I am a Reagan Conservative with SoCon beginnings and deep SoCon, and Pro-Life roots. There is a resentment of her official Pro-Life position among my contemporaries. She will not be supported by those I know.
2)She has also demonstrated fiscal restraint in both her actions as mayor and Governor
I will ask you the same questions I asked GipperGal:
How do you explain a 28% increase in the AK budget this year? How do you explain her windfall profit tax (oops, again: fee) on oil companies? How do you explain her support of the bailout? And I will lso add, How come Wasilla pays more in taxes after Palin than before?
and 3. She is a military hawk when it comes to challenges faced by this country overseas.The defense and fro a strong America types will find her mucho compatible
That is yet to be proven. She talks the talk, admittedly, but there is really no way to tell what she will do in a crisis. Compare her, if you will, to what I would consider a standard for the Reagan template, Duncan Hunter... Or if you'd like, Alan Keyes, or Tom Tancredo, or any number of others of that caliber if you'd like to pick another.
Hunter's leadership is unquestionable, especially militarily. If this country is faced with crisis, I can think of no other man that I would rather have at the helm, and Palin, by comparison, is mere fluff. There simply is no comparison.
Even against Keyes- The level of conviction in the man is unfathomable, and in every category. What Keyes will do is not a matter of debate- He is as predictable as the rising of the sun. Palin misses by an order of magnitude when compared to these two gentlemen. It is the difference between a populist and a statesman, I might add.
I don't think you can make the case for her being a moderate unless her position on the gay rights issue in state is by your definition moderate.
No, that would be liberal.
Also IMO she is a populist in the same sense that RR was a populist in attracting the Reagan Democrats.
Except that the Reagan Democrats are no longer Democrats- You know them as the Christian Right, the SoCons.
And as far as governing as a pragmatist: well, RR was the epitome of pragmatism if by that word you mean governing to build coalitions to get things done.
Reagan built a single coalition. The most powerful coalition the US has ever seen, and ever since, all the Republicans seem to want to do is tear it back apart.
Finally, I think it was informative to know what you where referring to when you used the word "coalition". That means political voting blocks rather than Philosophy.
Thanks for that, but it really is both. To a Reaganite, it is a way of life- to embrace and support all facets of Conservatism, just as much as the individual pillars see their particular discipline as a way of life as well.
Thanks for your reply.
McCain/Palin got 88% of the evangelical Christian vote according to exit polls and the turnout among the group was very large, thanks in large part to the wink & a nod from James Dobson despite Dobson's public misgivings about McCain. He was excited about Palin and had her on his radio program.
It's incomprehensible to me that Palin at the top of the ticket would do worse among this group than with her in the VP slot. Makes no sense at all.