How Citizen Sarah Stopped The Socialized Medicine Express

Our friend from the days when Warner and I pounded our keyboards for RedState.com, Mark Impomeni, has an important article posted at Pajamas Media crediting Sarah Palin for "her timely intervention that put the Democrats off their game and turned the debate around" on health care reform. Here are some excerpts from Mark's op-ed:

For an uneducated, unsophisticated rube and former governor from a backwater state, Sarah Palin sure can drive a debate. With prospects for passage of his sweeping overhaul of the American health care delivery system fading with every speech, President Barack Obama is making it increasingly clear that Palin will be recognized, for good or ill, as perhaps the most prominent single political figure responsible for stopping it in its tracks.

It’s a remarkable story. A failed vice-presidential candidate and resigned governor — unfairly viewed by many as a cruel joke – reached from beyond the political grave her elitist critics prematurely dug for her and her political future to thwart a popular president prematurely regarded by the same elite that shunned her as perhaps the most gifted politician this nation has ever produced. If Sarah Palin were a sitting governor, a failed presidential candidate, or even a state legislator, her influence in the health care debate would not be as unexpected. It is the fact that she is a private citizen, completely out of politics save for a small political action committee, that makes this story unique.

How did she do it? That’s where the story gets even more remarkable.

There were no public appearances or speeches, no glitzy ad campaigns, no publicity tours, no interviews in the mainstream press or any new media outlet. Sarah Plain killed health care reform with a posting on her Facebook page, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, and an exquisite sense of timing.

That's just the first few paragraphs. The full opinion piece is here for your edification and enjoyment.

Also, be sure to read the comments, especially this one from Eternity Road's Francis W. Porretto, which we have also excerpted:

It’s been clear for a while that the Democrats are terrified of Citizen Sarah and will do anything they can to marginalize or delegitimize her, just as they’re struggling to do with the 9/12 demonstration in Washington. But it’s now imperative that concerned conservatives ask the next question:

Who else is terrified of Sarah Heath Palin?
– Establishmentarian Republicans;
– The Establishment-supporting Punditocracy;
– Insiders to the "Rotarian Socialism" system of subsidies and genteel rake-offs the Establishment has perpetuated.

[...]

Conservatives who would love to see Sarah Heath Palin become the GOP standard-bearer should be thinking hard about what it will take to carve a path to the 2012 presidential nomination for her. It won’t be the Democrats, or their Old Media lapdogs, who put up the stiffest resistance to that.

- JP