Will Sarah Palin Endorse in the Colorado primary?

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Speculation is running high among the chattering class about which candidate, if any, Sarah Palin will endorse in the Colorado GOP primary race for the U.S. Senate. The two leading candidates in the primary are Jane Norton and Ken Buck.

Norton served as Colorado's Lieutenant Governor during Gov. Bill Owens' second term. Owens had previously appointed her Executive Director of Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment. She was a regional director in the US Department of Health and Human Services during the Reagan and Bush41 administrations. Norton also served the remainder of an unexpired term in the Colorado House of Representatives.

Buck is the District Attorney in Weld County, which is located in eastern Colorado and is comprised of the Greeley Metropolitan Statistical Area. Best known for his tough stance on illegal immigration, Buck narrowly defeated Norton in a March straw poll at the party caucuses. Running as the self-proclaimed "Tea Party candidate," Buck has been endorsed by conservative Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina.

According to Denver's 5280 Blog:

Coverage of a fundraising breakfast for antiabortion candidates by The Wall Street Journal and Politico has led to speculation that Sarah Palin will endorse Jane Norton in the Colorado race for U.S. Senate. Palin told the roughly 500 attendees at the Susan B. Anthony List political action gathering in Washington that the year “will be remembered for when commonsense, conservative women get things done for our country.” She put in a few plugs, including for former Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton.

Erick Erickson hopes that the rumors that Gov. Palin will endorse Norton are just rumors:

"What I don’t get, and do hope the news is wrong, is why Jane Norton would push for Governor Palin to endorse her this Friday or Saturday. Doing so would put Governor Palin in the awkward position of ignoring Colorado’s Republican grassroots activists [CORA], the bulk of whom will be convening for the Republican Assembly this weekend. After the Fiorina endorsement caused a wave of muttering among grassroots activists, this would not be a good thing."

"Ken Buck has the grassroots in his corner. It’s readily apparent across the state. Consequently, Jane Norton is going to bypass the Republican Assembly this weekend and try to collect signatures to get on the ballot. But make no mistake about it, to change the narrative about Norton bypassing the grassroots, she is vying to get a Palin endorsement late this week."

Erick believes that Governor Palin is not aware of all the ins and outs of the political machinations going on in Colorado. The Republican Assembly, a gathering Norton will not be attending, takes place this weekend. Erick fears that the Norton campaign is setting Sarah Palin up "for a very awkward moment" which would steal the Assembly's thunder and "put the spotlight on Jane Norton" instead. By focusing national media attention on Norton at the expense of the Colorado GOP grassroots, Erick thinks that Gov. Palin would further anger the grassroots, some of whom are still seething over the Carly Fiorina endorsement.

Erick needs to give the governor credit for being politically astute enough to know what is going on behind the scenes in Colorado. And he should realize by now that Sarah Palin doesn't march to anyone's drummer but her own. Though Gov. Palin is committed to herding "a whole stampede of pink elephants" toward Washington this year, we would like to believe that she would not endorse a candidate strictly on the basis of gender. We tend to think that when the conservative candidates with the best chances of prevailing both in the primaries and the general election are women, she will endose them, but when the opposite is the case, she will endorse good conservative men as well.

The safe choice in Colorado would be to make no endorsement at all until after the Republican Assembly convenes over the weekend. But Sarah Palin isn't known for always taking the safe road to where she wants to go.

Update: Stacy Drake kindly furnished with the link to this article in the comments:

Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck said Monday that it's "rude" for the former Alaska governor to headline a Denver speech on Saturday, hours after the state GOP gathers for a statewide assembly in Loveland, about 50 miles from Denver.

We're trying to wrap our minds around how in the world Buck can figure that Gov. Palin giving a speech at an event that was planned at least weeks ago and scheduled to begin hours after the Assembly event ends could possibly be considered "rude." Um, Erick, Buck has only himself to thank for this one. Now the possibility of him getting an endorsement from Gov. Palin seems about as remote as the chance that she will offer Katherine Parker a job as her PR person.

Oh, well...

- JP

CBS' Charles Cooper: Who's In Charge At The GOP?

- By Thomas Lamb

In response to Scozzafava pulling out, Cooper asks this question:

"Who's got more juice within the GOP?: Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin?"

It's evident who has more juice within the GOP. It's the voters. This is why the professional pundits are clueless.

It's the voters stupid...And it's the person who is in-line with their thinking that earns their vote.

