Sarah Palin and John McCain both pledged before a Tucson crowd of 5,000 Friday to fight the political agenda being pushed by President Obama, House speaker Pelosi and Senate majority leader Reid:
Focusing on Washington themes rather than his competitor, former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Palin exhorted the crowd to "send the maverick back to the U.S. Senate" to fight the newly enacted health-care legislation and keep America safe.The full Arizona Republic story is here. The Arizona Star's coverage is here.
As she has seen in Alaska, she said, "only dead fish go with the flow," which she said McCain would not do.
"I was pretty excited when John McCain asked me to join him on the campaign trail this go-around here in Arizona," she added. "I couldn't wait to get some of the McCain-Palin team back together again … I think this go-around, when all of the votes are tallied, I think he's going to win this one."
For his part, McCain condemned the health-care legislation passed with support of Obama and Democrats in Congress. He called its passage "sleazy Chicago-style sausage-making."
"It's going to be repealed and replaced, and it's going to be done soon," he added.
The appearance was a national political curiosity and a likely boost to McCain's primary prospects.
Many who are ambivalent about McCain's conservative credentials said they came just to see the former Alaska governor, who has remained a luminary in Republican circles.
H/T for the video goes to The Right Scoop.
- JP
I have absolutely no problem with Sarah's utterly understandable and "must-do" enthusiastic support of McCain in this primary. From a purely logistic and common-sense aspect, she only wins in this situation, even if he should not. Yes, the loyalty is a major and admirable component, but the PR complications that would arise for her if she refused are a no-brainer ("You support his agenda to lead a nation but don't think he ought to lead a state? You are a liar, Palin!").
ReplyDeleteAt this point, McCain is well-aware that no one in DC is interested in his good-intentioned, mealy-mouthed attempts at patty-cake bipartisanship. His era is over, in that sense. If he wins, he should now be far more concerned with securing his legacy as a conservative who has enough sense to get his wandering butt back in line as a critical hour. Palin is essentially giving him this last chance, by appearing on her own terms, in her own words, in her own outfits, and with her own caveat ... even if she herself truly needed to make this final effort for John, for the reasons we have just so obviously noted.
Otherwwise, she looks and sounds great, while he looks and sounds not only as unconvincing as ever, but is obviously in a far less important context. The setting is weird. There's Sarah--no longer the newbie, no longer needing to prove herself to any conservative, the much bigger and more popular and powerful national figure, the greatest survivor ... and John is just hoping to hang on. Cindy looks bone-tired of it all. She looks way over it. Who can blame them? It's all a bit odd & anti-climactic in the extreme.
Still, anyone conservative who brays against Sarah for giving the man this one, respectful, basic, quickie endorsement, and preventing a scenario in which she herself would be portrayed as a duplicitous opportunist (had she ~not~ appeared), needs to get shaken, violently.
On the Obamacare, cap & tax, and immigration issues alone, there is more than enough common ground for her to honorably provide this basic stump speech, to say nothing of the value of loyalty/integrity. She ends-up looking smart and part of the future and if he fades out, good riddance. It won't matter. Sarah has much bigger fish to fry ... and they aren't dead floaters, either.