Posted on 04/07/2010 1:32:58 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
Conflicting loyalties seem to have resulted in some surprising political decisions by Sarah Palin.
On Monday here at NewsReal Blog I argued that Govenor Sarah Palin’s active support of John McCain’s Senate reelection campaign makes no sense. Palin, after all, doesn’t owe McCain anything. Whatever debt she might have owed McCain she paid off during the 2008 presidential campaign.
In fact, if anything, it seems to me that McCain is indebted to Palin. This because his ‘08 campaign really did her a disservice, and also because McCain staffers have since betrayed the former Alaska governor with malicious and disparaging leaks to the media.
Many of the commenters to my post don’t disagree. However, they write, there is one laudable reason why Palin is actively supporting McCain: loyalty.
Fair enough. Loyalty is important. But it seems to me that Palin has competing loyalty obligations; and that she chose to be loyal to McCain when she just as easily could have chosen to be loyal to other people and other principles instead.
For example, Palin knows that some of her most steadfast supporters in the conservative and Tea Party movements have very profound and important differences with McCain.
These Palin supporters believe that on too many critical issues — including free speech (aka “campaign finance reform”), military modernization, and illegal immigration – McCain is a liberal wolf in a conservative sheep’s clothing.
What about loyalty to these people? What about loyalty to their issues and concerns? Why does loyalty to one man, one politician, outweigh loyalty to millions of dedicated conservative and Tea Party activists?
And why does personal loyalty to a man (McCain) outweigh loyalty to a set of conservative political principles?
No one’s saying that Palin had to actively oppose McCain. That might, indeed, have been awkward and ill-advised given that she was his vice presidential running mate.
But why did Palin have to go out of her way to actively support and campaign for McCain? Why couldn’t she have praised both McCain and his challenger, Rep. J.D. Hayworth, while remaining neutral in the Arizona Senate race?
I can think of two possible explanations offered up, respectively, by journalists Conor Friedersdorf and Matthew Continetti.
Friedersdorf says that Palin simply may not be the conservative her steadfast supporters think she is. She may, in fact, be a John McCain Republican. This would mean that she is liberal on some issues, moderate on others, and conservative about a few things.
Continetti notes that since being thrust into the national limelight, Palin has “become incredibly rich.” It may be — and this is me speaking, not Continetti — that because of her newfound riches, Palin feels an understandable debt, literally and figuratively, to Sen. McCain.
If true, that’s fine. Making money to support one’s family is honorable. But that’s a different type of loyalty, I think, than many of the governor’s defenders have in mind.
John R. Guardiano is a writer and analyst in Arlington, Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter: @Guardian0.
John, you ignorant slut.
Were she a true social issues conservative, she would not have run for governor and then VP with small children. She’s a feminist.
I really like Palin, but I hope she doesn’t run for President in 2012. No matter why she resigned the governorship of Alaska, it proves to me she isn’t up to the Presidency. I think she can do us much more good as a politically active private citizen.
Hmmm. . .I guess that depends on what you define as "social issues conservative". I wouldn't say that being a governor or VP disqualifies a woman from being a social conservative. Apparently you do.
When you get Huck or Mitt you’ll be wishing otherwise.
MAny who are giving Palin a pass on this are the main reason we are in the fix we are now. They refuse to see what is right before their eyes.
Sarah said she and McCain have the same vsion for America and the direction we should take.
That sums it up for me. This is why I think her Discovery Channel show isn’t doing so well, people see she is a fruad.
He'll be her veep choice in 2012. So of course she's nice to the old geezer.
Yeah Guardino what a tool. Be sure and site his March 27th column as well
“I must say the general conservative response to David Frum’s forced exit from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has been disappointing, albeit perhaps not surprising.
Of course, no one expected conservatives to respond with indifference, given what this brouhaha quite clearly says about the state of the conservative movement in America. But why have some conservatives been so nasty, vicious and mean-spirited in their denunciations of David?
I think it’s because they realize that all is not well on the Right, but for reasons of political circumspection, feel a need to be quiet and to downplay their concerns.”
I figure with a history like that why should I care two cents for ANYTHING this yahoo has to say.
If you don’t like Palin fine. I think that what you see is what you get and most folks don’t know what to do with that
Palin’s support of McCain does not make her a RINO; it just makes her loyal. As to her ideals, I pay more attention to the life a candidate has lived than to what they claim to believe, and Palin has lived her principles. Because of the support of the Tea Party, she is despised by the RINO’s almost as much as by the left. That’s to her credit.
You are delusional no doubt you prefer Ron Paul or the like.
Sarah Palin, unlike McCain, has been consistent not only in Alaska and as a candidate for VP but also since 2008. If you don’t like her fine but quit trying to put words in her mouth that she has not said. And by the way the Discovery Channel show hasn’t even been shot yet so go back to the gas oven and breathe a little more deeply. Perhaps then your brain will clear
Answer: Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin.
If the vice presidential candidate for John McCain and the the biggest GOP superstar since Reagan had not supported McCain for reelection for his Senate seat, then it would have meant the destruction of her image, and of the GOP image and it would have been the non stop political story of 2009 and 2010, the division between the ticket of the previous year would have made the Republicans appear broken and shattered and would even have led to a widespread reevaluation of the importance of a Democrat victory in 2008, because it would make the GOP ticket look like it had been a sham, it would have damaged and have prevented this incredible change in public opinion towards the entire republican brand that Palin has helped reshape during the last 17 months.
Palin would have looked cheap and shallow to the general public for turning on the man that 59,000,000 of them voted for, she would easily be painted as a radical and unstable person and a bitter, small timer to the general public.
There is a lot more going on with the national image of the republican/conservative movement here than what we McCain haters see in the Arizona Senate race, the general public does not share all of our perceptions and in depth view of the race between McCain and Hayworth. They would see the Presidential and the vice Presidential candidates of the Republican party at each others throats, clearly signaling that Obama and the Democrats represented stability and calm.
Palin’s image would have never survived, and the entire national, conservative movement would be weaker in reality and in the public’s eye.
The show she had on just a few days ago, sorry it wasn’t on the discovery channel, but on Fox.
And no I do not support Paul. And if you chack my posts before Sarah McPalin offered her support for McCain you will find I was very much a Palin supporter.
But the friend of my enemy is also my enemy.
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