Don't follow the cannibals in the GOP establishment

In a blistering post on her Facebook page, Sarah Palin laid out the challenges facing Newt in Florida:

Cannibals in GOP Establishment Employ Tactics of the Left
by Sarah Palin on Friday, January 27, 2012 at 4:57pm

We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.

We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this week’s tactics aren’t what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.

I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.

We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didn’t have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration “from the right” to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you won’t stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this “anti-Reagan” claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan. He actually was against the Reagan movement, donated to liberal candidates, and said he didn’t want to go back to the Reagan days. You can’t change history. We know that Newt Gingrich brought the Reagan Revolution into the 1990s. We know it because none other than Nancy Reagan herself announced this when she presented Newt with an award, telling us, “The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.” As Rush and others pointed out, if Nancy Reagan had ever thought that Newt was in any way an opponent of her beloved husband, she would never have even appeared on a stage with him, let alone presented him with an award and said such kind things about him. Nor would Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, have chosen to endorse Newt in this primary race. There are no two greater keepers of the Reagan legacy than Nancy and Michael Reagan. What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.

But this whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guard’s choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the “wisdom” of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 who didn’t win. Well, here’s a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.

I spoke up before the South Carolina primary to urge voters there to keep this primary going because I have great concern about the GOP establishment trying to anoint a candidate without the blessing of the grassroots and all the needed energy and resources we as commonsense constitutional conservatives could bring to the general election in order to defeat President Obama. Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this. Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps it’s possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romney’s conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up. And, trust me, during the general election, Governor Romney’s statements and record in the private sector will be relentlessly parsed over by the opposition in excruciating detail to frighten off swing voters. This is why we need a fair primary that is not prematurely cut short by the GOP establishment using Alinsky tactics to kneecap Governor Romney’s chief rival.

As I said in my speech in Iowa last September, the challenge of this election is not simply to replace President Obama. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with. It’s not enough to just change up the uniform. If we don’t change the team and the game plan, we won’t save our country. We truly need sudden and relentless reform in Washington to defend our republic, though it’s becoming clearer that the old guard wants anything but that. That is why we should all be concerned by the tactics employed by the establishment this week. We will not save our country by becoming like the left. And I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted. Oddly, they’re now using every available microscope and endoscope – along with rewriting history – in attempts to character assassinate anyone challenging their chosen one in their own party’s primary. So, one must ask, who are they really running against?

- Sarah Palin

Jen Kuznicki: RedState’s Erickson Dogs Palin Supporters (Updated)

The double standard which reduces otherwise thoughtful people to rank hypocrites.
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Jen Kuznicki has published a must-read post about how Erick Erickson, RedState.com's choir director, has joined his fellow right-of-center establishmentarians Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham in their pile-on attempting to smother Sarah Palin and the insurgent campaign she may soon decide to run for the presidency. Jen left RS for the same reason I did: uneven treatment of member comments by the moderators there:

At any rate, Erickson is complaining now about the ferocity of Palin supporters. He doesn’t like their attitude, and is turned off from campaigning for Palin (if she runs) because he doesn’t want to be part of that crowd.

Loud and clear, Erick. Your spot in the conservative sphere is now well defined.

The people supporting Palin with such passion are people new to the whole scene. We don’t watch what we say, we don’t care about your feelings. We are concerned about the destruction of our nation, and a lot of us have just figured out how to work computers, to be honest. We are truck drivers, waitresses, cooks, grandmas, veterans, union workers, mechanics, seamstresses, electrical workers, plumbers, carpenters, small businessmen and businesswomen, and lots and lots and lots of us are women. Homeschoolers, ranchers, farmers, miners, all of us could be categorized by the beltway political class as “rednecks.”

What rednecks do best is talk straight. What redneck women do best is point out where you’ve gone wrong, and sometimes that just seems over the top, but they don’t give a rip. We get made fun of by the political class, and that just firms our resolve.

So in my experience, the Palin supporters Erickson says, “have not evangelized on behalf of Sarah Palin trying to lead people to Sarah Palin, they have freaked a lot of us out,” is unfair, but in politics, to the people who follow politics on a daily basis, that is really a put off, and since Erickson, Ingraham and Coulter have a venue to talk about it, it is all that is discussed.

