An open invitation to Governor Sarah Palin

Dear Governor Palin:

There has been much speculation in both the new media and old regarding what you will do after Sunday when you have handed over the keys to the governor's mansion to Sean Parnell. On the eve of that historic event, many of us who support you are not too worried about that. That is because you have our support regardless of what you decide to do, and we trust you to do what is right for your family, Alaska and the nation.

There has been no small amount of speculation that you will move to the lower 48. The Idaho Statesman's Rocky Barker has predicted it. His reasoning is based on the fact that considerable travel time is required to get from Alaska to locations in the lower 48 where you may want to visit to talk directly to the American people and campaign for conservative candidates. Rocky also reasons that if one of those doors you have mentioned opens to national political office, you will choose some place in the West. He mentions that you already know Idaho. I think Rocky sounds rather hopeful that it will be Idaho.

Sean Scallon has also written about this in the American Conservative. He is convinced that you are running for president in 2012. Noting the logistics challenges posed by campaigning from the White House from Alaska, Sean believes it is probable that you will move to the lower 48. He suggests Evansville, Indiana, since the pro-life manifesto you delivered straight from your heart was received with such enthusiasm there.

But from our vantage point deep in the heart of Texas, we have noticed that you receive warm and enthusiastic receptions wherever you go. Based on the sole criterion of the size of the crowds you have drawn, a likely location for your base of operations could be The Villages, Florida, where a crowd of some 60,000 to 70,000 people turned out for you. Judged strictly on enthusiasm displayed for the size of the venue, Auburn, New York would have to be a strong contender as well.

Just in case you are weighing a future in some national elected office, we here at Texas for Sarah Palin would like to put our bid in for Texas. Because we Texans love our state, we understand how much you love Alaska. We would never presume to ask you to give it up. We understand that more than a few Americans have two homes. Some even have several homes in various locations around the country. Our Democrat friends tried to make a big deal about how your former running mate had so many homes he couldn't even remember where they all were. We didn't think this was quite fair, seeing as how the homes were mostly those his wife inherited from her father. Sen. McCain didn't seem to care much about them anyway, except for his ranch in Arizona, which is his. We tried to point out that John Kerry also has a lot of homes that belong to his wife. But when they get stuck on one of their memes, you know how hard it is to get through that liberal hypocrisy to try to make them see your point. One of our Texas humorists, Ron White, often comments on that very thing. He says, "You can't fix stupid." I believe General Russel Honore said something to the same effect when he complained in New Orleans about how some folks were "stuck on stupid."

Texas and Alaska are more alike than many people realize. They are both huge -- the largest two states in sheer land mass. We Texans have to grudgingly concede that Alaska beats us out in square acreage, but we do have more people per square acre. That's not a problem, however, as parts of Texas are populated so sparsely that it's not hard to "get away from it all." Both are big energy states, and most of the companies in the oil business are headquartered here. Both your state and ours have more than their fair share of folks who are... well, we prefer the term "strong-willed" to the word "stubborn." We like to believe that characteristic comes from the pioneer spirit that led people to settle down here and up there as well. Both states are blessed with a certain number of what we also like to call "rugged individualists" (folks in lesser states call us... er, them "eccentrics" -- and that's one of the nicer things they say). Some folks are just jealous, but you've run up against that yourself from the likes of Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker and others with issues of inadequacy. People in both Alaska and Texas are friendly, once they have decided that a stranger isn't trying to take advantage of them in some nefarious manner. In both states, many people "cling" -- as our president put it -- to their guns and bibles. Regarding the former, I think it speaks well of our respective states that both have bills in their legislatures to exempt from federal regulation firearms made and sold inside the respective states.

Both states were previously claimed by one foreign power or another -- Russia, France, Spain, Mexico, the C.S.A. -- giving each a unique heritage. Texas even claimed itself for a while, but The Republic of Texas only lasted for about a decade. Some on the left have claimed that your friend and our governor wants to start a Second Texas Republic. Nonsense. He just eggs them on with vague references to secession to watch their heads explode, which is more fun than fireworks on the 4th of July. But that's another story...

Just as there are similarities, there are also some distict differences between our two states. It gets much hotter down here than it does up there. But we're used to it, and air conditioning helps the less well-conditioned among us deal with the heat. Many of us couldn't handle the extremely cold temperatures you hardy Alaskans seem to accept with grace. We believe that it has something to do with clothing. Texans tend to believe that one layer of clothing is plenty -- two in a stretch, but only if it's really cold and there's a bone-chilling wind blowing. But what is to prevent anyone from spending most of the summer in Alaska and the winter in Texas?

