Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Palin-odes?

We just love it when our favorite political writer writres about our favorite former governor. Another VDH bumper crop of political prose. Excerpts:
Palin faces many of the same problems that sunk Reagan in 1976: the moderate Republicans think she is a shallow, superficial head-nodder, the way they wrote Reagan off in his quest to dethrone Ford. She earns as much resistance from Republican Old Guarders as she does the Obamians. In the elite center-right way of thinking, she knows little of foreign affairs and is not wonkish about domestic issues.

[...]

Palin must have at her fingertips far more elucidating answers than offered by any liberal icon—or what she showed in the 2008 campaign. If Sarah Palin thinks FDR was President in 1929, or that he could speak on non-existent TV, she is through; if Biden says that, it’s “just old Joe again.” If Obama does not know the first thing about our most prestigious medals, the language of Austria, or diplomatic protocol about presidential bowing, it’s because he is deliberately trying to be cool; if Palin did the same, she’s a buffoon hockey mom. That is the way it is, and her supporters should accept it, deal with, and overcome it.

In other words, Palinites should assume that there is no margin of error for her at all. Like it or not, she must, like Reagan, not only communicate, but also be able to draw on abstract concepts about conservatism. It does no good to say the media is biased, or to review the talking points offered above. She must be better than, not as good as, mainstream Democratic and Republican candidates in matters of foreign policy, gottacha recall, and talking points on health care, taxes, etc. Specificity, detail, and exactness, not generalities or whines about an unfair press, will make her a serious candidate

[...]

I would trust the judgment of someone with Palin’s background on matters of Iran or Honduras or Putin far more than I would someone of Obama’s resume.
Read it all. Read it now. Read it here.

- JP

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