This, of course, is the crux of the issue for her going forward along with becoming more attuned to national issues. I'm not worried at all about the latter, but the former is a great concern. As much as I support her, I am just extremely worried about the extent to which these lies have taken hold in the segments of the electorate that she would have to win over to be elected president (not the conservative base which clearly believes in her). I'm also concerned about the continuing attacks from the MSM.
She has a lot to overcome but she has indicated she's willing to fight the fight, so who am I to say she's fighting impossible odds? She's overcome tough odds before in her career.
Leaders that have the ability to inspire are so rare in politics. I see that potential in her so I'm with her all the way. Great, great job on these previous posts clearly explaining who she is and where she stands.
It's truly terrible the way she was savaged by the MSM. Frankly, the whole situation reminded me of the scene in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (which is one of Palin's favorites, btw) where Jeff Smith is sandbagged by a Washington press corps that takes advantage of his "awe-shucks" good-natured ignorance of the nasty way political journalism works.
Through the election I constantly wanted to scream from the top of my lungs, "Flip the ticket!!!!" Palin had much better instincts than McCain. She would have put on the foil and give Obama a slap shot back to south Chicago. McCain's instincts were to hand Barack a pillow and a blankie and put us all to sleep with tales of how he rescued America from $3 million earmarks for museum projectors. I wish we could have had Palin debate Obama. She would have hand him his a$$ in a sling and have done it with a smile. Heck, she made Biden cry in their debate; can you imagine what she would have done to Barry O? He would have been in a fetal position crying for Michelle.
Palin wanted to "take the gloves off" and play to win. McCain didn't. He wanted to lose graciously. I felt sorry for her being saddled with such a pathetic old fart. The left is trying to paint her as everything from Dan Quayle to Dick Nixon to George W. Bush in a skirt. All you've got to do is take a good look at her real record in Alaska to know that she's none of those things. She doesn't really resemble any politician -- though the one she most closely resembles in her style and outlook is Reagan. She's the quintessential happy warrior (check this out) -- and the McCain people wasted her by telling her to go low key.
And she single-handedly reignited the culture wars by simply showing up. She gave one of the best speech I've ever heard on abortion in years. I think these crazy leftists are out of their minds about her because they know she has the potential to really shake things up when it comes to life issues. They don't feel the need to drop an atom bomb on people like Huckabee and Romney because those guys aren't really a threat. It was always easy to disregard pro-life men ("when have they ever been confronted with an unwanted pregnancy?") and old pro-life women ("it's easy for that old lady to talk when she can't have kids"), but in Palin we have a woman of childbearing years who was actually confronted with the prospects of giving birth to a Down Syndrome baby and chose life, and then on top of it she stood by a pregnant teenage daughter who chose life. She lives her philosophy apologetically and she looks so happy doing it. That's what really drives them nuts -- she's always smiling. They hated that about Reagan too.
This will make you feel much, much better. (At least it makes me feel better.) Watch these clips. This was filmed back in January or February 2008 -- before she was McCain's VP pick and at a time when the media was still honest enough to admit that she's wonderful: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
By the way, here's a really interesting bio piece on her. This piece mentions the "Hoosiers" aspect of her high school basketball championship, and I found it funny that when news-witch Katie Couric asked her what her favorite movie is, she said:
Sarah Palin: I love those old sports movies, like Hoosiers, and Rudy -- those that show that the underdog can make it and it's all about tenacity and work ethic and determination, and just doing the right thing. So it would probably be one of those two old sports movies.Did you happen to notice that the theme from Rudy was the music they chose for Palin's introduction?Couric: Do you have a favorite scene from either of them?
Palin: At the very end, the victories! Yeah! Rudy, where he gets to run out on the field and he gets to participate and make a difference. And then in Hoosiers, when they win.
(BTW, when news-witch Couric asked Biden and Palin to name the worst thing that Dick Cheney did as vice president. Biden went on and on for God knows how long on how Cheney is evil incarnate. Palin's answer: "Worst thing? I guess that would have been the duck-hunting accident." LOL!!! I don't think that shows "stupidity" on her part -- I think it shows excellent political instincts. You don't want to slam a fellow Republican, and yet you don't want to say he did nothing wrong, so you deflect to something kinda humorous. She then went on to praise his commitment to the troops, which is something no one can fault him for.)
As for Palin's future, a lot can happen in four years. Don't underestimate the American public's ability to forget. All of Palin's opponents and friends have said that she has excellent political instincts. If she thinks she can win, she'll run. And if she were to run her own campaign, she'd be organized, on message, and she'd run to win. That's another thing everyone says about her -- she's extremely disciplined. History might just repeat itself again here. In 2002, a little known mayor ran for her lieutenant governor of her state and lost only to turn around four years to run for governor, beat the incumbent in the primaries, beat a well respected former governor in the general and win the race without the backing of her own party or any special interest. Literally, her own party wouldn't give her any financing in that race. She didn't have help from any of the Alaskan special interest constituents either -- the oil companies, the environmentalists, the native community. She ran on her own, and she won.
We're talking about a lady who has only lost three races in her life: the Miss Alaska pageant in 1984, the lieutenant governor race in 2002, and her vice presidential bid in 2008. In 1984, she won Miss Congeniality and earned enough scholarship money to pay for college. In 2006, she rebounded from her lieutenant governor loss to win the governorship. In 2008, she’ll survive this presidential race and go on to bigger and better things.
Reagan made two presidential runs before finally winning. There was a premature bid in 1968, and a long hard race in 1976, and after that one everyone thought he was surely finished once and for all. The nation went on to elect Carter, and conservatism and the GOP looked like they were done for good. Liberalism won, and a new era was about to be born.
Thomas Sowell talks about what Democrats thought about Reagan back in the day by citing Meg Greenfield in the Washington post:
It was the wisdom of the other contenders and of most Republican Party leaders, too, not to mention of practically everyone in Democratic politics, that Reagan was: too old, too extreme, too marginal and not nearly smart enough to win the nomination. The Democrats , in fact, when they weren’t chortling about him, were fervently hoping he would be the nominee. When he carried the convention in Detroit, people I knew in the Carter White House were ecstatic.
Yeah, right. Funny how history has a way of ripping the rug out under our foolish assumptions.
So let her critics feel free to underestimate the ‘Cuda. Her critics always do. And they’re always shocked when she comes back and wins.