And a lot of it is also the “how could you?” suggestion that a lot of Palin supporters feel. The entire beltway, and most of the beltway bloggers have decided that Palin won’t be the next President.

[More]

Jen correctly points out that Coulter and Ingraham are just wrong, and each has her own agenda. As does Erick. While in the past he has tolerated some variance in opinion by his contributors, that band of tolerance has not been without its exceptions. At RS there comes a point where the internal debate is considered ended and the wagons circle around a particular candidate, whoever the candidate happens to be at the time. They come and go like the flavors of the month at Baskin Robbins.

What is most troubling about Erick's attitude, however, is the sheer hypocrisy. RedState has its double standards. Case in point: Your editor got into a discussion with Joshua Trevino, a RS co-founder and still a big friend of that site's Powers That Be. Trevino is a Perry supporter fan. That's right, just as RedState paints all Palin supporters with the double-wide "fan" brush, I'll return the "favor." My discussion with Trevino was conducted via Twitter, which admittedly is not the ideal vehicle for political debate, but what happened was quite revealing. After Trevino criticized Sarah Palin, and I returned fire with a remark equally critical of Rick Perry, I asked Trevino if he would simply admit that all candidates should be vetted. His response was to call me a "cultist," pronouce me "boring" and refuse to engage in any further discussion.

And there you have the double standard which reduces otherwise thoughtful people to rank hypocrites. My definition of a cultist, politically speaking, is a devoted follower of a candidate who will not tolerate any discussion of that candidate's merits. Criticize Sarah Palin, and most of her supporters will argue with you, usually citing her record chapter and verse. Criticize Rick Perry, and his followers will cut off the discussion, call you names, pick up their marbles and stomp off in a snit. Now I ask you, who are the real cultists?

Dan Riehl's terse commentary:

Pretty ironic for Erickson to hold Palin responsible for her fans, when he repeatedly claims to not even be responsible for what's posted on a blog he edits. But then, I don't expect consistency there.

And John Nolte's observation via Twitter:

NEVER seen prominent Palin supporter lash out in such undermining way against fellow GOP'r. #FlamingHypocrisy.

Update: Professor William Jacobson weighs in:

So yes, I do take it personally when conservatives lash out at Palin not because of her policy positions or what she’s done or not done in her career, but with personal invective.

It’s not religion, its a cold hard understanding of what is to come, and how those who call Palin a diva or a tease or any of the other names coming from media conservatives do damage to us all. Palin is simply the test case for how the Republican nominee, whoever that person may be, will be treated, and we pile on her at our own peril.

[...]

Simply by waiting to announce, Palin has driven media conservatives mad. It all seems so familiar.

The nonsense coming from Coulter and Erickson and others is why I am not overly optimistic about 2012, regardless of what the polls now show. We are our own worst enemies.

- JP

Mark Levin: GOP establishment's real target is Sarah Palin

Karl Rove and Dick Morris are trying to set her up
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On his Monday radio program, Mark Levin said the real target of the Republican Party's establishment is Sarah Palin:

_

The Great One also opined that Gov. Palin will not announce on Sept. 3. He believes Karl Rove and Dick Morris -- who have both suddenly pivoted and said that she will get in on that date -- are trying to set her up so they can attack her later:


h/t: The Right Side of Kennebunk!

- JP

Mark Rhoads: The Republicrat Nomination Race has started

"The MSM premise that conservatives cannot win is wrong. They can and have and can again."
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Some spot-on observations and good advice from Mark Rhoads at Illinois Review:

Every election cycle, the MSM tries to nominate it's own candidates for both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. It has already started this year. Yesterday on MSNBC, former Congressman Martin Frost (D-Texas) decided he wants to help the Republican effort to defeat President Obama in 2012. Not really. But he played his pretend role of neutral observer. He suggested that the 2012 race for president will be a close one and the Republicans might well win.

But, said Frost, "not if they nominate one of the fringe candidates" such as Bachmann, Cain, Palin, or Santorum. In other words, the MSM party line is shaping up as it always does, any candidate who is conservative is therefore by definition a "fringe" candidate as in too radical and too scary to be trusted with power. But, says Frost, if the GOP nominates Romney or Pawlenty or Huntsman (who?), the GOP nomination will be in nice safe moderate hands and the GOP can then beat Obama. The touching concern of the former House Democratic Caucus Chair for the welfare of the Republican Party might be surprising if it were not part of a very familiar pattern from the last fifty years.