Voters are tired of being told how to act and who to vote for by the media and the pundits.

- Tom

Some Personal Thoughts On The Endorsement

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Before leaving for last night's RCIA session, I had a feeling that Jim Geraghty had called it correctly, and Sarah Palin's endorsement of Doug Hoffman would probably be posted on her Facebook Notes page while I was away from the computer. I thought about asking Ian to keep an eye open for the announcement and post it here as soon as he saw it go up. But I got caught up in my usual rush to get to the church on time and never got around to asking him.

The journalist in me doesn't like to get scooped, but I was so pleased to see that Sarah Palin had indeed committed her endorsement and the maximum donation via SarahPAC allowed by the FEC to the campaign of the real Reagan Republican in the NY-23 race, that I quickly got over my hubris for being late to get the news posted.

The media buzz today will be mostly about one aspect of the endorsement -- Sarah Palin distancing herself from her party. But she has also distanced herself from her potential rivals for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, should she decide to seek it. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee decided to play it safe, and neither made an endorsement in this race for a congressional seat in Upstate New York. Newt Gingrich -- in the words of the Grail Knight in "The Last Crusade" -- "chose poorly" by backing the liberal Republican. But by declining to take a stand, the same can be said of Romney and Huckabee. The two will be remembered for their failure to take a stand when the race for the White House begins in earnest -- no guts, no glory. For his part, Tim Pawlenty had to admit that he has not been following the race and therefore knew little about it. Governor P needs to have a talk with the aide who prepares his daily news briefing. And to think that it was Sarah Palin who took the heat for supposedly not reading newspapers...

With her endorsement of Doug Hoffman, Sarah Palin has taken a stand in solidarity with the gathering storm known as the grassroots movement in this country. The disaffected conservatives, conservative libertarians, common sense independents and blue collar Democrats (aka Reagan Democrats) who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore always seemed to us to be former Governor Palin's natural base constituency. These are the the people who have turned out for TEA parties and Townhalls across the country, but there are many more of them who were not able to demonstrate, but feel the pain none the less. It's a big step for the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate to take toward earning their trust as the national public figure who best voices their concerns.

As for the Republican Party, its establishment has refused for too long to listen to the rank and file, and now it has officially been put on notice by Sarah Palin. Hopefully, it will finally pay attention to the voices of the people. Nothing else has seem to get through to the GOP leadership. Even a recent Rasmussen poll which shows that 73 percent of Republican voters say Congressional Republicans have lost touch with their base hasn't seemed to have had much impact on those who run the GOP Congressional and Senatorial committees. The same goes for the RNC. Chairman Michael Steele is at least very much aware of who Sarah Palin is and the fullness of her potential as a force within the party of Lincoln and Reagan. It's time to get on the side of the rank and file, Mr. Chairman.

Let us hope that Sarah Palin's bold move will make Steele, NRSC Chairman John Cornyn and especially NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions wake up and smell that conservative coffee being brewed throughout the land. Former Governor Palin may have just taken the first big step toward leading the Republican Party back to its Reagan roots. She has thrown down the gauntlet. Now let's see if she will pick up the banner and hold it so high that the troops will rally around it.

- JP

Sarah Palin: The Ace Of The Base

Politico's Michael Falcone, in an article published Tuesday morning, reports that the GOP base is still wild about Sarah:

Despite a torrent of criticism from the media, Democrats and even some in her own party, Sarah Palin remains the hottest brand name in politics.

[...]

She remains extremely popular with the GOP grass roots, and most Republican Party leaders would jump at the chance to have her headline one of their events.

Politico interviewed nearly 50 GOP officials and politicians from all parts of the country, and found that Republicans have very favorable impressions of the former Alaska governor:

Westerners have a particular affinity for Palin, with many noting that she embodied the values of freedom and self-reliance.

[...]

“People saw her as one of them — someone who could relate to an everyday person. She’s not one of the political class,” said Heidi Gansert, the Nevada House minority leader. “I also believe that women appreciated her message and what she’d accomplished in her political career and family life. A woman who has a young family, who is able to become the governor of Alaska — a lot of people, women who worked the everyday jobs with their families — they know that she’s experiencing the same things they are.”

Evangelical Christians and rural and small-town Republicans also hold Palin in high esteem.

“The ones who are most supportive of her are what I would term the very conservative, libertarian-leaning voters of southern Nevada — of which there is a very large contingent,” said Bernie Zadrowski, the chairman of Las Vegas’s Clark County Republican Party. “You might also classify them as the constitutional wing of the party.”

