Posted on 09/06/2011 7:56:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s been three years since former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made her splash onto the national stage as Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election. And since then she has acquired a very loyal following. But is that helping or hurting her?
On Tuesday’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” conservative columnist and author of “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America,” Ann Coulter expressed her concern over the Palin phenomenon. She was asked by substitute host Laura Ingraham if Palin can maintain her status as a tea party favorite by stringing people along about her potential 2012 candidacy.
“Maybe not,” Coulter said. “Newt Gingrich carried it on for 15 years and I kind of think that might be what we’re getting here, largely because of the polls. I mean, you just showed the Fox News poll, Gallup took a poll, I don’t know – five, six months ago, showing that not quite as high as 74 percent, but 65 percent said they would never definitely, positively, ever vote for Sarah Palin… I might add, that oh, it’s the media’s fault and they attacked her and saw her as a threat, all of which I believe is true.”
Coulter pointed out that conservatives are reluctant to criticize Palin for fear of a backlash and spoke about her own experiences.
“Most Americans don’t want Sarah Palin for president,” Coulter continued. “But she’s become sort of the Obama of the tea party. She’s just the one to a certain segment of right-wingers and the tiniest criticism of her, I think many of your viewers may not know this – no conservative on TV will criticize Palin because they don’t want to deal with the hate mail. You say her voice is a few octaves too high or perhaps Michele Bachman’s speaking voice is more modulated and you will be inundated with enraged emails.”
But Coulter said that the loyal following Palin has could be a liability in the long run.
“No, I agree and I think she’s terrific at what she does, but I tend to agree with you,” Coulter said. “I got sick of it with Newt Gingrich – too, fish or cut bait because you are ginning up this group of Americans who will not even consider anyone else. You know, we used to all love Sarah Palin – conservatives like me for her enemies. I’m starting to dislike her because of her fans… I think she’s bright, but her good points do not seem to be in the direction of running for president. I sort of wish just like Newt Gingrich, just run so we can get this over with.”
Very cool. Reminds me of my last visit home to California to see my family who are ALL liberals. I was prepared, like you, for political warfare, but was very surprised by how civil they were when the subject of politics came up.
It was eight to one, but they listened patiently, and let me finish before asking other questions. Not a single one of them flew off the handle with me like they used to.
I couldn't figure out what had gotten into them at first, but then I realized that they'd had 15 months of the Obama pResidency to observe. I won't say that any of them will come into the light by next November, but there's a good chance that none of them will give Obama their vote.
I am just amazed by the blind allegiance to this woman. I really get a kick out of it. If Ronald Reagan came back from the dead to tell you that Sarah Palin was not the one..you guys would attack him. I don’t like hero worship whether it be a liberal or a conservative. It’s dangerous.
Ever get the sense that the GOP is starting to freak out a little?
I just saw “Too Big Too Fail” on HBO. They tell the story of the whole mortgage backed securities mess, with a pretty frank degree of accuracy, right up until the point where the press secretary of Henry Paulson asks:
“Why would they sell insurance on securities that were that bad?”
The real answer: “They were rated AAA, you’d have sold them insurance on that stuff too.”
The HBO answer: “Fees. People were making too much money.”
They paint Buffett to be this nice old man above the fray. He owned 20 percent of Moody’s and bailed out Goldman after getting Goldman into the mess in the first place.
Now Warren and Obama, and maybe Reggie Love, are spending quality time together.
After Palin hung her own party power people in Alaska out to dry, bringing that kind of sunlight to the WH is something the GOP probably doesn’t want.
Oh, and the only thing they’d admit about Fannie and Freddie was that they were a mess. The extent of it? Not a whisper or a word.
The movie is EXTREMELY well done, and every A List liberal is in it. It’s the official storyline of what’s happened in the last 30 years with respect to where we are about 24 hours before Europe faces the same scenario the US did five days before Lehman Brothers went under.
The Swiss are freaking out, as we speak.
The next person in the WH is going to be someone who can be manipulated completely.
The truth admitted to in that movie, and the lengths they went to make heroes of Geitner, Paulson, even Pelosi, is, well, and what they WON’T say is unbelieveable.
The entire thing is falling apart now.
Nobody worships Palin, we worship Jesus Christ the Savior of the World. What do you worship.
Nice nasty little claim, but there is no cult just as there was no cult about Reagan. She is about as far from a god as it can get.
Pray for America
>> “she’s never actually said that she was running for President” <<
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Alex, you’re losing contact with reality.
