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You Betcha I Was Wrong About Sarah Palin
Daily Beast ^ | 01/28/2015 | Matt Lewis

Posted on 01/28/2015 12:15:17 PM PST by SeekAndFind

It’s time to admit that, whatever their motivation was at the time, the Alaska governor’s critics always had a point. Has conservative genuflection at the altar of Sarah Palin finally come to a halt?

In case you missed it, her speech in Iowa this week was not well received on the right. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York called it a “long, rambling, and at times barely coherent speech” and National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke said she slipped into self-parody. And there’s more. The Examiner’s Eddie Scarry, for example, contacted several conservative bloggers who were once Palin fans, but have since moved on.

But here’s my question… what changed?

Yes, in 2008, Sarah Palin delivered one of the finest convention speeches I’ve ever heard (trust me, I was there), but she hasn’t exactly been channeling Winston Churchill ever since. Remember her big speech at CPAC a couple of years ago? You know, the one where she took a swig out of a Big Gulp and said of her husband Todd: “He’s got the rifle, I got the rack.” Not exactly a great moment in political rhetoric.

So why is anyone surprised when, this weekend, she said: “‘The Man,’ can only ride ya when your back is bent?”

Demosthenes, she is not, but there’s nothing new about Palin’s penchant for populism or lowbrow rhetoric. What does feel new is that she has finally gotten around to roundly losing conservative opinion leaders. (OK, this has been a long time coming. In 2011, Conor Friedersdorf noted that the hard right was skewering Palin, and that Kathleen Parker had been vindicated. And as recently as this past April, I wondered whether it was finally safe for conservatives to criticize her publicly.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016; 2016electionbias; catfight; conservatism; dailybeast; fakefreepers; getpalin; gope; iowafreedomsummit; mattlewis; memebuilding; palin; palinspeech; pds; romney2016; sarahpalin; teamromney
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To: alstewartfan

I have seen really good things from John Kasich and Mike Pence. Susana Martinez is terrific, but it probably wouldn’t make sense to have a nominee from such a small state.


61 posted on 01/28/2015 1:01:53 PM PST by colorado tanker
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To: Boogieman

what “stunt” have you ever pulled that did a damned thing to advance the cause. I am sick and tired of faux conservatives who think running for office is the only way someone should impact events. Thats NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT conservative at all.


62 posted on 01/28/2015 1:02:08 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: meadsjn; KC_Lion
This time, like at the RNC speech in 2008, she trusted the venue and people, and her teleprompter did not work.

Is this a fact? AGAIN? Hannity mentioned something about the teleprompter but SP did not use it as an excuse.

I thought her "rambling, pointless, off-the-mark" speech she gave last Saturday in Iowa WAS EXCELLENT...and wish she would emulate this updated style more, as she did on Hannity's show.

Not everyone in that auditorium Saturday was a likely Palin supporter. I found the actions of some hand-sitters males to be oddly unsupportive and disinterested.
63 posted on 01/28/2015 1:02:17 PM PST by Resettozero
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To: colorado tanker

Good things from Kasich? Do tell.

And did you like Pence’s “Indiana Pravda” idea?


64 posted on 01/28/2015 1:02:46 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: miss marmelstein

JMHO, that “building her brand” schtick is only a couple of file cards downstack from whining about how “she resigned in the middle....”.

Just more PDS BS, in other words. Somebody in the GOPe Advisor playground probably has it tattooed on his left cheek.


65 posted on 01/28/2015 1:03:24 PM PST by Unrepentant VN Vet (Needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.)
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To: gdani

Then don’t believe it! I don’t think she’s going to run and so don’t worry about it. Other pols are always dropping hints or lying and denying that they’re going to run but she’s always held up to some unrealistic standard.


66 posted on 01/28/2015 1:03:29 PM PST by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: Loyalty Binds Me)
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To: sparklite2

was Phylllis ever hot? Fun? Adventurous?


67 posted on 01/28/2015 1:03:45 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Demosthenes, she is not,”

Well, that’s just great Romney/Bush shill Matt Lewis.

Demosthenes had a severe speech impediment: an inability to pronounce the letter “r”, a stutter or both.
He would put pebbles in his mouth and practice speaking for hours in order to not sound like Barbara Walters channeling Porky Pig.

Palin is a good speaker and a better person.
She’s a good mother and wife and, from what I hear from my Alaska cousin, was a good governor.
Compare her to Romney and Bush as governors.
And to Obama on anything.

I was disappointed that the MSM intimidated her family, joined by many in the GOP-e, and angry that some (arguably) non-Democrats still run her down.

This is just more GOP-e/DemLite backbiting.
Eff `em.
I’m not voting for their boy, whoever he is—even if the Democrats dig up McGovern and put him on his feet.

