Saturday, November 21, 2009

Could Sarah's book tour be the start of something big?

Erika Bolstad of McClatchy Newspapers writes that Sarah Palin's Going Rogue Book Tour could "jump-start a political movement":
Since she stepped down this summer as Alaska governor, Palin has been cagey about her plans. But with her campaign-style bus and adoring crowds reminiscent of her vice presidential bid, her swing through red zones of bluish states — Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia — has appeared to be something more than a book tour.

While it's too early to call it a campaign, Palin's brand of common sense conservatism crackles with the energy of a burgeoning political movement.

In "The Way Forward," the title of the final chapter of her memoir, she says that her persona and her political philosophy are based on common sense that were last espoused by Reagan, her political idol. The role of government, Palin writes, "is not to perfect us, but to protect us."

[...]

The term coined by Palin in her book has been around for a while, said Greg Mueller, a conservative strategist and a veteran of Republican presidential campaigns. Palin, however, seems to have seized on something timely by putting her brand on common sense conservatism, he said.

"If Palin is using it," Mueller said, "there's a very good chance it's going to have resonance in certain communities."

Those communities include a vast network of people who are connected online and unified by the Tea Party protests of the summer, as well as those who've taken up their cause, including FOX News talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.
Though McClatchy Newspapers was not firendly to Sarah Palin while she was Alaska's governor (The Anchorage Daily News is a McClatchy outlet), this article is more favorable to her than not. The rest Bolstad'spolitical analysis is here.

Related: Considering the source -- The New York Times, which has been harshly critical of Sarah Palin -- here's another mostly positive article about the former governor and her supporters.

- JP

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