Posted on 11/09/2008 8:14:45 AM PST by AJKauf
McCain’s staff failed to recognize that Sarah Palin could — indeed, should — have been the GOP’s Obama. Her folksy, “hockey Mom” persona was the perfect foil to Obama’s claim that he was a relative Washington outsider, just as her from-the-hip speaking style was the mirror image of Obama’s soaring, lofty rhetoric. Where Obama sought to break the racial barrier as a harbinger of change and reform, Palin as the vice president would have broken the gender barrier, accomplishing the same goal.
Yet despite the huge surge in the GOP’s favor after naming Palin to the ticket, the McCain campaign squandered away her appeal. Some wonder now, in hindsight, whether this waste was intentional.
Given the “full-scale kneecapping of Sarah Palin” that McCain’s staff has undertaken since the election, it certainly appears they have a grudge to bear against her.
Funny how the Palin-bashing seems to be coming from those in the GOP whom she threatens the most.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Energizing the base is great. Unfortunately, it's not enough to win a general election. You also have to appeal to the middle, and that's something Sarah doesn't do.
Furthermore, I would argue that she only energizes part of the base, namely rural values voters. While I have nothing against this voting bloc, they need to remember that they are not the only part of the Republican base.
Sarah is pretty unpopular among the more cosmopolitan pro-business wing of the party. Dissing Americans who live in the cities by claiming that only rural Americans are patriotic doesn't help her in this respect.
Sarah Palin represents the new identity politics that threatens to relegate our party to regional status.
Sarah Palin is little more than Mike Huckabee in a skirt.
The way the rednecks are trying to take over our party I find very disturbing.
“The way the rednecks are trying to take over our party I find very disturbing.”
Define Redneck. Let’s see just who it is you want eliminated.
Come on, let’s hear it.
I don't want to eliminate anyone. I just don't want to see any faction of the party gain excessive influence. And right now, the rural evangelical wing of the party is gaining way too much influence.
Can't we have a candidate who can appeal to the rednecks without pandering to them and playing identity politics with them? Because that's exactly what Sarah Palin is doing and exactly the same thing that Huckabee did. If we keep this up, we will become a regional party.
“the rural evangelical wing of the party is gaining way too much influence.”
How? Where? In the white house? Congress? What Federal laws in the last 50 years have benefitted ‘rural evangelicals?’
ROFMAO!
All ‘rural’ people aren’t evangelical. Most Evangelicals aren’t ‘rural’. You need to learn what to fear. The Rino’s been running the show during and since Reagan. We ‘rural’ people would like a little representation, thank you. Unless of course, YOU decide we don’t have that right.
Sarah Palin bothers you because she’s not some beltway over educated indoctrinated Rino.
Your bigotry is showing.
“Palin is doing and exactly the same thing that Huckabee did”
If you can’t see the difference in Palin and Huckster, then I can’t help you.
Bye.
So... you want her to move further left? On what issues, specifically?
If that's true, then it was those people, not the conservative values voter types, who stayed home and cost us this election, because...
"Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable."
Source.
Dissing Americans who live in the cities by claiming that only rural Americans are patriotic doesn't help her in this respect.
I don't believe she said that, or that she believes that. Feel free to show me where, but bear in mind that the only reason this was even discussed is because The One famously dissed small town types.
We're not taking any more pathetic RINOs from the DC tarpit.
Sorry I was asleep for this battle!
It has been shown the leaks are not coming from Mitt and still lying posters, like Dio, continue to post boldfaced lies. We will never win with people like you misleading the way, and I'm sure that's the plan.
You fool us no longer. You're a MOLE, dio. Go back to the leftist slum from whence you came.
And the MSM saw to that. They couldn’t be more culpable. It is totally unrealistic to ignore that.
The lesson learned here, is that until the MSM loses their influence and power, we cannot pick candidates who have not already been vetted nationally. McCain's campaign should have had ads defining her the day they announced she would be the VP. But I'm not sure even that would have worked.
Furthermore, give me rural people over city people any day. They are far nicer and far more decent. I wasn't hurt in the least when Sarah made the comment. In many cases it's true. It's small town America, that so far, has saved the United States from falling into a socialistic pit entirely.
Me too!
Plus, the party to whom you are responding is obviously totally oblivious to the intended consequences of the Warren Court's "Cows Don't Vote" decision just about 50 years ago!!!
Proving Romney is a congential liar is #1:
"Yesterday (12/20/07), Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom acknowledged that was not true.
"Mitt Romney did not march with Martin Luther King,"
he said in an e-mail statement to the Globe.
Proving Romney is a congential liar is #2:
Proving Romney is a congential liar is #3:
Susan Englander, assistant editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, who is editing the King papers from that era,
says Myth Romney was untruthful, when she told the Globe yesterday:
"I researched this question, and indeed it is untrue that George Romney marched with [Dr.] King."
Proving Romney is a congential liar is #4:
"King never marched in Grosse Pointe, according to the Grosse Pointe Historical Society,
and had not appeared in the town at all at the time the Broder book was published.
“I’m quite certain of that,” says Suzy Berschback, curator of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society"
Of course, you RomneyBOTs continued to attack these educated women,
just as they have against Gov. Palin and her little children,
just as they have against honorable FReepers
who have spoken the Truth about Myth Romney and venal, odious deeds.
So Romney thought his father marched with Martin Luther King? Memories from our youth are not always accurate. It proves nothing.
But your continued lying posts on this forum tell us everthing we need to know about you. There are moles all over this board. You're one of them.
Whine all you want. Romney DIRECTED others to leak the
information against Gov. Palin, so your disassembling the words is not relevant
but is consistent with RomneyBOT trying to 'pull the wool' over everyones' eyes.
MORE ON MYTH ROMNEY's LIES:
Myth Romney incredibly made up stories
and awarded himself 'awards'.
"Behind the empty gestures and deceptive rhetoric, Romney was not pro-life
or a defender of marriage by any stretch of the imagination.
He was a disaster," said O'Gorman, of the board for Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
He said Romney "deceptively" claims to have been awarded
a pro-life award from the group.
"The award Romney arranged for himself with the local Pioneer Valley Chapter
was the Mullins Award for Political Leadership, not a pro-life award
and not approved by MCFL's state board of directors," he said.
"We're blowing the whistle to warn voters…"
[Family leaders call Romney 'disaster' - Letter criticizes 'deceptive rhetoric' around candidate]
I am a Sarah Palin fan, am supportive of her being the first woman President and I am NO REDNECK!! I don’t know where you get off calling someone a redneck. The problem with the GOP is it has no faction....much less ‘any faction’....the GOP has lost it’s identity. Now, if you want the GOP to be like the so called conservative Democrats then you are still advocating a move to the left. This country will not survive with only a left wing on the eagle. The right wing is required in order for it to fly!! There is a way to package conservative and traditional American values that differ from the liberal view that would make it palatable to more Americans. That is where the energy in the GOP party needs to be utilized...not calling some of us rednecks, or hillbillies, or white trash because we are more to the right than obviously you are.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.