More Quote of the Day Honorable Mention Part 386

“Girl, you'll be a woman soon” Edition
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Ron Devito, at US for Palin:

“Absent a title, Gov. Palin enjoys unbridled freedom to shape the political debate on her terms, but quite possibly with much less influence. The next title gives her the ability to sign or veto legislation and treaties, and make decisions about war and peace – that is, lead this nation. Gov. Palin is carefully considering this for all the right reasons. She’s not pursuing a title or power. She knows the Presidency is a calling. She knows she’s been summoned. It’s public service and sacrifice. She wants to do what’s right for this country and discharge the duties of that office unbeholden to anyone. Yes, we want her to run. None of the other candidates possess a single one of her leadership traits. The others simply fail to inspire. But, we cannot let our zeal for her running turn into petulant demands, whining that ‘she owes us,’ and putting words in her mouth she never said. It was NJ Gov. Chris Christie who said he was not running on Tuesday night, not Gov. Palin. Gov. Palin knows that if she runs, failure is not an option. There’s also an historic element should she run that amplifies failure not being an option. You see, Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton left some unfinished business. Somehow, I think Gov. Palin is going to show little girls of this country exactly what they can do.”

Ronald Reagan, via Jeanette Pryor:

“A candidate doesn’t make the decision whether to run for president; the people make it for him.”

BJ Wilson, at Coloradans4Palin:

“To the activists, donors, party officials, and elected officials. To the pundits, kingmakers, and power brokers. Here we have the single most successful political figure of our time in the post-Obama era, a member of the GOP no less, and what is your response? ... Christie? Chris Christie... This is your Ronald Reagan? ... Reagan was a former presidient of the Screen Actors Guild... Rather than intimidate union members like Christie, he welcomed them into the party, as Palin has tried to do by emphasizing her union membership and family background... Reagan had a media job right up until he announced late, and gave many substantive positions on the issues before he ran, as Palin has done with FOX and her Facebook notes. Not so Christie. Like Reagan, Palin has a working class background that attracts indepedents. She also has some experience in the media, so she understands how to connect with people emotionally and in her speeches. Christie does not. What are you people smoking?”

Jelayne Sessler, at Palin Defender:

“I don't believe for one second that she hasn't already decided. Think about it, if she wasn't running there would be no reason to put off telling us her decision. This isn't rocket science folks, if it were; we would ask Herman Cain for help.”

Patrick S. Adams, at Patrick's World USA:

“We are at a unique moment in our political timeline. In the past, elections have been decided by who could best convince the people that they were most qualified to take care of them. This time around, we don't want people ‘taking care of us.’ We have finally discovered what was festering in our system for over a century now. Yeah, we know about the communists in the 1950's. Yeah, we know about the European socialist style progressives of today. But we never stopped to realize that capitalism is not the problem, it's the people who are trying to control capitalism that are the problem. When neither political party chooses to address this fact, the people become cynical. The people know they are frustrated by a system where merit is replaced with a ‘it's not what you know, but who you know’ or a ‘you can't beat city hall’ attitude. This kills creativity. This kills entrepreneurship... Governor Palin's crusading speech against crony capitalism in Iowa tells us we can change this. Should she run, she would be uniquely situated to move the Republican Party in a direction that would give voters hope and optimism again... We are not looking to elect another Republican just so we can get rid of the socialism. We need to elect someone who can renew and restore our country.”

Becky Beach, Iowa GOP Fundraiser:

“I think it’s going to be so unconventional if she decides to run, a few weeks aren’t going to matter one way or the other. If she decides to run the enthusiasm will be there...”

Lori Calabrese, at Examiner.com:

“Americans do respect hard-working Americans who have had to bust their butts to get where they’re at. We want a candidate we can relate to, who knows the issues and problems we face every day... Americans respect Sarah Palin for getting her hands dirty on her family’s fishing boat and going rogue to tackle issues close to her heart. You would think the smartest leaders in American politics would have figured this out by now, but unfortunately they haven’t. Americans want the real politicians to please stand up--a politician who isn’t in it for the fame and popularity, but rather someone who is focused on influencing positive change in America. While others continue to analyze the fact that Palin has not announced what she plans to do, personally, I found it refreshing to hear Palin ponder her run based on the question, ‘is a title worth it?’”

