Want a Palin presidency? Then get serious about it.

Posting at Renew America and quoting Confucius, Neil Brian Goldberg envisions the grassroots propelling Sarah Palin into a presidential run:

Confucius say: "It is often following crowd who push leader forward."

...and so the Sarah Palin for President campaign begins...

How does he propose to launch this campaign?

Next, being sure of what we want, we simply begin this "Sarah for President" campaign.

If it were only that simple. What Goldberg is proposing here is nothing new. We have to wonder if he's aware that others have been -- as the Chris Rea song goes -- Working On It. There are a number of PACs, committees and blogs already dedicated to drafting Sarah Palin, and they weren't born yesterday.

Where Goldberg's bandwagon really becomes unhitched, however, is with the following:

There is talk that Sarah will run on a third party — what shall it be called — why of course — THE TEA PARTY.

Goldberg quotes Confucius, but he should be studying up on Ronald Reagan. A good starting place would be the 1977 Reason magazine interview:

Well, third parties have been notoriously unsuccessful; they usually wind up dividing the very people that should be united. And then we elect the wrong kind–the side we’re out to defeat wins. I have been doing my best to try to revitalize the Republican Party groups that I’ve spoken to, on the basis that the time has come to repudiate those in our midst who would blur the Republican image by saying we should be all things to all people in order to triumph. Lately, we find that of the 26 percent of the people who didn’t vote, more than half of them now say they didn’t vote because they don’t see any difference between the parties. I’ve been urging Republicans to raise a banner and put the things we stand for on that banner and don’t compromise, but don’t try to enlarge the party by being all things to everyone when you can’t keep all the promises. Put up a banner and then count on the fact that if you’ve got the proper things on that banner the people will rally round.

Then there's Reagan's CPAC speech from the same year:

I have to say I cannot agree with some of my friends -- perhaps including some of you here tonight -- who have answered that question by saying this nation needs a new political party.

I respect that view and I know that those who have reached it have done so after long hours of study. But I believe that political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved. For one thing, the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over. Rather than a third party, we can have a new first party made up of people who share our principles. I have said before that if a formal change in name proves desirable, then so be it. But tonight, for purpose of discussion, I’m going to refer to it simply as the New Republican Party.

And let me say so there can be no mistakes as to what I mean: The New Republican Party I envision will not be, and cannot, be one limited to the country club-big business image that, for reasons both fair and unfair, it is burdened with today. The New Republican Party I am speaking about is going to have room for the man and the woman in the factories, for the farmer, for the cop on the beat and the millions of Americans who may never have thought of joining our party before, but whose interests coincide with those represented by principled Republicanism. If we are to attract more working men and women of this country, we will do so not by simply "making room" for them, but by making certain they have a say in what goes on in the party.

Sarah Palin has never advocated forming a new political party, nor has she ever said anything about joining an existing minor party. She's a Reagan Republican, and as such, she is no doubt aware of Reagan's warning about third parties and has taken it to heart. Many have misinterpreted her pledge to campaign for conservative candidates regardless of their party affiliation. In our opinion, that is just a hint at what is yet to come from the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate.

Ronald Reagan drafted the blueprints for conservative electoral success years ago. Just because the Republican Party has forgotten how to follow them is no reason to give up on the GOP. The answer is to rebuild the Reagan coalition of conservatives of all stripes, and then bring libertarians, independents and blue collar Democrats on board. Once the troops are assembled, Sarah Palin can lead them into battle to take back the Republican Party. The GOP has the database of voter lists, donors and precinct workers. It has the connections to the volunteers who man the phone banks, canvass their neighborhoods and put the yard signs on their lawns. The Republican Party is already registered and organized in all 50 states and 3,143 counties, parishes (Louisiana), boroughs (Alaska) or independent cities in the nation. It is just plain foolish to think for even a moment that reinventing all of those wheels would be any quicker or easier than taking back the GOP.  

We admire Goldberg's desire to do something to get Sarah Palin into the White House, and we echo his call to donate to SarahPAC while still putting something aside for the big "money bomb" fundraiser which is sure to come.  But the first step toward being witness to a history-making inauguration of former Gov. Palin as the first woman to be president of the U. S. is  to get the stars out of one's eyes and the foolish notions out of one's head. Then we can talk some real world political organizing.

- JP