Just as surely as one season follows another, the liberal Main Stream Media always tries to "help" the GOP find a nominee who is liberal enough to win and who will not be a captive of the far right.

[...]

Based on the early comments coming from MSNBC, it looks like the early favorites for favorable MSM coverage in 2012 will be Romney and John Huntsman, a former Obama appointee and Utah governor. Pawlenty might get some MSM bones from time to time. But as Martin Frost has already done, any truly conservative candidate will be labeled as a "fringe" candidate who cannot win the election even if they won the nomination. After all these years of the same MSM pattern of working for the most liberal GOP candidate they can find, if they can find one, GOP activists who run for delegate should be wise to the MSM nomination charade. So if you are running for delegate or alternate, turn off MSNBC and other networks who are trying again to nominate your candidate for President even though they do not have any votes at your convention. No matter who the GOP nominates to challenge Obama in 2012, the MSM will still be on the side of Obama when the chips are down. So why take their advice in the GOP primaries? They win and you lose. Contrary to the MSM mythology, the GOP record is that it more often loses with a moderate nominee than with a conservative one. Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush, and John McCain were losers and not because they were solid conservatives because they were not. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were winners in 1980, 1984, 2000, and 2004 because the public belived they offered better policies for economic growth and national security than the Democrats could. So the entire MSM premise that GOP conservatives cannot win is wrong. They can and have and can again; whereas the liberal GOP candidates have a poor track record of winning in the fall no matter how well they go over with liberal editorial writers or the liberal polling companies.

[More]

Tome for Reagan conservatives to stand up and stop this madness. Don't let the left and its trained media lapdogs dupe the GOP squishes into letting them select our candidate for us again!

- JP

Riehl: Why They Really Fear Sarah Palin, And Why She Should Run

She may prove herself to be the best man of the bunch
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At Riehl World View, blogger Dan Riel opines that if Gov. Palin gets in the 2012 presidential race, it would force some of those who are currently attacking her through surrogates and media operatives to "take to the spotlight and deal with her one on one":

Many people think the DC GOP establishment fears and constantly attacks Sarah Palin because they're afraid she could become president. But that can't really be true, can it? If they believe she's everything they think and say she is, or isn't, along with being so utterly unqualified, she doesn't have a prayer of becoming president. Right? And don't kid yourself that they think differently about her than they increasingly openly claim. I'm just not sure they even understand why they do; it's more instinctual, than anything, embedded within their instinct to survive.

But, ironically, that's the key to why they really hate her and what she does without seemingly trying. And she does it even as they attack her. In the first place, they do fear she might become president, or at least win the nomination. So, what does that say as regards how they really think about you, or "we the people," as it were. Well, obviously, they think you're stupid because they can't trust you to not elect someone they perceive as so dumb, and/or unfit.

Yet, as an aside, these same people, even ones who officially campaigned against Obama, never claimed Obama was fundamentally unfit, now did they? Yet, time has proven precisely that. So, just how smart are these people?

The point is, attacking her while believing she's totally unfit to become president makes little sense and is a profound waste of their supposedly so valuable time - unless it exposes them in terms of what they think about the average Republican voter and American in general.

It's precisely because Palin so often does this, exposes them for what they actually are, that whether she ever runs for president, or not, they feel compelled to destroy her. They don't simply not want her to run for president; if they could, they would remove her entirely from the national stage because she's such a threat.

If it fears anything, the Beltway establishment, both Left and Right, fears being exposed as chiefly a game of self-professed, elitist, political power-sharing ping pong playing individuals who are absolutely convinced that they, and not the American people, are capable of steering America's course. They also believe that only they are entitled to do it, hence the attacks on almost any genuine citizen, or Tea Party-aligned candidate - along with dressing up some typical GOP hacks as Tea Party-aligned to win. Some of them are now being exposed by their votes.

[More]

- JP

Jacobson: The GOP Can't Win Without Palin Supporters

Run, don't walk, away from Ed Rollins and others who demean Sarah Palin
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William A. Jacobson comments on Ed Rollins' line of attack on the Mama Grizzly, i.e., "Palin, I knew Reagan. You're no Reagan":

Rollins was Mike Huckabee's campaign manager in the 2008 cycle, and guess who Rollins thought was the next Ronald Reagan:

"Governor Huckabee has probably inspired me as much as Ronald Reagan. He had an ability to connect with people and he was a great communicator. I've looked for a long time for another candidate to do that.