Gary P Jackson, at A Time For Choosing:

“Sarah Palin is... fully aware of all of the work being done nationwide on her behalf. For months Sarah has had numerous opportunities to tell these hard working organizers to stand down. Instead, she has only encouraged them to keep on doing what they are doing. I can’t believe she would do that if she wasn’t going to run.”

Tim Graham, at NewsBusters:

“People magazine gave prominent play on the front of its Books section in the latest edition... to two Palin-trashing books by Joe McGinniss and Levi Johnston. They weren't officially reviewed, since there was no rating of how many stars they had earned. The headline was ‘Seeking the Real Sarah? Two dirt-dishing bios of Sarah Palin play fast and loose with the facts but transport readers deep into the Wasilla, Alaska ethos that shaped her.’ Why would People try to be even-handed here? The books aren't factually dependable, but they reflect Palin's local ‘ethos’? Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, a People reporter and former White House reporter for the Associated Press, dances this soft-shoe throughout the short piece, next to large photos of the book covers... Notice how People just dishes corrosive allegations of drug use and adultery and doesn't really suggest they're unsubstantiated? They're certainly not unverified enough to avoid spreading. Can anyone imagine People doing this with an anti-Obama book of the same unverified nature?”

John Sexton, at Verum Serum:

“New York City has seven million people. Selling 442 copies of a book with this level of media awareness is a major flop.”

Stacy McCain, at The Other McCain:

“Politico tried to ‘perpetuate misinformation,’ and between Slate’s Dave Weigel and Hot Air’s Tina Korbe, this gets turned into a kerfuffle. Read the freakin’ transcript: While Palin did say Cain was ‘flavor of the week’ — that is to say, from the media perspective he’s the Next New Thing – she followed that with effusive praise for him as representing ‘the real people of America,’ with whom he has an ‘automatic connection.’ Sarah Palin has always been a Herman Cain fan, and is still a Herman Cain fan. I’d have to look it up, but earlier this year, she re-Tweeted one of Cain’s columns. The media are trying to gin up a phony controversy — ‘Let’s you and him fight,’ as they say down home – and the last thing Cain should do is to believe what the media say about Sarah Palin. They’re ‘makin' up stuff’ again!”

Stacy McCain, at The American Spectator's Spectacle Blog:

“Thanks to McGinniss's e-mail to Griffin, the Palins have Random House in a bad situation, and the only question is whether the Palins will stop short of a court trial against the publisher... And exactly how Random House's attorneys ‘made an independent judgment about the trustworthiness’ of sources they had never even met would certainly make for lively court proceedings, if such a case ever went to trial.”

Aaron Goldstein, at The American Spectator's Spectacle Blog:

“The question is would Palin rather use her resources to make a run for the White House, or lend support to a candidate she thinks can unseat President Obama, or would she rather use her resources to sue McGinniss and Random House? I know those options aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, assuming Palin is going to make a bid for the White House she will have to consider how much time and resources a lawsuit would divert from that effort. I completely understand her motivations in wanting to sue McGinniss and Random House especially if she can prove they engaged in ‘actual malice’ against her and her family. But there is a risk that a lawsuit could inadvertently help McGinniss and restore his prestige as an author. In that case, wouldn't the best punishment for McGinniss and Random House be a pile of books they can't sell?”

John Nolte , at Big Hollywood:

“Hollywood Heckler Apologizes to Bristol Palin... I wish no physical harm on Hanks or his pooch, but am I unhappy he’s had an awful week in the wake of his cowardly bullying? Cry me a river, play me a violin.”