Even in the Northeast, she enjoys considerable support:

Charles M. Webster, the state GOP chairman in Maine, said Republicans there are very enthusiastic about Palin largely because they can see themselves in her.

[...]

A New Hampshire state senator predicted: “If she showed up tomorrow in New Hampshire, they’d be lined up across the state.”

Palin's appeal to everyday Americans is especially strong in the South:

In Florida, Pasco County Republican Party Chairman Randy Maggard agreed that Palin’s down-to-earth style also connected with many Gulf Coast Republicans.

“The people I talk to that like her say she relates to them because they don’t really look at her as a politician in Washington,” Maggard said. “They look at her as a mom who was in business who happened to get into politics. They feel like they can relate to her.”

[...]

Since Palin’s talents are easily translated into fundraising, like many other party chairs, Palm Beach County, Fla.’s Sid Dinerstein said he’s ready to roll out the red carpet for her.

“She’s the most popular politician in America today,” Dinerstein said. “We would beg her to come to Palm Beach. There’s nobody who can raise money like Sarah.”

Another Palm Beach County Republican, state committeeman Pete Feaman, argued that Palin has been misunderstood and that, at least among Republican voters, her support is durable.

“Republicans love Sarah Palin whether she’s a presidential candidate, a governor or an ordinary citizen,” he said. “It’s interesting that inside-the-Beltway people have no clue how much she is really loved.”

Still, many Republican party officials are committed Mitt Romney supporters, and if she wants the GOP nomination for 2012, it's the former Massachusetts governor who will be Sarah Palin's toughest opponent.

- JP

There they go again... making more things up

In her final speech as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin asked the drive-by media to "quit making things up." They weren't up to the challenge.

Posting on the Chicago Tribune's blog The Swamp, Mark Silva shows that he is able to leap to tall conclusions in a single bound:

Palin is talking about "real change." And, she says, "you don't need a title to do it." Judging from her remarks in Hong Kong, one wonders if she feels she needs a party to do it -- or one of the big-two parties.

This talk has the feel of a Ross Perot 2.0 -- while we remain mindful of the fact that, while Perot captured one fifth of the vote his first time out, he also helped get Bill Clinton elected president.

"There is suddenly a growing sentiment to just "throw the bums out" of Washington, D.C. - and by bums they mean the Republicans and the Democrats," Palin suggested in her address to the CLSA investors conference.

Silva so doesn't get it. He doesn't get Sarah Palin, and he doesn't get the grassroots movement. Yes, we want to throw the bums out, but we have to replace them with someone, don't we? Who does he think we have in mind to replace them with, imaginary candidates representing a third party that doesn't even exist? 

As we stated here over a month ago:

Sarah Palin has never advocated forming a new political party, nor has she ever said anything about joining an existing minor party. She's a Reagan Republican, and as such, she is no doubt aware of Reagan's warning about third parties and has taken it to heart. Many have misinterpreted her pledge to campaign for conservative candidates regardless of their party affiliation. In our opinion, that is just a hint at what is yet to come from the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate.

Ronald Reagan drafted the blueprints for conservative electoral success years ago. Just because the Republican Party has forgotten how to follow them is no reason to give up on the GOP. The answer is to rebuild the Reagan coalition of conservatives of all stripes, and then bring libertarians, independents and blue collar Democrats on board. Once the troops are assembled, Sarah Palin can lead them into battle to take back the Republican Party. The GOP has the database of voter lists, donors and precinct workers. It has the connections to the volunteers who man the phone banks, canvass their neighborhoods and put the yard signs on their lawns. The Republican Party is already registered and organized in all 50 states and 3,143 counties, parishes (Louisiana), boroughs (Alaska) or independent cities in the nation. It is just plain foolish to think for even a moment that reinventing all of those wheels would be any quicker or easier than taking back the GOP 

Such third party talk as Silva is trying to start up is sheer nonsense, and we question his motives for doing so. It's not to difficult tell which way he leans. Silva has referred to Hanna Giles and James O'Keefe as "a pair of conservative vigilantes" and has criticized our "gun-happy culture which encourages the resolution of simple domestic disputes with the pulling of a trigger."

