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.
No quarrel here with what you have written, except I have not ever before seen any suggestion, much less a statement of fact, that Gov. Palin was being sued by Republicans. This is a completely new and unfamiliar, not to mention unbelieveable, revelation. Can you substantiate it?
Is it your contention that if Sarah Palin were really, really truly conservative her child would not have behaved badly? That is what you clearly implied.
Gee, it helps if you actually read posts instead of just jerking your knee.
“As the leading conservative in America, and the most relentlessly attacked and smeared politician that we have ever seen in the United States,”
The second assertion might be true, but the first is without evidence. She has not made enough policy positions clear to state that she’s the “leading conservative in America”.
"the most relentlessly attacked and smeared politician that we have ever seen in the United States?"
Not even close. Not EVEN close. Reagan and Bush43 were attacked more viciously and more continuously than Sarah Palin.
The best comparison I see to the treatment of Sarah Palin, is the treatment given to Dan Quayle.
Even if the claim were true, so what? If Sarah Palin has any political ambitions, she's gonna have to deal with the relentless attacks and smears. They won't go away, and would most likely intensify.
Which conservative in America is a bigger voice than Governor Palin?
Palin is without doubt the leading conservative in America, she is toe to toe with the President himself.
Better than what’s you’re jerkin’
Amen!
I will support Sarah despite John McCain.
what’s you’re jerkin’? Is English your second language
I kid you not -- this was one of the quotes by a FR poster with PDS.
"difficult"
:” Not even close. Not EVEN close. Reagan and Bush43 were attacked more viciously and more continuously than Sarah Palin. “
Which is why I prefaced that with a “might”.
“They won’t go away, and would most likely intensify.”
Very likely.
“Which conservative in America is a bigger voice than Governor Palin?”
Having a “bigger voice” doesn’t really make one the leading conservative.
“Palin is without doubt the leading conservative in America, she is toe to toe with the President himself.”
That just makes her partisan, not conservative. She says she agrees with McCain’s vision for America - a distinctly non-Conservative one. Is your view that she’s lying?
“I kid you not — this was one of the quotes by a FR poster with PDS.”
“PDS”... “BDS”... When you paint a lack of support or opposition to policy from conservatives as a mental illness, you’ve just proven your argument has no credibility.
Sorry (for you), but Palin is the leading conservative in America.
Being THE national conservative leader makes one the leading conservative.
No one has ever been attacked with the ferocity of the attacks on Palin and her family, ever, in American politics.
Hard to believe that she has not even entered a primary for the Presidency yet.
“No one has ever been attacked with the ferocity of the attacks on Palin and her family, ever, in American politics.”
George Washington was burned in effigy complete with riots.
“Sorry (for you), but Palin is the leading conservative in America.”
So, she’s lying about McCain?
I think she’s “A” leader, and she might be the most prominent, and maybe the most popular. But she can’t always be the only one who speaks out. For other leaders to emerge, they, too, must take the leap.
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