Reagan, critics insisted, was a second-rate actor who merely read words that were written by others like they were part of a movie script. His degree came from a small college that no one had ever heard of, therefore, by what passes for liberal logic, the man was essentially uneducated. The discovery of a number of his hand written documents, however, revealed that the 40th president had a grasp of issues that some of his own aides were unaware of. Instead of trying to know a little about everything, as did his predecessor Failed President Jimmy Carter, Reagan concentrated on just a few core issues -- anticommunism, smaller government and lower taxes -- and he expounded on them at every opportunity. Jackson doesn't mention that Reagan had a photographic memory, an asset which was one of the secrets of his success.
Sarah Palin is also blessed with the gift of a photographic memory, according to Elaine Lafferty, a Democrat who worked as a consultant to the McCain campaign:
"Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a 'quick study'; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts."Now Sarah Palin faces challenges not unlike those that Ronald Reagan met and surmounted, says Jackson:
To strengthen her viability, Palin must seize this momentum and mobilize her supporters. Developing and espousing a small set of conservative values that become her 'brand' -- as did Reagan -- will be critical. She has time.Like Reagan before her, Sarah Palin seems to be concentrating on a few key issues. From Reagan's subset of core issues, she has adopted advocacy of smaller government and fiscal restraint. In the place of anti-communism, she has made energy one of her signature issues, and it is one which could rise to the top of voter's concerns at any given moment, given the instability of many parts of the world from which we import a significant portion of our oil and gas.
No rule requires that politics be genteel. The world stage has always been roamed by Big Men. So Palin cannot play the victim. She must show that she can return fire. Palin has shown grit by refusing to fade away. Indeed, her resignation as governor now looks more like a maverick's move than a quitter's. Her earlier anticorruption efforts in Alaska, and more recently her fierce protection of her children, also show toughness. In the latter, she was like a lioness protecting her cubs, and rightly so.
[...]
All who buried Sarah Palin hope that she remains so. But the ranks of her supporters could swell. Second acts have happened in both parties. Bill Clinton was the "comeback kid." Richard Nixon bitterly stalked off the political stage, yet returned to win the presidency....
The curtain is rising on Sarah Palin's second act. What she will make of it is up to her.
She has spoken out on cap and trade and health care reform, two issues which are inexorably tied to both fiscal restraint and smaller government. The links between cap and trade and energy are similarly strong, as is the connection she has made between the dependence on foreign oil and huge deficits to the decline of the dollar.
These appear to be the issues that Sarah Palin will continue to hammer away on. If she can make John and Jane Q. Public understand how these issues impact their family's monthly budget, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate may well emerge from the wilderness, as Ronald Reagan did before her, to lead the Republican Party out of darkness. If the Democrats continue to push too far to the left -- a strategy which they show no signs of abandoning -- they will make Sarah Palin's task an easier one.
- JP
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