Gene Lalor, at Gene's Blog:

“Slime, Sleaze, and Levi Johnston discussed in some detail Johnston’s ghost-written, politically-inspired and financed hatchet job on his former fiancee, Bristol Palin, and the Palin family, Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs. In view of the tacky similarities between Johnston’s sleaze and Joe McGinness’ tripe, it’s difficult to believe they didn’t collaborate. When it comes to hatchet jobs and unmitigated squalor, no recent writing surpasses the venture into the arena of political and character assassination better than Joe McGinness’ salacious book about Sarah Palin and her family... McGinness began his quest for Palin dirt two years ago by renting a house adjacent to the family property in Wasilla, Alaska, so close that the Palins had to erect an 8 foot fence to keep Peeping Joe from spying on the family... Apparently, Peeping Joe didn’t see nearly enough to fill a book so he proceeded to fill The Rogue with other rumors and innuendo... Put more succinctly, the author... is a liar and his book a pack of lies, which places Joe McGinness in the same, sorry league as Levi Johnston, an unethical, immoral fabricator of a work which purports to be true and is actually the precise opposite.”

Exit Quote - George Washington, in a letter to Eleanor Parke Custis:

“A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.”

- JP

Bob Weir: Are We Ready for a Woman President?

No flea is she; Sarah's the iconoclast that breaks glass ceilings...
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Neither major political party has ever nominated a woman as its presidential candidate. Hillary Clinton certainly looked like she was on her way to shattering that particular glass ceiling in 2008, but the Democrats went with a backbench junior Senator instead. The parties have each nominated a woman as their vice presidential candidates only one time in their respective histories.

American Thinker contributor Bob Weir considers the barrier women refer to as the class ceiling and why no woman has been able to break it to run as a major party candidate for the presidency. The metaphor employed by the author is that of trained fleas in a jar. They will easily jump out of the jar so long as it is open at the top. But put a lid on the jar, and the fleas will on bang up against for a short while. Soon they will learn to only jump so high as to avoid a collision with an immovable object. People, Weir submits, are like fleas in a jar. They will not strive for success beyond that point where they have been trained to limit their horizons:

It's my contention that women will continue to face perceptual roadblocks in the presidential area of politics until one of them becomes the role model for others to follow. Currently, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann have popular support for 2012. My choice is Palin because she has demonstrated her executive ability as Governor of Alaska and was the most exciting candidate in the election of 2008.

Although she hasn't decided if she'll run next year, we constantly hear that she has too much baggage. What baggage? Anyone who knows anything about her record in Alaska would have to admit that she exhibited all the traits that make up the building blocks of leadership. Her rise to prominence is well-known and doesn't need to be restated in its entirety here. Suffice to say that she took on a corrupt system within her own political party and rose to the governorship after throwing the bums out of office. Certainly, a résumé like that should be viewed as the perfect recipe for a country in need of a moral renaissance. Aha, therein lies the problem! How many in this country want to return to the days when politicians weren't sending their nude photos on the Internet, fathering children with their housemaids, or having sex with interns in the Oval Office?

I suspect that all decent people want to go back to a time when their children had better role models than Weiner, Schwarzenegger, and Clinton. The culture shift in the last few decades is more than mildly alarming; it is downright frightening! Every aspect of our lives has eroded. From education to entertainment to politics; we have seen a value system that was once the envy of the world, slowly, insidiously corrupted by a philosophical framework that is inimical to any concept of a great nation. Today, we have a country whose people have almost given up on the idea that morality has value.

What has all this to do with Sarah Palin? She's a threat to those who have become addicted to the titillation of a callous and uninhibited lifestyle, free from compunction or responsibility. She represents the wholesome values and patriotic spirit that have been all but lost in the violent maelstrom of social and political engineering that has distorted our sense of right and wrong. No flea is she; Sarah's the iconoclast that breaks glass ceilings and shatters the lids on jars.

[More]

The former Wasilla Warrior point guard knows a thing or two about jumping. Every time, she will leap as high as she possibly can, no matter how hard her political opponents try to block her vertical ascent.

- JP

Kelso: Perry, Republicans getting all the women (voters)

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Austin American-Statesman columnist John Kelso notices a tectonic shift in voting habits here in the Lone State State:

You know Texas Democrats and their candidate for governor, Bill White, are in deep doo-doo when they can't even hold the women's vote.

