No. My criteria for a candidate is not the ability to answer a simple historical question. My criteria is a candidate who doesn’t constantly hand the enemy the means to defeat them.
Whether the Palin worshipers on here realize it or not, Palin has a perception problem. Currently seventy percent of the country and a majority of Republican voters think she is an idiot. She needs to change this pereption by showing a grasp of the issues in a forum other than Fox News. If she is a real candidate for President she needs to go on Face the Nation, PBS, write Op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post etc. She may in fact do just that when the time comes. But for now she continues to give the left every opportunity to pounce on her when she does these “Paul Revere” kind of things.
The worshipers constantly compare her to Ronald Reagan. Which either means they are trying to build her up or bring Reagan down. She is not Ronald Reagan, a two term governor of California ( the full eight years by the way) debated Robert Kennedy, Bill Buckley among others. Wrote countless radio and newspaper issue papers and addresses on and on. And of course almost defeated a Republican President and did defeat a Democratic one. Palin may eventually do all these things in the next eighteen months, but to date I haven’t seen any interest in doing anything remotely similar to this.
Finally let me state this. Obama must be defeated, period. Whoever the nominee is I will support them and vote for them. I’m not going third party or doing anything idiotic like that. The nation is at a crossroads and I believe will make the right choice next year. We must be prepared to offer a candidate who can take the fight to Obama and his MSM apologists. I just don’t think Palin is that candidate. She may prove me wrong but what happened this weekend only confirms my current belief.
Firesuit on!!!
POP it one more time for the GOP!
The nation is at a crossroads and I believe will make the right choice next year.
If I searched through your Aug-Dec 2008 comments I bet I would find those exact sentiments expressed by you back then as well.
The history, dating back to at least Eisenhower, shows that the MSM creates an image of the leading Republican candidate as an idiot. (There have been well researched essays about this.) When they cannot do it, as happened with Nixon, they painted him as a criminal. But all of them, Ford, Quayle, Reagan, both Bushes, others, have been created as bumbling morons. Palin is no exception, and if you are buying anything about her alleged persona, her intelligence level, you have swallowed the bait. Palin is no worse in all the regards you mentioned than Gore, Kerry, or Obama, in fact she is much better. Like Reagan before her she needs to reach the electorate over the MSM. Can she succeed? Dan Quayle never did, and neither did Ford.
If you wait for a Republican candidate the MSM loves and praises Hades will freeze over first. Gimme a break. Palin was correct and the media was wrong, but you want to use that as an example of why she can’t win? Pfft.
Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan, you are correct. However, Sarah Palin is only about 46 years old, Ronnie was still making pics at that age. Reagan was elcted at age 70.
I feel confident that Palin will well compete with Reagan as a spokesperson for conservatives over the next 25 years. So comparing the two is apples and oranges on your part.
Take a Mydol and chill. There aren’t a lot of alternatives to Sarah who can pull the apple cart so deal with it.
That describes the Republican Party. A “Moderate” Republican nominee won't win, as has been proven time after time. A Conservative nominee would. That's the basis of my support of Gov. Palin. I don't see Bachmann with the name recognition and I suspect Herman Cain isn't exactly what some think he is. If I'm proven wrong on Bachmann or Cain, I'm fine with that.
In regards to President Reagan, there is a strong similarity to Gov. Palin. Reagan to was hated by the media. Further, his own party establishment worked against him. Back then, the media applied the same strategies; He's stupid. He's too extreme. He's a joke. He was an actor! I might add that I remember Reagan saying some things during the campaign of 1980 which were not the most clever statements (remember the killer trees line). But, Reagan wasn't afraid to make direct statements of what he believed in, and he wasn't afraid to attack those he didn't agree with. While his media coverage was horrible, he had the ability to directly connect with voters, mainly through the TV camera. He also showed his temper at times, something which actually appealed to voters. Remember the Nashua Moment?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO2_49TycdE
That was the turning point in the Reagan campaign.
Gov. Palin has a similar ability to connect with voters. My best example is a broad one. She has taken all the crap from the media for almost two years now, far worse than what they did to Dan Quayle, Judge Bork or Trent Lott. Yet, unlike that trio, she's still here with a solid base of supporters.
The last two most recent interviews she gave were among her best thus far, and I anticipate she will continue to improve. She's unafraid to say what she thinks and she means what she says. And, yes, I do think she'll go into enemy territory eventually and take on the alphabet “news” hosts face to face. As of now, there hasn't been a reason to and she's still under contract with Fox.
As for the all mighty poll numbers, to take then seriously at this point is a major mistake. One month ago, Donald Trump was the leading Republican candidate. In 1991, Ross Perot was leading in some polls. In 2007, polls told us John McCain was a 2nd string player while that guy from Illinois was just running to build his image. At this early stage, even honest polls are all over the map. Added to that, look at all the dishonest polls which are published (Obama is still at 58% approval according to the Daily Kos poll). None of those mean much at this point, and anyone who claims they do is lying or has an agenda to push.
Will she have a Nashua moment? I don't know. But, she looks to me to be our best chance at ending the Obama term and hopefully able to correct all the damage that's been done.
And when she is proven RIGHT, the lefties are the ones who end up looking like idiots.
Give the woman a chance. She's now taking the opportunity to turn around that perception created during the campaign, when she was under the thumb of the McCain staffers, and didn't have the freedom to fight for her image.
If she decides to run for office, she'll have interviews with all those folks with whom she hasn't spent time over the last couple of years. I believe many of those who thought they KNEW Sarah Palin might just change their minds, after seeing her on her own, speaking for herself.
You don't actually expect people to take you seriously when you talk like that, do you?