"People are always asking: 'Who's the next Ronald Reagan?' Well, I was with the old Reagan. I can promise you that this man comes as close as I've ever seen."

Prof. Jacobson says he has nothing against Gov. Huckabee, but by calling attention to Rollins' equating of Huckabee with Reagan, he exposes Rollins' own bias and the likely motivation for the unprovoked attack on Gov. Palin.

More importantly, the good professor offers some friendly advice to all viable Republican candidates, advice which we believe should be taken seriously by their various operatives as well:

Run, don't walk, away from Ed Rollins and the others who think that demeaning Sarah Palin is the best way to advance your campaign.

Jacobson points out that to insult Sarah Palin -- as did Ed Rollins and Vichy Joe Scarborough -- is to "seriously misread the Republican electorate":

Without the enthusiasm of Palin supporters the Republican Party is nothing moving into 2012.

The campaign troops who will be in the field, on the telephones and at the fundraisers in 2012 will be the same troops who fought the 2010 campaign war. And those troops weren't carrying Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or Newt Gingrich signs.

Without the enthusiasm of Gov. Palin's supporters, warns Jacobson, the GOP "is nothing moving into 2012." That does not mean, he explains, that Gov. Palin is entitled to nomination or that her backers make up the majority of the Republican Party:

It does mean that the Republican nominee cannot win against Barack Obama without the enthusiasm and support of Palin supporters.

In other words, poking Gov. Palin and her troops in the eye is not exactly a good political career move for would-be Republican candidates and their would-be staffers.

- JP

James Lewis: Sarah Palin's Charisma

Today's GOP establishment would fear Reagan because they couldn't control him
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It's not only the left and the media left who are driven to derangement by the charismatic Sarah Palin, observes The American Thinker's James Lewis. Today we are seeing the GOP establishment displaying the same symptoms:

While you're thinking about the next election, just enjoy the sight of Sarah Palin's charisma. Ronald Reagan had it. Obama lost it. No other Republican or Democrat in sight has it. Sorry, guys and gals, but it's true. Romney looks like a department store dummy. Palin is alive. You can see Romney thinking about every syllable he speaks. Palin's a natural.

This may be the crucial time for history to produce the woman, a critical time for a charismatic conservative to reverse the damage done by the Left. The single most important fact is that Sarah Palin can communicate. She can talk to the American people without talking down to them. She can have a real conversation, and it is high time to have a good talk with the American people. George W. Bush is a man of honor and character, but Bush knew his own limits. He could never explain himself the way Reagan did. Bush Sr. had exactly the same limitations.

[...]

Old Republicans like Karl Rove are running scared. I'm sorry to see it. Rove attacked Christine McDonnell in public the day before the last election, when he knew he could do the most damage. That makes him a back-stabber when it comes to the constitutionalist Republicans. Too many millions of conservatives are now noticing the selfishness of the old Republicans. If the old establishment stabs the constitutional Republicans in the back, we voters will take note and keep them out. Even Barbara Bush, the matriarch of the Bush clan, has destroyed our affection for her in a single public sneer. Ed Rollins has exposed his affinity for establishment Republicans. No longer. The voters are finally watching.

We are seeing a fight within the Republican Party, but this is nothing new. Ronald Reagan was defeated by establishment Republicans before he won the nomination. Today, the establishment would be running scared about Reagan, because he could not be bought and controlled. This is happening all over again. Reagan defeated Bush I for the presidency, and Barbara Bush may harbor an old grievance about that. Well, so be it. Constitutionalist conservatives are awake and keeping score.

Conservatives want a constitutionalist president like Reagan. The left has had its Marxist president for a time. They want party line rule over America; but America may have something to say about that before it surrenders to the new power class. Expect big fireworks from the left, and be prepared to give them as good as you get.

[...]

Expect all the Establishment forces to fight against a constitutionalist conservative for president. It scares them more than a Marxist in the White House.

That's all you need to know about them.

[More]

- JP

Scarborough's attack on Gov. Palin just part of the plan

More opening salvos in the Vichy GOP's war on Sarah
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Vichy Republican, former Congressman and MSDNC talk show host Joe Scarborough launched a full-scale attack on Sarah Palin Tuesday. The two-pronged assault by the man Don Imus has described as "a disgusting, backstabbing phony," was waged in a Politico opinion piece and on MSDNC's poorly-rated "Morning Joe" program.