You say moose; we say cattle. We don't hunt cows down here like you hunt moose in Alaska. It wouldn't be much sport, anyway. Cattle mostly just stand around in the same spot unless you make them move. We do have deer, however, and they move rather quickly. What the heck, it's all protein. Our seafood is also different. Our shrimp are bigger, but the sea crabs are smaller. You have salmon. We have redfish, snapper and dozens of other species. You don't have to worry about bears down here. We don't have very many, but we make up for it with smaller critters who can also ruin an entire day -- rattlesnakes, scorpions, etc. We have big mosquitos, but not as many as you folks have to deal with up there. We also have spiders the size of house cats called tarantula that can jump like bush kangaroo, but they aren't aggressive unless you corner them. A lot of our critters are that way. I suspect many of yours are, too.

But let's get down to the serious stuff. We believe Texas has some advantages over our 'big sister" state. For one thing, if you became a Texan, even for just part of each year, we wouldn't hold it against you if you wanted to travel outside of the state.  When our politicians leave the state, hardly anyone even notices, much less expresses their outrage over the fact. Shoot, there are some of them that we wish would get out of the state more often, if you catch our drift. And frankly, nothing against Alaskans -- we know they are good people -- we just don't feel that they appreciate you enough. If a small group of liberal bloggers tried that stuff against you here in Texas that we've seen the Alaska-based nutroots community do, we would go all John Wayne on them. We think you have a lot in common with John Wayne. Like the Duke said, the need to apologize for things that were not done wrong is a weakness. We know that there are many in Alaska who appreciate you, but there are many more who would do so in Texas. We're not bragging; it's just a fact. It has to do with the more people per square mile we have down here. And we Texans are very protective of those we love.

Our Republican Party appears to be a different political animal than the one up in Alaska. You seem to have two GOPs there -- The Grand Old Party and the Gallop Over Palin party.  Our GOP, although we do have our share of Vichy Republicans, is not like that. Our GOP problem is not so much a good ol' boy network as it is a bad ol' girl network. I'm speaking of course of our Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. By the way, she doesn't seem to like you very much. We think your endorsement of Gov. Perry has brought on a bad case of Palin Derangement Syndrome in her.  She has announced that she will not run for another term in the U.S.  Senate, as she is challenging Rick Perry for his governor's job. Should you decide to establish a residence down here and run for her Senate seat, you would have a lot of support from Texas conservatives. Your main competition would be Houston Mayor Bill White, a big-time liberal whom you should be able to beat in a walk. We think it would be a delicious irony if you won the seat KBH is vacating. Now that's what we call justice, cowboy poet style! If you have bigger fish to fry and would prefer to run for the White House, that would be all right with us, too. We wouldn't pressure you to do it in 2012. You could wait until 2016 or 2020 if you prefer. And if you would rather not run for anything, we would still love and support you. 

So please consider this an open invitation for you to establish a second residence in Texas. Don't worry about folks calling you "the cutest little carpetbagger" or anything like that. Hillary moved from Arkansas to New York to become a Senator. She may be a lot of things, but none of them are even remotely close to cute. The Kennedys move all over the country to run for office, and nobody gives them much grief about it. Heck, Arnold came all the way from Austria, and now he's governor of California. As we Texans say, "Go figure." Any place you would choose to settle down in here in Texas is fine with us, but we have heard from the Star-Telegram that you have family in Central Texas. That's a good location -- God's country. Travel to Houston, Dallas and San Antonio is a matter of routine from there, unlike trying to fly or drive into Juneau sometimes. There's some great country and bluegrass music in Austin also, and the Tex-Mex dining is superb.

We can't speak for all Texans, of course, but there are a doggone lot of us conservatives who would welcome you to the Lone Star State with open arms and a hearty "howdy." And if anybody tries to mess with your kids down here, you could shoot them and probably get away with it. "Because they needed killin'" is a legitimate defense around these parts. No jury in God's Own State would convict you.

So please consider this offer and get back to us at your convenience. If you're looking for a second home in the lower 48, there's no place like Texas. Unlike those 57 other states the president talked about, not a one of them -- save the one you need to get away from every now and then -- is big enough for your kind heart and soaring spirit. Texas loves you, Governor Palin, and we'd be much obliged if you would like to become a Texan. You're a fighter, and that already makes you a honorary Texan in our eyes. Come on down and sign the deal.

Kindest Regards,

Update: NYC blogger Lilly Loring posted on July 23 that she had learned from a "very reliable source" in real estate that the Palins were house hunting on Long Island. We would file this one away with the "Sarah Palin is counseling Jon and Kate Gosselin" nonsense. Fact-checking doesn't appear to be Lilly's strong suit, as her closing bit of snark implies:

"Just a friendly note for a potential new New Yorker: In New York State, we do not hunt animals from airplanes."

Just a friendly fact from a Texan, Lilly: Sarah Palin has never done such a thing. The willingness to accept liberal lies at face value may be the mark of a New York "intellectual," but in the real world we call that "stuck on stupid."

- JP