Posted on 11/19/2010 6:50:35 AM PST by WebFocus
By telling Barbara Walters that she thinks she can defeat President Obama, Sarah Palin has dimmed hopes cherished by sensible Republicans that she might decide against a run for the White House in 2012. Here are just some of the reasons she should not run.
The Republican nominee should be someone with a vast and impressive record in government and the private sector. Voters chose a novice with plenty of star power in 2008 and will be inclined to swing strongly in the other direction in 2012. Americans will be looking for sober competence, managerial skill, and maturity — not sizzle and flash.
After the 2008 campaign revealed her substantive weaknesses, Palin was advised by those who admired her natural gifts to bone up on policy and devote herself to governing Alaska successfully. Instead, she quit her job as governor after two and a half years, published a book (another is due next week), and seemed to chase money and empty celebrity. Now, rather than being able to highlight the accomplishments of Sarah Palin’s Alaska, we get Sarah Palin’s Alaska, another cheesy entrant in the reality-show genre. She’d so much rather be out dog sledding than in some “dull political office,” she tells the audience. File that.
It’s true. She is wildly popular with a swath of the Republican electorate. And, as a conservative woman politician told me, political consultants (who get paid the big bucks, win or lose) will doubtless descend upon her with game plans showing how she can win in Iowa and then cruise to the nomination. Maybe. But the general election would be a problem, since 53 percent of independent voters view Palin unfavorably along with 81 percent of Democrats, according to a recent Gallup poll.
There is no denying that Sarah Palin has been harshly, sometimes even brutally, treated by the press and the entertainment gaggle. But any prominent Republican must expect and be able to transcend that. Palin compares herself to Reagan. But Reagan didn’t mud-wrestle with the press. Palin seems consumed and obsessed by it, as her rapid Twitter finger attests, and thus she encourages the sniping. She should be presiding over meetings on oil and gas leases in the North Slope, or devising alternatives to Obamacare. Every public spat with Dave Letterman or Politico, or the “lamestream media,” or (God help us) Levi Johnston, diminishes her.
Speaking of television, have you watched “Dancing with the Stars”? Calling the show cheesy would be too generous. Perhaps the former governor should not be blamed for the decisions of her adult daughter. Yet there in the audience we see Sarah and Todd Palin, mugging for the camera and cheering on their unwed-mother daughter as she bumps and grinds to the tune of “Mamma Told Me Not To Come.” Her parents had advised her, the 20-year-old Bristol told an interviewer, that she had to stay “in character” if she expected to win. Being “in character” evidently meant descending to the vulgarity that DWTS peddles on a weekly basis. The mama grizzly was apparently unfazed by, or — equally disturbingly — unaware of, the indignity. And she is supposed to be a conservative culture warrior?
Voters prize judgment, above all, in a presidential candidate. Some of Sarah Palin’s 2010 endorsements were sound and arguably helpful. Others betrayed flightiness and recklessness. Tom Tancredo, Palin’s choice for governor of Colorado, has ridden his anti-immigration hobby-horse in a style perfectly suited to alienate Hispanic voters (describing Miami, for example, as a “Third World city”). Her endorsement of Christine O’Donnell was irresponsible and damaging, losing a seat that would otherwise have been a Republican pick-up. Of course, O’Donnell received an absurdly disproportionate amount of ink and attention during the race (the liberal press naturally seizes upon any opportunity to make conservatives look kooky), but Palin should have anticipated that. Besides, this one cannot be laid at the feet of the biased media. O’Donnell was a thoroughly unqualified candidate.
Palin has many strengths. I admire her fortitude and her principles. Her ability to connect with a crowd is something most politicians can only dream of. I will always remember her 2008 convention speech as a rollicking star turn. She would be terrific as a talk-show host — the new Oprah.
But a presidential candidate? Someone to convince critical independent voters that Republicans can govern successfully? Absolutely not.
— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Looks like I missed all the fun.
I’ve been out making the rounds to get ready for Thanksgiving before the stores are impassible.
JR has given us all a lot to be thankful for, too.
Sarah Palin decided to stand up for what was right AND transform the country.
Never said I supported Romney, not a big govt fan and I have issues with his social policies.
So, you spent 2008 stealing your mother's sheets and using them to make Ron Paul "Revolution" banners that you hung from overpasses when you were stoned?
Sorry to break the news to you, Palin failed to swing the Senate over to the GOP, think O’Donnell, Angle, Fiorina.
You're point? She did help deliver the largest Congressional election victory in over a half century.
Palin endorsed less then 20 House members just over half won, that really tipped the balance.
You still haven't made a point.
Yes, as I life long conservative I must be a troll because I dare to question Palin’s pre-ordained status as the GOP nom in 2012.
You really do need to learn grammar.
Nevertheless, one of the biggest indicators of your troll status is your reluctance to say who you DO support.
Just reading your post - it screams of troll.
You can’t see it - trust me, conservatives can.
That’s my tip of the day!
“Palin failed to swing the Senate over to the GOP, think O’Donnell, Angle, Fiorina.”
The Senate wasn’t systemically set up to take this year, too many RINO seats. 2012 we take 6-8 more, maybe 10 in a route.
Palin’s fault?
“The National Republican Senatorial Committee spent $3 million in the week before the election on the ill-fated campaign of Carly Fiorina, despite polling that showed her trailing by 9 points to the tiny Marxist Barbara Boxer (Fiorina ended up losing by... 9.8%).
In the mean time, Ken Buck lost by a tiny margin in Colorado; Nevada’s Sharron Angle lost by a similar narrow vote total, Dino Rossi was edged by Patty Murray in Washington, 27,000 votes swung the election against Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and and Joe Miller is hanging by a thread in Alaska.
In Alaska, the final results may not be known for some time, but the NRSC’s final ads actually ended up helping Lisa Murkowski in her write-in campaign against GOP nominee Joe Miller. Instead of attacking Murkowski — the candidate who most threatened the party’s nominee — the NRSC instead took aim at Democrat Scott McAdams, who had no chance of winning. Any support they drove from McAdams was far more likely to go to Murkowski than to Miller — meaning the NRSC effort probably did more harm than good for Miller’s campaign.
In other words, the NRSC’s idiocy — combined with outrageous remarks by Karl Rove on national television — likely doomed four or five true conservative candidates to extinction.
In the post-election debrief, the Nixonian RINO contingent of Whimsy Graham, John Cornyn and the rest of the NRSC’s ludicrous cadre of losers blamed... staunch conservative Jim DeMint, who had funded a handful of Tea Party-backed Senatorial winners like Pat Toomey (PA), Marco Rubio (FL), Rand Paul (KY), Mike Lee (UT) and Ron Johnson (WI). “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2622791/posts?page=1
Sweet potatoes are 23 cents a pound at Walmart. Yahoo!
JR has given us all a lot to be thankful for, too.
Agreed!
Back. Any progess? LOL.
Nice zotting Boss!
I just got in before the Zot.
Ozone!
Ooooops.
Cya.
Wow! That’s quite a bargain.
Good call...
When did it happen? Was it a stealth zot?
Call it what you will, she quit.
Find another hobby.
You’re not going to convince anyone here with your troll posts.
Three on this thread alone (lady lawyer, wee weed up (or something), and now ijrazz (who begged for it).
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