At least Palin supporters can't claim that they were "blindsided." Politico predicted that this was coming in an October 31 article written by Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei titled "Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Sarah Palin." The GOP establishment's campaign against the party's 2008 vice presidential candidate was described in the piece as an "urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over." By "in earnest," Allen and Vandehei meant to say beyond the usual anti-Palin smears made by pretend "conservatives" such as Kathleen Parker, David Frum and Peggy Noonan. Those sort of attacks have been seen since Gov. Palin was named as John McCain's running mate in late August of 2008.

Indeed, we have seen similar attacks on the first woman to be both Alaska's governor and the GOP's vice presidential candidate coming from new quarters. Probing maneuvers by Karl Rove testing Gov. Palin's perimeter began in mid-September and were ramped up by "Bush's Brain" just two days before the Allen-Vendehei article was published by Politico, when Rove questioned her "gravitas" and declared the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" series on TLC to be "unpresidential."

The next skirmish in the coordinated RINO attack on Gov. Palin came from the unlikeliest of guerrilla fighters in the person of Barbara Bush, whose diss was both sexist and condescending, as Mama Frizzy preceded her opinion that Sarah Palin "should stay in Alaska" with a back-handed compliment about the beauty of the woman she was attacking.

The assaults on Gov. Palin by Rove and Bush were both based on style, not substance, as was pointed out at Wake up Black America:

The reason why anti Sarah Palin snipes can't debate me and her supporters on the issue of Sarah Palin's qualifications to be president is because the arguments that go in her favor are all based on facts, where as the negatives are based on opinions, gossip, smears and lies. Palin has earned the right to run for the GOP nomination. She in essence saved the GOP from it's certain death as a national party. While she has been going after Obama, Pelosi, Reid and others on their failed polices, other potential 2012 GOP candidates have been silently standing by watching trying to keep their powder dry.

The attacks by Scarborough are similar to the ones made by Rove and Mother Bush in this regard. Let's examine Scarborough's points from his Politico hit piece one by one:

"What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s..."

This is a bald-faced lie. Sarah Palin was a city councilwoman for two terms (4 years), a mayor for three terms (6 years), chair of a state oil and gas commission for a year and chair of an interstate (38 states) oil and gas commission for a year. As governor of Alaska, three of her administration’s major proposed pieces of legislation passed in her first year in office -- an overhaul of the state’s ethics laws, a competitive process to construct a natural gas pipeline and a restructuring of Alaska’s oil valuation formula. As governor, she also used her veto powers to cut budgetary spending and called a halt to the “bridge to nowhere” that would have cost taxpayers an additional $400 million dollars. Comparisons of her resume to that of Barack Obama are here and here, lest anyone question whose is "thin." It is important to note that her resume includes considerable government executive experience, while Obama's has none. In the private sector, she is also a small businesswoman, co-owner of the family's salmon fishing operation with her husband Todd for years. So Sarah Palin's resume not only puts Barack Obama's to shame, but Joe Scarborough's as well.

In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy.

Sarah Palin most certainly did not mock President Reagan or his credentials. She merely pointed out that others had dissed Reagan as "only an actor" in response to Rove characterizing her television show as "unpresidential." Gov. Palin's remarks about the Bushes were also made in response to an unprovoked attack on her, one made by Barbara Bush herself.

Borrowing again from old left-wing attacks that Democrats used against GOP presidents, Palin channeled Ann Richards by bashing Bush and his wife as “blue bloods” who had wrecked America.

Exposing his own hypocrisy, Scarborough borrows from Democrat attacks on Sarah Palin in this piece. No less than three times Scarborough uses "half-term governor," one which comes right from the top of the list of DNC talking points. His characterizations of her as "maniacal" and "dopey" come right out of the left wing's anti-Palin playbook. Sarah Palin was correct that George H.W. Bush's abandonment of Reagan principles doomed him to be a one-term president who opened up the door for 8 years of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.

"Maybe poor George Herbert Walker Bush was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Indeed, he was so pampered growing up that on his 18th birthday, the young high school graduate enlisted in the armed forces. This spoiled teenager somehow managed to be the youngest pilot in the Navy when he received his wings, flying 58 combat missions over the Pacific during World War II. On Sept. 2, 1944, “Blue Blood” Bush almost lost his life after being shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire."

