Bernie Quigley wrote Wednesday about Gov. Palin, and he has a Friday follow-up piece at The Hill's Pundits Blog titled Sarah Palin and Andrew Jackson:
Sarah Palin is an archetypal figure who challenges the existing establishment...Coincidentally, an old college buddy whom we haven't heard from in months sent an email over the weekend. He's an expat American in Australia who has made a parallel rightward journey with us over the years, and he's taken quite an interest in Sarah Palin. In our exchange of e-mails, he mentioned that he thinks that Gov. Palin is a Jacksonian, and he sent us this essay by Walter Russell Mead, one of the country's leading students of American foreign policy. It's a long and scholarly piece, but if you're as into politics and history as we are, you should find it well worth the read. It certainly gives context to Quigley's point that the governor may be a Jacksonian in the cultural sense, but there are definitely some Jeffersonian influences in her Reaganesque modern federalist leanings.
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In effect, she has been building her own political establishment. With a clever strategist on hand, Jenny Sanford, who should be running Palin’s program, Haley, a Tea Party original, now advances her ideas to a new regional and national level of marketing. Thanks to Sarah Palin.
The second point worth reviewing is the recent Republican primary in Texas when Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George H.W. Bush and Karen Hughes on behalf of George W. Bush all lined up behind Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).
Texas Gov. Rick Perry had the support of Sarah Palin. What was interesting about this race is that Hutchison never had a chance. So why did such a group of respected establishment conservatives line up behind her? Because they weren’t so much opposing Perry as they were Palin. This was the definitive moment to which politics had been building forward momentum since the NY 23 race with Doug Hoffman in the fall, and it brought substance to a newborn political direction.
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The change that is rising now with Palin, Ron Paul and the Tea Party certainly contains Jeffersonian elements about placing limits on the federal government, but, culturally, it also resembles the rise of Andrew Jackson and the free people of the western regions demanding their place and coming into the country politically. The icons of the colonial period felt the same shock and awe that the entrenched interests and Beltway people do today.
- JP
Amazing essay. It took me a while to read and comprehend it, but it made an impression nonetheless. I take issue with the description of Jacksonianism. I think Jackson just tapped into the culture and convictions of America. To that end, I don't see Sarah Palin as anything other than an articulate advocate of America, a "Jacksonian" presence. She is the only one that espouses the convictions of "Jacksonian" America. The Wilsonians (Obama), Jeffersonians (Gingrich) and Hamiltonians (Romney) only do so at the risk of losing their "American" base.
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