"If Palin runs a disciplined campaign that focuses on her being an insurgent, an outsider, and a populist that's the best strategy to carry her to victory."The blogger argues that Gov. Palin, by running as a conservative, would essentially be considered an insurgent in today's political environment. There's never been any question that she is an outsider. And few would argue with the classification of the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate's political philosophy by ontheissues.org as "populist-leaning conservative."
My only problem with that website's method of classifying politicians is that it's graph defines "populist" as the antithesis of "libertarian." Authoritarianism, not populism, is the opposite of libertarianism, IMO. At Libertarian Republican, Eric Dondero considers Sarah Palin to be one of the only three libertarian governors in the country. She was the top choice of the blog's readership for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, and the website honored Gov. Palin as Libertarian of the Year for 2008. Gov. Palin is as much a libertarian as she is a populist, and she's a conservative who preaches the gospel of Ronald Reagan.
And that's the point, isn't it? So many of the factions of the conservative movement want to call Sarah Palin one of their own. Many libertarian conservatives, paleoconservatives, social conservatives, federalists, fiscal conservatives and across-the-board Reagan conservatives all find much to admire in Sarah Palin. Which makes her the logical choice to reunite these conservatives components, heal the breech and get "movement" conservatism moving again.
- JP
With Palin's strict adherance to the AK constitution, you would think that more constitutionalists would be supporting her. She has stated a few times that before she signs anything into law, she reads the constitution and decides whether of not the law is constitutional. I'm sure that if she were president she would do the same thing. As her supporters, we should put a lot of emphasis on that.
ReplyDeleteIf she can bring in populists, libertarians, constitutionalists, fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, social conservatives, and a much better showing among women than McCain did, she's practically be a shoe in.
Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteI wish people would retire the populist meme. It basically comes from the big business entrenched interests that she has taken on. She is in favor of free markets and competition, not big business. There's a difference. of course, there's no need to demonize big business but it can occasionally mix with crony state power and give us worst of the both worlds. Sarah fought exactly that kind of crony capitalism and her opponents slimed her as "populist" in reply.
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