What does the elder Bush's commendable war record have to do with this argument? It doesn't change the fact that his ineptitude on fiscal matters prevented his reelection and allowed the Democrats to gain control of the executive branch for 8 years. Sure, he did the right thing in Kuwait, and he's a nice guy, but this doesn't change the facts of history. Congressman Charlie Rangel served honorably in the Korean War, yet those admirable credentials did not prevent him from making bad decisions which led to censure by his peers on the House ethics committee. Scarborough's diversionary tactic is transparent and weak.

Who wouldn’t agree that finishing third in the Miss Alaska beauty contest is every bit as treacherous as risking your life in military combat? Maybe the beauty contestant who would one day be a reality star and former governor didn’t win the Distinguished Flying Cross, but the half-termer was selected as Miss Congeniality by her fellow contestants.

It's no surprise that Scarborough would throw in some sexism in his attack on Gov. Palin. The Vichy GOP has been in bed with the liberal Democrats for so long now that their attacks on good conservatives sound just like those made by their fellow travelers in the donkey party. Look, Sarah is so much more than a former beauty contestant. She only entered beauty contests to try to help pay her way through college, and for that she is vilified? She has, in fact, been a Blue Star Mom and Commander of her State's National Guard and Air Guard. As both a governor and a citizen, Sarah Palin has been nothing but supportive of our troops and veterans. That Scarborough has to reach all the way back to the Second World War to defend George H. W. Bush only demonstrates the weakness of his argument.

Another claim repeatedly made by Scarborough on MSDNC and aped by his Democrat co-host is that every Republican leader or talk radio host with whom he's spoken shares his criticism of Palin but is afraid to say so on the air. He must not talk to many conservative talk show hosts, then. We will bet real money he doesn't talk to Mark Levin, who just last month condemned Moaning Joe for previous attacks on Gov. Palin:

I see Palin campaigning all over the country for candidates. I see her raising funds for them. I see her attending Tea Party events, Republican events, you name it. She's in the fight. She has put her neck on the line and has exposed her family to outrageous ridicule. And she has done great things that have advanced conservatism and Republican Party hopes next week.

Conversely, Joe Scarborough has done nothing. He sits at his table on MSNBC arrogantly denouncing conservatives, pandering to liberals, and repeating stupid talking points someone uttered days earlier. He has no ideas and, worse, he drags down those who do. Has he campaigned for anyone? Yet he passes judgment on someone who has. Has he raised funds for anyone? Has he used his "celebrity" (such as it is) in constructive ways?

[...]

Go Sarah. Get lost Joe.

We also doubt he's had many conversations with the king of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. The two have had a long-running feud, during the course of which Rush said:

Moderates want kumbaya, moderates want everybody to just hug and kiss and get along. It's all a myth.... People fall for these tricks that are designed to shut us up, that are designed to get us to stand down, to be nice and gentle because the Republican Party, you have to understand, Rush, is hated and despised because everybody knows it's full of racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes, and that's a cliche, and it just bothers me that smart people like Scarborough fall for this because he's allowing himself to be neutered, and that's what made him upset today, I called him a neutered, chickified moderate. [Emphasis ours.]

No, Scarborough didn't find corroborators in the lies he's telling about Gov. Palin in the persons of either Limbaugh or Levin, so one has to wonder which lower-echelon Republican talk show hosts Moaning Joe is talking to. It must be the ones whose ratings are as pitiful as Scarborough's are. Oh, wait, nobody's ratings are that pitiful, at least not anybody of consequence.

Make no mistake, the attacks on Sarah Palin by first Rove, then Mrs. Bush and most recently Joe Scarborough were carefully planned and coordinated. These are only the opening salvos in the Republican Party establishment's war on Sarah Palin. Chief among her many sins in their eyes is that she encouraged and supported the grass roots movement against the good old back room boys, and for this she must be destroyed politically. Ironically, while she has been busy taking the fight to Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats, the same Republicans who should have joined her in that battle have been busy planning and waging political warfare against her instead. One thing you can be sure of, more attacks have already been mapped out by the GOP elites, and we will be witnessing them in the coming weeks.

