Sarah Palin: Fatal Cancer? (FreeRepublic.com linked with pissant's thread)

theatlantic.com ^ | 10 Oct 2008 | effreygoldberg

[neverdem]

David Brooks is taking some heat from doctrine-enforcement agents of the left and right for stating, in an interview with me at that famed redoubt of populism Le Cirque that Sarah Palin represents a "fatal cancer" for the Republican Party...

[grey_whiskers]

The problem with the Republican party is it's done very little to appeal to educated (or even critically thinking) voters.

It's a common malady among the educated (yes, I'm a card-carrying member; PhD in molecular collision theory) to assume that education = wisdom.

The proper answer to that is that Bill Clinton has a Yale Law Degree and tried to parse the word "is".

Another example is George Bush who has an MBA from Harvard; and of course Paul Krugman who just won a Nobel Prize in economics -- for decades old work, but all the libs will pretend that this validates all his current ramblings, while continuing to ignore Friedman.

Cheers!

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Well, you're the one hailing a woman with a B.A. in Communcations from Idaho U. as the savior of the Republican Party.

Other than lawyers only two Presidents have had a post batchelors degree: Woodrow Wilson, PhD and George W Bush, MBA. Almost a quarter of our President's do not have a BA, including Washington, Lincoln, and Truman. Your remark has some sort of point, I suppose?! Perhaps it is the woman part you object too.

[Travis T. OJustice]

I sense that you are scared of people with an intellect superior to yours. Seems like that’s pretty much everyone.

[numberonepal]

But how long have you been offending smart people?

You took the words right outta my fingers.

[Tribune7]

But she is simply not qualified to be Vice President -

She's a lot more qualified than LBJ and Gerald Ford.

[Arguendo]

I wasn't really saying the Republicans need to nominate candidates with top degrees to appeal to educated voters; I was saying they need to use rhetoric that appeals to educated voters. Reagan and Gingrich (while still looked down upon by true elitists) appealed to educated voters because they make intellectually defensible policy arguments rooted in a coherent conservative philosophy. Contrast this with McCain and Bush, who seem to have little guiding philosophy and thus say or done things that are anything but conservative (and very hard to defend intellectually) on a regular basis.

McCain's recourse to earmarks when asked how he can cut the budget last night demonstrates this: it's a worthy goal, but he missed a great opportunity to make a broader conservative argument for cutting government. And if my party's leading candidate can't make that argument, how can I as a conservative say I'm voting for the Republicans because I believe in smaller government?

Similarly, back in 2004 Bush was asked about the minimum wage. Instead of using the opportunity to explain conservative opposition to the minimum wage--explain how it actually hurts many of its intended beneficiaries--he basically said he supports an increase, just not as big as the increase John Kerry supports. And I'm supposed to tell people they should vote for the Republicans because the Republicans believe in the free market?

[ExSoldier]

I’m just the opposite. McCain never had me until he picked Palin. McCain could drop dead today and I’d pull the lever only because of Palin.

Me too! I was preparing myself to vote for Bob Barr and in doing so for the first time in my adult life, step away from my Party. Then McCain chose Sara and I thought there was a ray of hope for the roots of the real Republican Party.

[grey_whiskers]

Fair enough -- although I have heard from various pundits that Bush, one-on-one, is infinitely more articulate than the Bush of televised speeches.

Maybe because one-on-one he can gauge the individual's intellect and target his response to that level, whereas the mass of TV watchers would get lost trying to keep up with concepts familiar to a Harvard MBA.

The Bush family SUCKS at getting their message out, or at sending surrogates out on their behalf.

McCain is too RINO for me to enthusiastically support him -- gang of 14 (though he gained points for articulating "elections have consequences); McCain-Feingold; Shamnesty, to name three.

If he is sincere about appointing strict constructionists, that would go a long way with me. And I'm not sure where he stands on the 2nd amendment.

I'm mainly voting to position Palin for 2012, as well as preventing a troika of the ROP (Reid, Obama, Pelosi).

And yes, I'm aware of the pun about ROP.

Incidentally, I haven't read Niebuhr. Brooks is indicting *himself* rather than anyone else by telling the story about Obama.

From what I have gathered from commentators, Niebuhr's work can be characterized as "Socialism and Christianity are very similar, especially socialism."

*IF* this is true, would any honest conservative really get a tingle down his leg hearing someone expounding upon *that*?

Cheers!

[SunkenCiv]

Misleading headline --

Sarah Palin represents a "fatal cancer" for the Republican Party...

Thanks neverdem. Gingrich was a disaster -- he built a winning campaign in 1994 behind Clinton's gaffes and around the "Contract with America" -- then, when the Pubbies took the House, he ensured that it wouldn't pass. Over the next years he persistently made a fool of himself, and finally left the House. Now he spends his time shooting off his mouth for his favorite cause -- success of the Democratic Party.

[muawiyah]

There’s no reason at all to cast a vote for McCain if you don’t have to.

[jersey117]

Should McCain have chosen someone such as Lowell Weicker, Chuck Hagel, Michael Bloomberg, or Lincoln Chafee to be his running mate?

Of course not. She was the perfect candidate at the time. She no longer has the governorship as a steppingstone. I guess we'll have to wait until the primaries to sort it all out.