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.
“So what? Sarah supports McCain is news?”
So now it is okay for Palin to run ads all day long until the primary??
What happened to one appearance, which turned into 5?
Now she is “gushing” over McCain on the 2 biggest talk radio stations in Arizona....several times a day.....day after day after day.
YOU are a FRAUD as a conservative. Not me!
LOL! It’s easy to ‘ACT ‘like you are behind someone - when they never had a chance of winning!! Nice little cover - it’s blown off now - stephenjohnbanker AKA SARAH IS THE ENEMY.
And you talk to ME about intelligence! Keep up the act BarryBoyBot AKA SARAH IS THE ENEMY.
‘
How does one become that bizarre and strange before the age of 25, before they have a job, before they even have a girlfriend or a life?
If you are a woman you are a feminist. They are both one in the same.
I guess 11,000 people at a rally has got a lot of people ramped up. Oh, that is for oil.
PALIN IS DOING 30 SECOND ADS ON ALL THE CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO SHOWS HERE IN ARIZONA.
That’s right, folks......Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et al. on the 2 biggest talk radio stations in Arizona.
550 AM Phoenix (powerful station, like KFI in Los Angeles)
790 AM, Tucson (reaches to the border, and to Phoenix)
In the ads, she calls McCain everything but GOD!!
I suspect they will run until the primary.
Day after day.
Little boy. Get a clue. Obama is well on his way to overthrowing our Republic and yet you, stand-by, focusing now on Sarah Palin!
Everyone here is familiar with the back-stabbing treacherous duo's of McCain and Graham, and to a lesser extent the sickening Collins and Snowe, but Marxist Obama and his majority senate and house, have the votes to pass monstrous legislation just like they did with obamacare.
We have serious fights going on, with with the FCC, EPA, immigration reform, cap & tax; card check; SCOTUS appointment; (calls, letters and emails are needed to agencies and to house members and senators on the committees that oversee the cited agencies).
I am a pro-active conservative working in the Tea Party movement to remove the cancer in Washington DC, and you're obsessed with the past (8 years ago), a delightful experience which I told to my husband of then 25 years who LOVED that it happened, and was thrilled for me, and one that I shared with my then 18 year old son who went on to become a war hero. In addition, you are morbidly obsessed as well by my devotion to praying for President Bush and trying to make it something filthy (because you are??).
At any rate, right now YOU are getting in the way of those of us who are working to get our country back.
YOU are doing nothing. YOU are supporting a liberal. YOU are fighting against conservatism.
(I would suggest counseling to help you with your unhealthy tendencies).
And in the mean time, GET OUT OF OUR WAY.
So you are saying Bachmann is stupid for having Conservative Sarah Palin at her rally to support her.
I'd say that's a pretty fair description of what Ms. Palin is doing in Arizona.
Both of which are being cosponsored by Graham.
Yet you want to downplay the role of the RINOs in such perfidy.
Sad.
YOU are the fraud and YOUR Posts prove it!
I’m just calling you out - Mr.stephenjohnbanker AKA Sarah IS THE ENEMY - OUT!!
You do have a problem with knowing the difference between fraud and truth - Just LIKE YOUR LEADER and all the commies.
Show me just one post where I backed anyone for office other than a very conservative Republican. Just one.
LIAR!!
MRS not Ms - at least get that right! FGS
Very sad for him if he needs her campaign ads that much, but if her campaign ads are all that are needed to win races, then we better send Sarah to make campaign ads for all the races.
She was absolutely wonderful today with Michele Bachmann in Minneapolis. They were great together.
I suggest that, since you have nothing to do with your life (nothing at all), that you start to focus on becoming a conservative (perhaps becoming a decent human being should come first). I would suggest that, instead of being obsessed with me, and my clear and UNAPOLOGETIC respect and admiration for President Bush, which has NO bearing on this discussion, that YOU focus on doing something to save the country from radical Marxism.
If all you can do is hunt up ancient posts from 8 years ago and attack the real conservatives on this forum, then perhaps you need to look inside and see what's wrong at the very core.
And as I said, while your finding your inner adult and throwing away this obnoxious child, GET OUT OF OUR WAY as we conservative adults try to save the country.
You clearly don't care about it.
Read my post and go away - you are filth - YOU ARE THE ENEMY!
But but Onyx - Palin’s now the enemy /s
How's that support for Cynthia McKinney and that other moonbat working out for ya?
You mean the "thrills" you got from Bush kissing you on the cheek? LOL. That's far and above mere respect and admiration; it's more like a teenage schoolgirl fantasy about an older man.
As far as I am concerned, anyone who openly(and RELENTLESSLY) campaigns for John McCain is an enemy. Happy?
She is STILL boosting McCain every day, multiple times a day. She will likely throw the election to McCain, and defeat a REAL CONSERVATIVE, J.D.Hayworth.
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