Posted on 12/10/2010 7:35:51 AM PST by mandaladon
If Sarah Palin wants to win the Republican nomination for president, she'll have to do well in South Carolina.
The state's first-in-the-South primary is a key indicator of a candidate's strength in the GOP's strongest region. In a state filled with social conservatives, veterans, and spending hawks, a candidate has to prove that he or she can appeal to a large swath of the Republican primary electorate.
So how would Palin do? "It's not a clear picture," says Oran Smith, head of the Palmetto Family Council, the state's top organization of social conservatives. Smith points to his group's 15-member board of directors as a cross section of South Carolina voters -- the last time around, there were McCain supporters, Huckabee supporters, Romney supporters and others. Now, Smith says, "They like Palin's values, but they're still hoping she can make herself more viable in the sense that she is a little more knowledgeable and a little more presidential. They're not going to be interested in her simply because she's conservative and nice and popular."
Of course, the council's board is not exactly a rank-and-file group. Ask Smith about the group's supporters across the state -- the people who donate money, respond to e-mail appeals, and are among the most conservative voters in South Carolina -- and the reading on Palin is more upbeat, but not without reservations. "She's wildly popular," Smith says. Even so, the ties between Palin and potential supporters are still a little tenuous. "I think they're not fully on board with her as a candidate," Smith says, "but deep down they would like to be."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
There is nothing Presidential in our White House right now, IMO.
Oran Smith is probably a Huck booster.
Compared to Zero, Sarah can be way more “presidential”.
(Hell, my dog acts more presidential than that con man we have in office now!)
“South Carolina wants a ‘more presidential’ Palin”
####
Yeah, well South Carolina, I want a more heterosexual Senator, than Foppsey.
As a South Carolinian, I also wish that!!!
What is “more presidential”? It’s as ambiguous as “not qualified” or “not experienced”. Is Huckabee, playing his guitar on his show on Fox “presidential”? Why should Palin act “more presidential” when she hasn’t even declared her candidacy? This is all such nonsense...
“Going back to 1980, every winner of the South Carolina presidential primary has gone on to capture the GOP nomination.”
I’d like a more presidential rest of the field. Funny, that.
Why don't they ask so-called “opinion leaders” like Oran Smith, head of the Palmetto Family Council, how they feel about Mitt Romney not offering his opinion on any controversial issues.
If they found out who was “coaching” her on domestic and foreign affairs, she’d be called a “fundamentalist Christian” who wants to take us back to the 19th Century and take away women’s “reproductive rights” and a “Neo-Con” who wants to go to war with the whole Middle East or the like. Watch and see.
I’m hoping that Palin has a detailed plan for the evolution of her public image. I’ve been a big fan of Palin since about six months after she became Governor, hoping that she would move to a national political role.
We all saw the gap between her experience (not values, not ability, but raw experience dealing with evil) and the level necessary to deal with our anti-American media. In her first few national interviews, she looked to me like someone caught completely off guard, like she expected a friendly conversation that would be edited in a professional manner to tell the true story of who she was and what she believed instead of what she encountered (an ambush designed to elicit answers that could be edited for the specific purpose of making her look bad). Considering the unexpected nature of those first few sets of questions, I didn’t think she did a terrible job - certainly not great, but not terrible. When she and her children were attacked with an insane level of venom, she dealt with it remarkably well and stood up to the hateful liberals. I liked that, but it gave them a chance to call her “divisive”.
In round 2, members of McCain’s staff and other RINOs went after her too. She’s handled that well and been a major force in reshaping the GOP under the Tea Party banner. We’re not done, but there is far more hope than I would have guessed just two years ago.
Today, she has her Internet and Twitter connections to her supporters. She has Sarah Palin’s Alaska to portray herself as a real person and get around the most remarkable level of media bias in our country’s history. She has her books, which are selling very well. I’m hoping that she also has a plan. Part of that is to project “presidential”, and I’m hoping her planned foreign travel is part of a conscious agenda to build that image (and the understanding through personal travel experience to match that image). What else should be on that agenda? Good question, and I hope Sarah has the answer and that some on FR have inside access and will provide those suggestions to her.
SC lost all credibility with graham.
LLS
Great Post!
Can I second that??
Christine O’Donnell is a more presidential SP! She’s cute and sassy! She is also unemployed and maybe we can get her cheap.
You are exactly right.
She deserves our utmost gratitude for rescuing the Republican party from obscurity (and for helping to move it clearly back towards it’s principles)
Without her, McCain would have lost by 20 points and conservatives would still be painted with the brush of a failed Bush presidency.
Palin and the Tea Party gave us a clean break from Bush, that’s why Obama’s continued blame game has no resonance. We’ve gone back to being real conservatives. (This is a conservative nation)
Now I think Palin is working a brilliant strategy designed to reintroduce her to middle America and let them see the real Sarah and her family.
She is way out front confronting Obama and his socialist agenda. She alone has the ability to shape the public debate with a single facebook posting.
She will win the nomination in a cakewalk and the White House in a landslide.
It’s going to be fun to watch.
Is Romney paying you?
If not you are a sucker.
You could be makin’ some good cabbage with your posts. Romney is desperate enough.
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