. However, redistricting is going to send at least seven more seats to Red States where GOP governors and legislatures control the redistricting process. That coupled with the control of states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio (all set to lose seats) by GOP governors who will redraw the district to eliminate as many Democrat friendly districts as possible means that it is highly likely that the Democrat sub 200 status is going to last at least another cycle (perhaps longer), something which has not happened since 1926-28.

In short, the numbers and the enthusiasm clearly favor the GOP. As the New York Times observed back in September:

"For the first time since the 1930s, participation in Republican primaries exceeds participation in Democratic primaries, according to a report by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

The study, which looked at elections held through Sept. 1 of this year, found that more than four million more voters cast ballots in Republican primaries than in Democratic primaries."

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/primary-voter-turnout-stays-low-but-more-so-for-democrats/

The numbers, which were 19 million GOP primary voters to 15 million Democrat Primary voters, are directly attributable to the Tea Party and its chief protagonist, Sarah Palin. The upsurge in turnout swept the GOP into its most lopsided Congressional majority in 65 years and set the stage for a domination that could span decades. Without the Tea Party and Palin, no such numbers would have been available.

Yet many kennel fed conservatives in the Establishment who promoted the likes of Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio and Bob Bennett over Mike Lee and Trey Grayson over Rand Paul, and didn't lift a finger for Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller or Sharron Angle now sniff that that wasn't enough. Palin and the Tea Party lost Delaware, California and Washington State and West Virginia. The GOP only picked up six seats (They won 8 in 1994). In fact, so they say, the Tea Party and Palin actually cost the GOP seats by failing to back "more electable" Establishment candidates.

This is tantamount to claiming that the Union Army actually lost the Battle of Gettysburg. While it is true that the Union army decimated the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, inflicting about 25,000 casualties (nearly a third of its strength and coincidentally about the same percentage as the GOP wave wiped out in the Democrat House last Tuesday), they didn't completely destroy it.

Talk about making the perfect the enemy of the good. Let's take a close look at these supposed GOP losses. The GOP did not lose a single Senate Seat. They won six and there is no guarantee they would have won any more regardless of the identity of the candidates. And the seats they lost were generally in blue states or where they faced entrenched incumbents and their union allies (enemy ground, as it were). In some notable cases like Alaska and Delaware, there was overt GOP establishment sabotage. In spite of these disadvantages, the GOP picked up six seats and thanks in large measure to the Tea Party, five out of the six are solid Demint-style conservatives, not to mention Tea Partier Mike Lee who replaces moderate Bob Bennett in Utah. Because of the Tea Party and Palin , the GOP caucus is not only larger, it is substantially more conservative.

To return to the civil war military analogy, even after Gettysburg, when the war returned to the South's home turf, the Union would suffer disasters in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, as it had the previous two years. Yet it had found a general who, like Lincoln, could do the math. The North had the greater numbers, but up until the advent of Grant, lacked a Commander with the will to use them. Fading the heat of a hostile press, Grant set out in April 1864 and never looked back. His first encounter with Lee at the Wilderness was a disaster that cost his army 17,000 men. Yet Grant knew he had the men and materiel to win. He paid no attention to the naysayers and pressed on, moving relentlessly by the left flank to Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, sustaining horrific casualties along the way and harping criticism from the McClellans and the Northern press who wanted to compromise and retreat. Meanwhile, his Confederate opponent was dropping back, losing men he couldn't replace.

There is one candidate in the GOP who has the resolve and political skill to take similar political and rhetorical hits, because she understands one thing: We have the numbers. The other side knows what she is doing and they know the threat she poses for them. Her strategy is not complicated. Our side has the numbers, but has heretofore lacked the will to mobilize them. The left and its Establishment allies are going to try to destroy her and to demoralize her supporters. This was exactly the strategy employed by Lee in 1864. But Grant was a bulldog who simply would not be deterred. I think Grant and Palin share a characteristic that is sadly absent in politicians today: Sherman referred to it as "four o'clock in the morning courage" meaning that you could wake Grant up at four o'clock in the morning with the news that the enemy had turned his right flank and he would be cool as a cucumber. The fearless Palin too "doesn't scare worth a damn."

For the next two years, Sarah Palin is going to relentlessly press Democrats and GOP in the Congress toward Conservative Constitutional governance. They are going to be dropping back, losing ground at every turn. And when they diverge from that path (and they will) they are going to feel the sting of her rhetorical, as well as her political, whip. She will be moving on Washington by the Right Flank. Relentlessly.

Governor Palin realizes that the job cannot be completed without the Presidency in 2012. She realizes as well that this is going to be a hard slog, not a walk in the park. I don't think she is enamored of fame for its own sake and if there were someone else to do the job, she would be happy to yield the stage. But she knows as well that the current crop of McClellans in the GOP either will not, or cannot, restrain the federal leviathan and unleash the productive capacity of the American people. They are either too invested in the current system or too weakwilled or too politically ungifted to achieve it (and in some cases all three). She is the only politician on the scene with the political capacity, the understanding and the will to complete the reorientation of American political system from its current statist spiral toward proper constitutional interpretation and governance.