See, generally, women have tended to vote for Democrats because Democrats are seen as the soft and squishy people, the nurturers, the protectors, the kind of guys who are actually glad there's a baby changing station in the men's room, the caregivers, the poets, the men who could sit through Sex and the City without wanting to kill somebody, the men who know yoga (as opposed to the men who quote Yogi Berra) -- the kind of guys who don't throw a whiskey bottle through a TV set on Sunday afternoon when they have to miss part of the Cowboys game to change a diaper.

But here it is, less than a month away from the election (praise God), and a poll shows that 50 percent of female likely voters would cast their ballots for Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican, and only 40 percent would pick Bill White, the Democrat.

That Republicans are getting the women is considered unusual. The poll didn't say if size was a factor. But there's this: When Republican women say bigger is better, they're talking about the old man's American Express limit. Maybe that's the attraction.

No, seriously, pollster Mickey Blum says it might be the first time she's seen more women than men backing the Republican. Maybe the men are being out-Republicaned by the women in Texas because of all the male wimp computer programmers moving here from Marin County.

But Bill White, not exactly Mr. Excitement, may be the main reason for this transition.

But then again, John, it may be that "Mama Grizzly" thing. Texas women, like many of their sisters across the country are just palin... er, plain fed up with the tax-and-spend Democrats and their leftist agenda.

Sarah Palin endorsed Gov. Perry way back in early 2009, and she campaigned with him at a Houston area rally a year later.

- JP

Don Surber: Hope for Palinistas

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Charleston Daily Mail columnist Don Surber finds encouragement for supporters of Sarah Palin in a recent Rassmussen survey which found that a whopping 87 percent of likely voters believe that it is at least somewhat likely that a woman will be elected president in the next 25 years. A clear majority (58 percent) say such an event is very kikely:

Scott Rasmussen had some fun with the poll: “If the choice was between a Republican woman and a Democratic man, 45% of all voters would vote for the female candidate, and 35% would support the male. 20% are undecided.”

A Republican woman would beat a Democratic man by 10 points.

Who could that Republican woman be?

Surber then goes down the list, naming names, here.

- JP

Amy Siskind: Give Sarah Palin Another Look

Amy Siskind, president and co-founder of The New Agenda, argues in a Sunday Daily Beast op-ed that Obama isn't doing much for women and that perhaps its time for women to reconsider supporting Sarah Palin:

Maybe it’s time that women gave Sarah Palin another look. Palin, back in the headlines for rushing out a new book ahead of schedule this fall, is fresh, open-minded, a centrist and a party noncomformist. Hey, sisters in women's advocacy: Let's end the decades-long cold war with Republican women candidates. If we want progress to be made on issues of importance to women, our organizations need to master a skill at which men have always been adept: negotiation.

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Sadly, for women, things haven’t panned out all that well with this administration. Despite receiving 56 percent of women's votes, President Obama's record on women's issues thus far is sparse, and suggests something that he either has a tone-deaf nature—or, if you’re inclined to a more sinister view, that he may be uncomfortable with women.

He surely hasn't surrounded himself with many. Of his 24 Cabinet picks, only six were women. Perhaps even more telling are President Obama's czar picks, which do not require Senate confirmation. Of the 35-40 picks he’s made to date, only three have been women. That’s less than 10 percent.

Here's what we know: Sarah Palin did not have a governor's seat handed down to her, she earned it. She understands what it is to be a woman having to fight obstacles—some overt and others subtle—that only a woman can understand.

I know I'll hear from critics who claim that Palin would not share my policy views. But what makes them so sure? As governor of Alaska, didn't Sarah Palin appoint Justice Morgan Christen, who is pro-choice and a former board member of Planned Parenthood, to become Alaska's second female Supreme Court justice? Granted, it’s only 2009, and we are three years away from the next presidential election. But doesn’t that give us ample time to open a dialogue and explain why women's issues are so important to our country's future?

Ms. Siskind is taking quite a beating in the comments section, where Obama's far-left attack squads are pelting her with smears and lies about Sarah Palin. The last thing leftist loons want to talk about is the failed Obama presidency when it's so much easier for them to just bash Governor Palin and Ms. Siskind for daring to say anything positive about her. We've never been Michael Savage fans, but perhaps he was on to something when he said that "liberalism is a mental disease."

- JP