“All things great are not always good. All things good are always great.” Demosthenes


68 posted on 01/28/2015 1:04:22 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: gdani
Wake me when Palin actually runs for something instead of coyly teasing it

You're a liberal because you think "running for something" is the only honorable thing she, or anyone else, can do. I feel sorry for you, putting politicians on such a pedestal. THATS NOT AT ALL CONSERVATIVE. What a boring inside the box notion.

69 posted on 01/28/2015 1:05:03 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

No one can remember back far enough to answer your question.
As for today, SP is a political gadfly just as PS was.


70 posted on 01/28/2015 1:06:02 PM PST by sparklite2
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To: Idaho_Cowboy
I will always like Sarah Palin if, for not other reason, than that she paved the way for superb senators like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. No hippie liberal can accuse either of these men of being uneducated because they can take them apart intellectually.

Truth be told, so could Sarah, if substance was rated before style.

71 posted on 01/28/2015 1:07:23 PM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: SeekAndFind

The only “moving on” I’ll be doing is away from the GOP and the effete scumbags like Lewis that infest the so-called conservative punditry.

Did any of these guys come to the defense of Palin when she was being financially bankrupted by political operatives? When her children and family were being attacked by the lefty media? When her church was torched? When she was accused of being complicit in the mass-murders in Tucson? No, they just join in with the vile northeastern libs and their nonstop gang-raping of her.

POS, pajama-boy, “conservative” pundits. I’d like to shove a helping of ground-glass down their gullets.


72 posted on 01/28/2015 1:10:55 PM PST by greene66
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To: SeekAndFind
First of all, who the hell is Matt Lewis?

Secondly, that quote that these Palin bashing pundits like to use as proof Sarah has lost it comes from a speech of Martin Luther King in Memphis.

Exact quote; "If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent."

Ever get the idea that Sarah Palin is far smarter than the crowd of elites that declare her dumb?

And last. I despise these so-called conservatives that continue to pile on Palin. Palin has done more for the conservative/tea party in the past 6 years than the combined efforts of all her detractors. Most of them are cowards. They only become "brave" after the real leaders(Palin) first step out and take the arrows from an evil opposition. Vultures, every one of them.

So if you are here attacking Sarah Palin, all I have to say is ,,,, off. Have a good day.

73 posted on 01/28/2015 1:14:18 PM PST by upsdriver (Palin/West '16)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

I’m not entitled to have a different opinion than you about someone, or I’m a “faux conservative”?

KMA.


74 posted on 01/28/2015 1:14:51 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra
Go to the link and read the comments. But take some BP meds first!

I don't need to, I get angry enough reading the comments of some of those posting on these threads.

75 posted on 01/28/2015 1:18:03 PM PST by upsdriver (Palin/West '16)
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To: Boogieman

I agree, Sarah does some things that are wholly inexplicable. Sometimes to her benefit; sometimes to her detriment; sometimes flat-out mysterious. I didn’t like the 2012 stunt, either. It seems also to be playing again in the run-up to 2016.

I think it’s fair to judge somebody in a kind of double set of lights. In one case, you look at the overall, the average impression that person creates. In the other case, you judge incidents and events on a case-by-case basis. Overall, I think she’s extraordinarily interesting, talented, and politically savvy. I wish she would ditch the folksy vocabulary because it reminds me too much of another politician. Namely, Pres. Obama.

But what I really can’t fathom is this. How is it that people on the left, like the writer of this piece, can use a single incident to define the rule by which you trash somebody irretrievably? If I could see just one instance of Obama’s fumbles — and there are many — used to discredit him overall, I think these people could be more credible.

In the meantime, I think we just have to stop reading their drivel. Because both in the overall and the incidental, it’s pretty much intellectual trash.


76 posted on 01/28/2015 1:18:04 PM PST by StAntKnee (Add your own danged sarc tag)
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To: Boogieman

It’s got nothing to do with my opinion....I demonstrated your particular opinion in this case IS A LIBERAL MINDSET period.


77 posted on 01/28/2015 1:18:36 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: sparklite2

you’re an idiot.


78 posted on 01/28/2015 1:19:03 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: biggredd1

But many FReepers agree.....I think over all, Freep nation is getting dumber cumulatively. it’s sad.....and a shame......(exceptions of course.....)


79 posted on 01/28/2015 1:20:09 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: C. Edmund Wright
You're a liberal because.....

Blah, blah, blah. I'm so happy you have appointed yourself the arbiter of all things conservative.

You shouldn't get so worked up when people refuse to support the same candidates (or in this case, non-candidates) as you.

Life's too short.

80 posted on 01/28/2015 1:22:02 PM PST by gdani (Ebola exposed the U.S. as fearful, easy-to-manipulate weaklings)
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