In conclusion, Scarborough got one, and only one, point right. If establishment Republicans want to criticize Gov. Palin, let them do so not in a cowardly and anonymous manner. Let them grow a spine and put their names behind their disrespect. Of course, Gov. Palin was the first person to make that suggestion, so Scarborough is simply echoing the woman he wants to destroy on that particular point.

- JP

ALG's Rick Manning: Don't blame Sarah Palin

The GOP establishment lost the Senate
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On The Hill's Pundits Blog, Rick Manning, communications director of Americans for Limited Government, stands up for Gov. Palin, who is under attack by a GOP establishment which is trying to blame her for its own failure to win the Senate in the midterm elections:

Sarah Palin did not cast a single vote in Delaware, Kentucky, Florida, Utah, Colorado or Nevada. Republican voters in those states did. The fact that the candidates “chosen” by the professional Republican class in D.C. failed to impress Republican Party voters enough to win their respective nominations should be a wake-up call for the D.C. Republican know-it-alls, who think they should choose the “right” candidate and the rest of America should just accept their omniscient judgment.

[...]

This rebellion by the masses against the Republican establishment is borne out by poll after poll showing that Republicans (read — establishment Republicans) are not held in particularly high esteem by the voters, even those who identify themselves as Republicans.

Sarah Palin has captured this sentiment, and helped provide voters with choices through her endorsement of alternative candidates.

Palin, who has personally felt the barbs and snickers of the Republican establishment, has given hope to Republicans across the nation that they don’t have to settle for Democrat-lite candidates who represent their values in party affiliation only.

Unfortunately, those who want to blame Palin are missing the basic fact that if they identified and supported candidates who were strong advocates of the free-enterprise system rather than hollowed-out cores running in Republican suits, their candidates would have won.

[More]

- JP

Dunn: GOP insiders should reconsider trying to stop Sarah Palin

They tried to stop Reagan, too
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Charles W. Dunn, a professor of government at Regent University, warns the GOP establishment of the perils of underestimating Governor Palin:

Mrs. Palin appeals to the very same people Reagan appealed to, including conservatives of several persuasions - economic, political, religious and social. She is the one person in the Republican Party who has burnished credentials in all spheres of the conservative coalition. Her every word commands center stage on television.

Reagan was not a "policy wonk." Neither is Mrs. Palin. Like Reagan, she does not devote herself to the minutiae of public policy details, but rather, she leads by instinct, based upon her guiding principles of right and wrong. When Reagan's advisers tried to prep him for presidential debates by reading thick manuals, he refused. Rather, he brought to the debates a set of well-honed conservative principles. So far, Sarah Palin looks like she is cut from the same cloth.

Reagan and Mrs. Palin have "skin comfort." As former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said of her Republican National Convention address: "Her timing was exquisite. She didn't linger with applause but instead launched into line after line of attack, slipping the knives in with every smile and joke. She delivered it like she was just BS-ing on the street with the meter maid. She didn't have to prove she was 'of the people.' She really is the people." Likewise, Reagan exuded that same comfort with his persona whether delivering major speeches or dealing with members of Congress.

[...]

In 2010, no prospective Republican presidential candidate has collected more IOUs than Sarah Palin, whose endorsements and encouragement have propelled many otherwise unknown candidates and likely losers into creditable and more often than not victorious races for office. Reagan collected his IOUs in 1980 after traveling the country on behalf of conservative candidates.

Time and circumstance merged for Ronald Reagan. They could for Sarah Palin, too, especially if the Republican establishment scorns her as it did Reagan...

[More]

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 1, 2010)

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Mark Levin via email to NewsBusters.com:

"The political operatives and their masters in DC don't like Palin and their favorite outlet for trashing her is Politico. None of them matter. The people will speak tomorrow. And they will speak thereafter as well."

- JP

Karl Rove is a big, fat hypocrite

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Let's try to get this straight. Karl Rove claims that because she is hosting a "reality show" on TLC, Sarah Palin lacks the "gravitas" to be president. Yet he praises John Stewart's Obama interview on a Comedy Show? An interview in which Stewart called the President of the United States "dude?"

Sarah Palin hosts travelogue-type show: no gravitas. Obama goes on comedy show: gravitas. Todd Palin as First Dude: no gravitas. Obama as Dude-In-Chief: gravitas.

The same Karl Rove who claims Gov. