Dan Calabrese: Sarah Palin isn’t going to be what you demand her to be

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In our opinion, an excellent opinion piece by Dan Calabrese of the North Star National Monday:

Sarah Palin has never signed an I-must statement promising to do everything that a given constituency wants her to do. She has never promised to abide by the list of requirements that will make her a so-called real conservative.

Sometimes her supporters will agree with her. Sometimes they won’t. I wasn’t thrilled when she endorsed the son of Ron Paul in Kentucky, but I don’t feel the need to believe in a Sarah Palin who is perfectly molded to fit my ideal of who and what she is supposed to be.

Just as Barack Obama isn’t necessarily what you imagine him to be, Sarah Palin isn’t going to be what you demand her to be. She is who she is – a very smart, skilled public servant and political figure who thinks for herself and makes her own decisions.

If these decisions sometimes don’t comport to the strategy you think she should be following to achieve the objective you’re sure she’s obsessed with, check to see if maybe you’re the one with the obsession.

And if they sometimes don’t fit with the orthodoxy of your particular movement, and that makes you want to have a hissy fit, too damn bad.

As Calabrese cites in his op-ed, Sarah Palin's support for McCain and endorsement of Rand Paul angered some of her fair weather backers to the point where they declared that they "could no longer support her."

Every blogger whose website displays the Blogs 4 Palin blogroll on his or her website agrees to the principles stated on the Blogs 4 Palin home page. The key concept is stated there as:

"Blogs 4 Palin is a blog community whose members support the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate in whatever she decides to do in 2010 and beyond."

The words "whatever she decides to do" mean exactly what they say. We support Sarah Palin regardless of whom she endorses or campaigns for. We support her whether she decides to run for the Senate or White House, in whatever year she decides to do it, or even if she decides not to run for public office again.

We support her for a number of reasons not limited to her positions on the issues. We like the fact that she connects with everyday people and is not a D.C. insider, but it is more than that. We appreciate her candor and are impressed by her record as a reformer. We admire her courage and her determination. We share her faith in God and her respect for innocent human life. We are inspired by her commitment to her family and her practice of what she preaches concerning those among us who have special needs. But for many of us the single most important reason we support Sarah Palin is that she is a fighter. She doesn't back down, no matter how viciously her enemies attack her nor how often they do it. If only there were more in the Republican Party with that spirit.

This is why we see Sarah Palin as the only one in the Republican Party who has the determination and the ability to reform it. She will drag the GOP back to its Reagan ways even if the cost to do it is her political future. As she said, paraphrasing scripture, "If I die, I die."

- JP

John McCain finally gives Sarah Palin her due

For several months after the election, 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain always had some something nice to say about his former running mate, but his heart never seemed to be in it. He never publicly and properly chastised those among his campaign staff who had spread nasty rumors about her to the press, and on one appearance on Jay Leno's show, the Arizona Senator neglected to even include Sarah Palin among a list of potential leaders of the Republican Party. But McCain is at long last giving Sarah Palin her due.

Lord knows she deserves some props from McCain. Sarah Palin has always been loyal to the former Vietnam War POW on the campaign trail, and even after the election she refused to say a discouraging word about the man she considers to be a genuine American hero. Her public adoration of McCain seems to be more than just the Blue Star mom in this mother of a soldier serving in a Stryker Brigade in Iraq. Sarah Palin has, in fact, kept Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment religiously, never criticizing a fellow Republican, even after some of them have been less than charitable in their statements concerning her.

McCain has finally gotten with the program. In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" early in July, he told David Schuster that he thought Sarah Palin "would make a fine president."

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal yesterday, McCain told Stephen Moore that his best memory from the campaign was of Sarah Palin:

"The high point, I think, was the convention, the selection of Sarah Palin, and the enthusiasm that was generated all over the country." His fondness for Mrs. Palin and her family strikes me as from the heart; he believes she was a net asset for the ticket.

"Let’s face it," he says, "she galvanized our base in a way that I couldn’t. Everywhere she went she drew enormous and enthusiastic crowds like a rock star." He says his only regret in selecting the Alaska governor was that no one on the campaign predicted the ferocity of the assaults against her. "To the liberal left, particularly the feminists, she is their worst nightmare."

Appearing on CNN’s "State of the Union" this weekend, McCain not only defended Palin's decision to resign as Alaska governor, but also said he was...

"...saddened by the fact that there are still such vicious attacks on her and her family," adding, "I’ve never seen anything quite like it."

In the CNN interview that aired Sunday (video of the Palin segment here), McCain also said:

"I respect Sarah Palin. I appreciate her and her husband enormously. I think she will continue to play a major role in the future of the Republican Party."

Why did it take McCain so long to come around with stronger support for the woman who campaigned so hard for him and never turned on her former GOP running mate? The more cynical of Palin's supporters will say that part of the answer to that question, at least, can be found in the disclosure that Sarah Palin's political action committee raised more than $730,000 in five months. The former governor of Alaska has proven that she can raise money, and Friends of John McCain has already been the beneficiary of a $5,000 contribution from SarahPAC.

McCain also told CNN that he would welcome Sarah Palin to Arizona to campaign with him in his bid for re-election in 2010. Just like old times...

- JP

McCain staffers with names stand up for Sarah Palin

It appears the Vainly Unfair magazine hit piece, the product of a collaboration between Obama-supporting liberal editor Todd Purdum and a few traitors within the McCain campaign organization, is backfiring. In the uproar that has arisen in the wake of the smear job, some former McCain staffers are standing up to defend their 2008 vice presidential candidate, and, unlike the anonymous anti-Palin leakers quoted in the politically-motivated article, those speaking out in favor of Sarah Palin aren't afraid to let their names be known:

"She's a fine person, with unique and unteachable political skills," said Mark Salter, a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) presidential bid who was deeply involved with the Palin pick. "I'm sure she has a future if she wants one."

Also speaking up to defend the governor was Jason Recher, who served as senior adviser and trip director for Palin during the general election. Recher told the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza that in the two and a half months he spent traveling with Palin, he:

"grew to like and respect her even more as did many of the folks on the plane." Reche added that the people attacking Palin should "stand up and prove them on the record or move on with their lives like Sarah Palin has.

Like Recher, former McCain national finance committee chair Fred Malek has been consistently supportive of Sarah Palin:

"She has been vastly underestimated as a result of one or two interviews," said Malek of Palin. "I have spent a lot of time around her and can state unequivocally she is smart, perceptive, curious, and absolutely on top of issues like energy which are pivotal to her role as Alaska's Governor."

Malek recently hosted a foreign policy lunch to allow Gov. Palin to bet better acquainted with Beltway establishment Republicans such as former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci and former deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott.

The ultimate GOP insider is Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, who made the round of morning television talk shows to reiterate his support for the party's 2008 VP candidate:

"Sarah Palin will be a leader in this party," said Steele during an appearance Wednesday on "Morning Joe." "She has the ability to galvanize the base, and even folks outside the base. "And I think all the hindsight second guessing and back looking does nothing."

Steele was also lavish with his praise for the governor when he introduced her at an Indiana pro-life event in April:

"And so on that Saturday when she was announced as the vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party, I was one proud Republican. I was one very happy Republican."

"And like so many in this room, I watched this party light up. I watched activists — Democrat, Republican and independent — tune in and pay attention and listen. And I watched her take the world stage by storm."

"She’s just begun to write the chapters for this country and its history book and its future."

By saying that he was hoping Sarah Palin would be McCain's choice after the short list for vice presidential nominee had been reduced to just two names, Steele seemed to indicate his preference for her over Minnestota Governor Tim Pawlenty, whose name was also on the list.

The Democrats and their media mouthpieces appear to have overreached with their non-stop bashing of governor Sarah Palin, and now she is increasingly being seen as a sympathetic figure among what Cillizza calls "the GOP operative class."

- JP