This is the same liberal media which, according to a recent poll by St. Mary University, played a very or somewhat strong role in helping to elect President Obama, according to a whopping 89.3 percent of respondents, and appear to be coordinating efforts to diminish Sarah Palin's record, according to a 57.6 percent majority of those surveyed. Who do they think they are fooling?

- JP

Conservatism in search of a leader

Elvin Lin has published an excellent essay, "The Republican Party is Not the Conservative Movement" (read it here). While much has been written about the struggle between conservatives and moderates for the soul of the Republican Party, it is a battle conservatives have no hope of winning unless they renew old alliances. That means that Republican conservatives and Republican libertarians need to not only make peace with each other, but together they must forge a coalition with the Tea Party movement, a force which owes no allegiance to the GOP or any other political party. It is among these three groups -- conservatives, libertarians and the grassroots movement -- where the seeds of the Reagan Coalition have been scattered.

In his essay, Lin discusses how that winning coalition became unraveled:

The Reagan coalition is fraying, because the libertarian faction of the conservative movement has had enough of sitting at the back of the movement's bus. For too long, they bought Ronald Reagan's and George Bush's argument that expensive and deficit-increasing wars are a necessary evil to combat a greater evil, but the bailout of the big banks last Fall was the last straw for them. If Irving Kristol once said that neoconservatives are converted liberals (like Ronald Reagan himself) who had been "mugged by reality," Tea Partiers are conservatives who have woken up to the fact that neoconseratives are no different from pre-Vietnam-era liberals chasing after utopian dreams.

 While we agree with Lin that Iraq was both a botched and expensive adventure, we believe that the terrible price paid in blood and treasure to have a bastion of liberty in the Middle East and a base from which to ride herd on radical jihadists could have been worthwhile, had the neoconservatives only been willing to make the additional sacrifice of spending restraint on other fronts and committing the assets required to win the war sooner. Had there a sufficient   commitment to the effort from the beginning no surge would have been required, and the war could have been won sooner and with far fewer casualties. But George W. Bush and those who were advising him were more interested in playing at the margins. While Republicans in Congress were busy spending like Democrats, no adult was in the room to put a halt to it and school them on the error of their ways. As a result, neoconservatism is in decline, and its death as a force in American politics can't come too soon for libertarians and populists alike.

As Lin points out, the fall of neoconservatism has created a leadership vacuum in both the conservative movement and the GOP:

Most people will agree that we know exactly what Barack Obama is up to, politically. The right-wing talk-show hosts will be the first to tell us. But we really do not know what the Republican party stands for or who could possibly lead it in 2012. This is because the party has lost its synthesizing logic and lacks a unifying hero. This weekend, a straw poll conducted at the Values Voters Summit put Mike Huckabee on top, with 28 percent of the vote, because the straw pollers are Values Voters, who constitute yet another faction within the conservative movement. But what was more telling is that even though Sarah Palin did not even turn up for the event, she nevertheless garnered the same endorsement as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Mike Pence, at 12% each. This is conservatism in search of a leader.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and so a golden opportunity presents itself:

Because it is parties that win elections and not movements, Republican members of congress should not be taking any comfort from the passionate protests of the Tea Partiers. Instead, they should be embarrassed about the fact that they have been trying to play catch up with a movement that has lost hope in its elected officials. More importantly, the Republican party must find a new way to unite the neoconservative, libertarian, and traditionalist factions of the movement to have any chance of standing up against a president and party, who in 2010, could well be riding the wave of an economic recovery to electoral success.

Viewed in this light, Sarah Palin's decision to give up her office and title as Governor of Alaska should begin to make sense even to the myopic critics who said at the time that doing so meant that her career in politics was over. Perhaps Citizen Palin's greatest assets are her political instincts. She saw the storm clouds gathering across the land and her political forecast was spot on. It is no coincidence that she chose the conclusion of her address in Hong Kong -- that part of a speech where the speaker wishes to hammer home the most salient point -- with these remarks:

My country is definitely at a crossroad. Polling in the U.S. shows a majority of Americans no longer believe that their children will have a better future than they have had...that is a 1st.

When members of America’s greatest generation – the World War II generation – lose their homes and their life savings because their retirement funds were wiped after the financial collapse, people feel a great anger. There is suddenly a growing sentiment to just “throw the bums out” of Washington, D.C. – and by bums they mean the Republicans and the Democrats. Americans are suffering from pay cuts and job losses, and they want to know why their elected leaders are not tightening their belts. It’s not lost on people that Congress voted to exempt themselves from the health care plan they are thrusting on the rest of the nation. There is a growing sense of frustration on Main Street. But even in the midst of crisis and despair, we see signs of hope.