She made it abundantly clear that she is in it for the ring on saturday.
Oh you heard that dissonant whine too? LOL!....
I wish she would announce her intentions so you folks could just chill out for a while.
Did it ever occur to you that many of us have done our homework and that our support is based on her performance, her beliefs, her stated intentions and the fact that our beliefs mirror hers?
Nah....THAT’S CRAZYTALK!!!!
Not hero worship Hildy, nor is it blind devotion. It’s reasoned conclusion. Has it been so long since a candidate was worth backing that you have forgotten what “supporting your candidate means?
We’d love to. But the PDS around here makes that quite impossible. Or should we just “shut up” like the Perry supporters suggested on a recent thread?
Norm..I understand..support who you want, that’s what primaries are for..but it’s the way you go after the people who don’t support her that is alarming. That’s what Ann Coulter is saying.
More like Peggy Nooner. You can make a lot of money on dead TV by bashing Palin and you are then considered a serious analyst and in the club.
I don't know what you should do, but this can't be healthy for you.
I wish she'd quit stringing you along. I heard two weeks ago about how you all were certain that she would announce at her Iowa appearance. Now that she hasn't, the Palin campaign blueballs are on the verge of making your heads explode.
>> “Disappointment in her personal life?” <<
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Yes, and her College BF from when she was at cornell is going through a midlife crisis too, and he hates her guts now.
Who I really worship has nothing to do with a political conversation, though I make no secret that I am a Christian. You do realize that my “Cult of Palin” references are pure sarcasm directed at the PDSers on FR who blather on about how we are “cultists” don’t you?
Several of us got sick of hearing it so we dreamed up the “Cult of Palin” I called my self Chief Druid and we use it to mock people too dense to do anything like think logically.
Normie
Chief Druid of Trollhenge
Cult of Palin
“For the goddess, EVERYTHING!”
Certainly to some extent. I was tarred and feathered the other day for daring to scoff at the fawning adulation over Palin's 2nd place finish (out of 9 women in the 40-49 age group) in a half marathon race. For that, I was branded as "hating good-looking women" and other such tripe. I still love Sarah and will not hold her more cultish followers against her, lol. But, I'm still undecided who I will be voting for next winter...all of the candidates have at least one major flaw which is preventing me from making a commitment.
It started off gradually, from what I remember. A few folks expressing doubt or dissatisfaction with Palin of some kind or another. That was fine. We were still having normal discussions - some even heated.
Then a new and wholly unexpected tone emerged - one of real viciousness. Some of it may have been a natural outgrowth of strong disagreements between posters, but there were a (very) few who seemed to start off with the ad hominems and snark, and who seemed to have little interest in getting back to the normal discussions we were having just previously.
That was a tough period for Palin supporters on FR. It actually took most of us a while to figure out that there was a new breed walking amongst us, and that they had no intentions of maintaining anything like civil discourse with us.
Like the lefties who went after Sarah in Alaska, they seemed to want nothing less than her complete destruction. It was just mindless hate, and was really difficult to deal with.
We've come a ways since then. There's now no question that Palin is vehemently and irrationally opposed by some who post to this forum.
I can understand folks who simply haven't been sold on her. In my view, they just haven't spent enough time really studying her, her record, and where she stands on the issues. Some others have bones to pick with her that haven't been resolved. I understand that too.
What I don't understand are those who repeat the same negative talking points ad infinitum, despite the fact that hundreds of others have patiently taken those talking points apart, bit by bit, hundreds of times. In my view, that's a personal issue, which can't be resolved by simple discussion.
Ann and yourself might find the attacks on Palin and her supporters by other candidate’s supporters “alarming” if you chose to look. But neither of you seem concerned.
If they didn’t spread their PDS BS, there would be no need for us to fight back. But if that musses your hair, or upsets Ann’s fabulous view of the world, I really don’t care.
Sometimes, the satire really does write itself.
Gunny, you might wanna look up the few dozen posts I made saying it was to early for her to announce and before you keep repeating the worn out nonsense about ‘stringing’ when we are nowhere near the end of her ANNOUNCED timeframe for a decision on running, you need to do research into what those terms actually mean - not what you want them to.
If she's worried about splitting the vote, then she should get behind Sarah and push with all her might, but that's not what she's doing. She's undermining her, when she could be helping to ensure Sarah's victory, by convincing some doubters out there to give Sarah a closer look.
Instead, she's repeatedly championed Chris Christie for president, although he's got far less chance of becoming the nominee, or of beating Obama. Why?
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