The Great Civil War Historian Shelby Foote said, referring to Grant and Lee: "Lee always understood the Union Generals. It is not that he didn't understand Grant. It was that Grant knew how to whip him. And he did."

The left understands Palin better than many conservatives do. They know what she is up to, which is one reason why they devote so much negative attention to her. But Palin, for her part, has shown that she knows how to whip them. And she will.

We must get the narrative out on how Palin and the Tea party made this a historic win. how without Palin the GOP would have been lucky to retake the house. We must push back on the false narrative that the establishment is trying to make. Yes we know it a lie they are pushing but lies have a way of dragging down the truth. The first battle of the primary season is going on as we speak. the establishment is trying to paint Palin and the Tea party as part of the problem. Instead we must show how we won 63 seats INPITE of the establishment.

the Renee ellmers story is a good case to use. the story by Watts on how the establishment failed to support Col west in FL ans Tim Scott in SC. How the establishment directed resources to the wrong races, how they used friendly fire on COD, Miller and Angle to suppress the vote in those races and nationally.

Yes it is inside baseball stuff but it is like I said the first battle in the primary.

The establishment is out of touch, they had no narrative for the race, they failed to promote and defend gogg candidates because they fell to the media lies of which were extreme and which were not. they failed to use their star power correctly having many people campaign in CA but not enough in states like NC or NY because they considered them lost causes. how the establishment failed to use new media and old media to push back on the smears of extreme candidates, racist Tea partiers. How they had no national narrative, how they were afraid to take on Obama directly because they though the was too popular. How they lost us CO race, how they did not rebuke the SC GOP for its nasty attacks on Haley or the DE gop for its attacks on COD.

How they failed to strip Lisa of her posts. how they invested $8million in CA instead of GOTV efforts in NV.

The establishment cost us the 100+ seats and they need to be publicly blamed for it. We need facts, figures, voter turnouts, campaign figures and donations. Who did the NRCC help who did they not. Which candidates won despite of them national party.

how did the state GOP win so many house and senate state seats without the establishment. How the national establishment never even saw the trends within the state races. How they failed to target key 2012.

No, I don’t really eat at 1st-class restaurants, being conservative with my money I tend to eat at low-budget fast-food places.

You did realize I was speaking in a figurative manner, right?

I thought since this was something to be shared that fixing an error would be helpful. then when it was suggested it wasn’t an error, I overreacted to explain why it was an error, rather than letting the matter drop.

The point is that this was a terrific article, yet your only comment was some imagined error. We know you don't like Palin, which is why you somehow managed to find something negative to say about the article. You evidently can't dispute the tenor or message of the article, so you tried to find fault with some minor detail as if it had anything at all to do with what the overall point of the article is.

Brilliant article.

OKAY. NOW that we’re finally talking tactics and strategy in war terms, ask yourself: When we go into a battle, what is among the first targets?

It is time to take out the media, as they are an integral part of the opponent’s communications and coordination. Yes? Start filing FEC lawsuits maybe? Start buying them up and firing all the leftists? Quit buying the papers, and call your cable channels to complain about news channel content?

“It is time to take out the media, as they are an integral part of the opponent’s communications and coordination. Yes? Start filing FEC lawsuits maybe? Start buying them up and firing all the leftists? Quit buying the papers, and call your cable channels to complain about news channel content?”

Thanks. The media seems to be the equivalent of an army’s communications corps. In the case of the LSM, it is actually much more like a Propaganda Ministry.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I think it gives the lie to the notion that Palin was somehow a drag or impediment for us in 2010. This is the lie that is being pushed by the Establishment, and it has to be met and refuted over and over again.

The Establishment GOP like Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, Romney and Haley Barbour did very little other than steer money and take credit. They didn’t generate the first GOP turnout advantage in a primaries since the 1930s.

That was Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. We have to keep countering their revisionist propaganda.

We know you don't like Palin

Wrong again. Or was this more of your "figurative" speaking?

I've made substantive comments about the article as well, and I don't share your opinion on it.

I also don't believe Palin was as much of a factor in the last election as some people here think; that's not about liking or not liking Palin, it's about figuring out exactly why people are motivated to vote, and what brings them out and determines who they vote for.

I think there are some people who are so driven to try to build up Palin that they look to credit her for all sorts of things; this goes along with times when they try to dismiss things she does that they disagree with, and sometimes contributes to attititudes about her that seem insulting to me, but are supposedly meant to build her up -- like those who claimed that she lied about endorsing some people out of a sense of loyalty, or that she simply didn't "understand" how her endorsements "hurt" her.

I prefer to take her at her word, and when she does things, I assume it's because she knows what she is doing.

As to the article, I don't really know what her strategy is for 2012, or if she is even planning to run for election in 2012. But she clearly has supported candidates across the republican political spectrum, which should build good will necessary. And she has apparently worked to smooth over any rough spots between her and the establishment, to the point where some suggest she could be the next RNC chair (I don't think that is in the cards).

I do think the cult of personality set up by some of her more avid supporters does a disservice to her.

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