In fact, it’s a sea change in America, I believe. Recently, there have been protests by ordinary Americans who marched on Washington to demand their government stop spending away their future. Large numbers of ordinary, middle-class Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from all over the country marching on Washington?! You know something’s up!

These are the same people who flocked to the town halls this summer to face their elected officials who were home on hiatus from that distant capital and were now confronted with the people they represent. Big town hall meetings – video clips circulating coverage – people watching, feeling not so alone anymore.

The town halls and the Tea Party movement are both part of a growing grassroots consciousness among ordinary Americans who’ve decided that if they want real change, they must take the lead and not wait to be led. Real change – and, you know, you don’t need a title to do it.

The “Tea Party Movement” is aptly named to remind people of the American Revolution – of colonial patriots who shook off the yoke of a distant government and declared their freedom from indifferent – elitist – rulers who limited their progress and showed them no respect. Today, Main Street Americans see Washington in similar terms.

When my country again achieves financial stability and economic growth – when we roar back to life as we shall do – it will be thanks in large part to the hard work and common sense of these ordinary Americans who are demanding that government spend less and tax less and allow the private sector to grow and prosper.

We’re not interested in government fixes; we’re interested in freedom! Freedom! Our vision is forward looking. People may be frustrated now, but we’re very hopeful too.

And, after all, why shouldn’t we be? We’re Americans. We’re always hopeful.

Thank you for letting me share some of that hope, and a view from Main Street with you. God Bless You.

To us, those sound like the words of someone who is ready, able and willing to fill the leadership void Elvin Lin described. 

Another View: Meanwhile, The Reaganite Republican questions whether the GOP really needs to have a leader at this stage of the game.

- JP

Quote of the Day (September 16, 2009)

Simon at Classical Values:

"We are all Sarah Palin now."

- JP

What do you mean, "Where is Sarah?"

We've been seeing so many great posts at American Thinker and praising them lately that it was inevitable that Thomas Lifson's great site would publish something with which we would disagree. And so it has with George Joyce's "Where's Sarah?" which was posted to AT's blog late Monday afternoon.

Joyce, it seems, is so bummed by Mark Steyn's conjecture -- in an NRO op-ed that ObamaCare will probably get pushed through eventually -- that he's gettin' mighty nervous. Joyce wants Sarah Palin, warrior princess, to ride in on a white steed and save the day:

In light of this remarkable admission from Steyn, the question on many conservative minds is: where’s Sarah Palin? In response to those who have defended Palin’s gutsy political instincts one can only wonder about a woman who seemed to be AWOL during and after last Saturday’s heady demonstration. In other words, without a clearly recognized conservative spokesperson willing to passionately articulate the desires of millions of frustrated Americans, the poll numbers will probably continue to favor the rhetorically unchecked Obama.

Either Palin has decided not to run for President in 2012, or, huddled with her advisors, she is carefully calculating how to plod into her party’s nomination a couple of years from now. If the latter, this dynamic, popular, and talented woman is making a profound mistake.

There’s a righteous wind blowing – a conservative righteous wind – but so far no conservative politician has been prescient enough to ride the gale force that may be the only deterrent to what Steyn envisions as America’s left-of-center future.

In other words, even if Palin does get elected in 2012, her passion may well be condemned to pledges about how she can “deliver government services more efficiently.”

Someone very soon needs to take a leap of faith – the time for calculation is long past.

Chill, George.

Wherever Sarah Palin is, she's probably finishing her book. Authors who sign deals to have their books published owe big obligations to their publishers, who expect to have manuscripts on the editor's desk by certain dates. That's usually written into the contract. And even if the former governor has already delivered her manuscript to Harper Collins, editors always want to make changes, most of them minor ones. Our best guess is that Sarah, with the help of Lynn Vincent, is in the process of making those final changes to the manuscript now. It's a matter of simple economics, as Andrew Malcolm explains:

Book advances are usually paid half on signing and half on acceptance of the finished manuscript with the agent usually receiving at least 15% off the top.

And she can use the money. Her legal bills, thanks to a number of frivolous "ethics" complaints that were filed against her, were reported to be well over $600,000 as of July, and have probably accrued considerably in the two months since. She can't touch her legal defense fund, as that money is tied up pending the resolution of yet another "ethics" complaint which was ironically filed against her simply for having a legal defense fund. 

Sarah Palin declared her independence July 3 when she announced her intention to resign her office, and she sealed it at the governor's picnic when she officially handed over the reigns of power to Sean Parnell later that month. Her key to being able to make the most of her liberation from the bear trap of the Alaska governor's office is the financial security for which her book advance is only just the down payment.

So Sarah Palin has personal business to take care of, and it is obviously very important to her. She passed up an opportunity to appear at the Ronald Reagan Library at the invitation of a Republican women's group and also said no to several other events where her presence would have been a great benefit to her. So no one should really be surprised that she didn't show up at the epicenter of the 9/12 event Saturday. We doubt she will make any public appearances prior to her scheduled keynote address in Hong Kong at the CLSA Investors' Forum September 23.

There is also another personal matter which is sure to command Sarah Palin's attention. Her son Track's Army unit, the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, is in the process of rotating back home after a year of duty in Iraq. Track is due to return soon (the last group of 1/25 Strykers should be back stateside by Oct. 2), and he will have some well-deserved leave coming. Count on the Palins to celebrate his return and spend some family time to themselves.

But there is another reason why she didn't show in person in Washington, D.C. this weekend. The 9/12 event wasn't about her -- it was about the everyday people who made it happen. It was their moment in the limelight, their chance to stand up to the president and his enablers and say, "No you can't." Had Sarah Palin turned up there and stole their thunder, she would have already been dragged through the coals by the Left as a rank opportunist.

Her presence there would have also taken away the argument that 9/12, the tea parties and the town halls are all part of a genuine grassroots movement. The Obamunists dispute this and claim that it's a top-down conspiracy spearheaded by Fox News, the Republican Party and whatever other boogey men they can think of. Had Sarah Palin walked onto the stage, it would have simply added fuel to the fire they have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to build.

We have to have patience, and we have to have faith. When and if the time is right, Sarah Palin will be where she has to be. Trust her political instincts, which many of both her admirers and her critics have praised. And don't for even a second doubt her passion. The grassroots movement will have star-quality leadership when the grassroots decides that someone deserving has earned it, and not a day sooner than that. Sarah Palin said she intended to campaign for conservative candidates for 2010, and we don't doubt her commitment to do just that. After that, who knows?

And though Mark Steyn is one of our all-time favorite political writers (we put him up there with Victor Davis Hanson and Bill Whittle), he is not a prophet, nor is he infallible. For the moment, at least, Obama doesn't have the votes he needs to push through his Big Government patent medicine. There is still plenty of time to make this grassroots movement mature if we take our time and keep our wits about us. That "righteous wind" is in no danger of  blowing itself out anytime soon.

Finally in answer to the question that forms the title for George Joyce's op-ed, all anyone at the rally had to do was look around them. Everywhere there were Sarah Palin t-shirts, posters, pictures, buttons and banners. She was there in spirit, which was not unexpected and was the appropriate presence for her, in our opinion.

- JP

Grassroots for Palin Meeting in February

An e-mail from our Bloggers for Sarah Palin colleague Steve Maloney :

Dear Friends of Gov. Sarah Palin:

Just a reminder: there will be a meeting the evening of February 19, 2010, in Washington, DC, where CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) will be held Feb. 18-20. The pro-Palin meeting will be separate from the CPAC convention. Those in attendance will be people who strongly support Sarah Palin for President.

The purposes of the meeting will be:

(1) to enable pro-Palin activists from around the country to meet one another and discuss strategy and tactics;
(2) to discuss fundraising opportunities for Gov. Palin (mainly through www.sarahpac.com);
(3) to discuss building our organizations;
(4) to get bloggers and other online communicators to work in a coordinated manner.

Other facts about the pro-Palin meeting:

(1) The cost will be about $15 (to pay for room rental) per person;
(2) Perhaps 6-8 people will speak, but remarks will be held to no more than 5-7 minutes each;
(3) There will be a major effort to hold down costs for those attending;
(4) There will be a telephone conference call on approximately Feb. 21 for those unable to attend the DC meeting;
(5) There will be no requirement to attend the CPAC events;
(6) There will be no guidance from "on high" for the meeting -- that, no financing from any political committee or candidate; it will be a pure grassroots effort;
and,
(7) There will be an effort to get all pro-Palin groups represented at the meeting.

God willing, at least one member of the Palin family will attend the meeting. I hope as many pro-Palin activists as possible will be there, including people from Hawaii and Alaska.

Your input is encouraged.

Steve Maloney

- JP

Want a Palin presidency? Then get serious about it.

Posting at Renew America and quoting Confucius, Neil Brian Goldberg envisions the grassroots propelling Sarah Palin into a presidential run:

Confucius say: "It is often following crowd who push leader forward."

...and so the Sarah Palin for President campaign begins...

How does he propose to launch this campaign?

Next, being sure of what we want, we simply begin this "Sarah for President" campaign.

If it were only that simple. What Goldberg is proposing here is nothing new. We have to wonder if he's aware that others have been -- as the Chris Rea song goes -- Working On It. There are a number of PACs, committees and blogs already dedicated to drafting Sarah Palin, and they weren't born yesterday.

Where Goldberg's bandwagon really becomes unhitched, however, is with the following:

There is talk that Sarah will run on a third party — what shall it be called — why of course — THE TEA PARTY.

Goldberg quotes Confucius, but he should be studying up on Ronald Reagan. A good starting place would be the 1977 Reason magazine interview:

Well, third parties have been notoriously unsuccessful; they usually wind up dividing the very people that should be united. And then we elect the wrong kind–the side we’re out to defeat wins. I have been doing my best to try to revitalize the Republican Party groups that I’ve spoken to, on the basis that the time has come to repudiate those in our midst who would blur the Republican image by saying we should be all things to all people in order to triumph. Lately, we find that of the 26 percent of the people who didn’t vote, more than half of them now say they didn’t vote because they don’t see any difference between the parties. I’ve been urging Republicans to raise a banner and put the things we stand for on that banner and don’t compromise, but don’t try to enlarge the party by being all things to everyone when you can’t keep all the promises. Put up a banner and then count on the fact that if you’ve got the proper things on that banner the people will rally round.

Then there's Reagan's CPAC speech from the same year:

I have to say I cannot agree with some of my friends -- perhaps including some of you here tonight -- who have answered that question by saying this nation needs a new political party.

I respect that view and I know that those who have reached it have done so after long hours of study. But I believe that political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved. For one thing, the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over. Rather than a third party, we can have a new first party made up of people who share our principles. I have said before that if a formal change in name proves desirable, then so be it. But tonight, for purpose of discussion, I’m going to refer to it simply as the New Republican Party.

And let me say so there can be no mistakes as to what I mean: The New Republican Party I envision will not be, and cannot, be one limited to the country club-big business image that, for reasons both fair and unfair, it is burdened with today. The New Republican Party I am speaking about is going to have room for the man and the woman in the factories, for the farmer, for the cop on the beat and the millions of Americans who may never have thought of joining our party before, but whose interests coincide with those represented by principled Republicanism. If we are to attract more working men and women of this country, we will do so not by simply "making room" for them, but by making certain they have a say in what goes on in the party.

Sarah Palin has never advocated forming a new political party, nor has she ever said anything about joining an existing minor party. She's a Reagan Republican, and as such, she is no doubt aware of Reagan's warning about third parties and has taken it to heart. Many have misinterpreted her pledge to campaign for conservative candidates regardless of their party affiliation. In our opinion, that is just a hint at what is yet to come from the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate.

Ronald Reagan drafted the blueprints for conservative electoral success years ago. Just because the Republican Party has forgotten how to follow them is no reason to give up on the GOP. The answer is to rebuild the Reagan coalition of conservatives of all stripes, and then bring libertarians, independents and blue collar Democrats on board. Once the troops are assembled, Sarah Palin can lead them into battle to take back the Republican Party. The GOP has the database of voter lists, donors and precinct workers. It has the connections to the volunteers who man the phone banks, canvass their neighborhoods and put the yard signs on their lawns. The Republican Party is already registered and organized in all 50 states and 3,143 counties, parishes (Louisiana), boroughs (Alaska) or independent cities in the nation. It is just plain foolish to think for even a moment that reinventing all of those wheels would be any quicker or easier than taking back the GOP.  

We admire Goldberg's desire to do something to get Sarah Palin into the White House, and we echo his call to donate to SarahPAC while still putting something aside for the big "money bomb" fundraiser which is sure to come.  But the first step toward being witness to a history-making inauguration of former Gov. Palin as the first woman to be president of the U. S. is  to get the stars out of one's eyes and the foolish notions out of one's head. Then we can talk some real world political organizing.

- JP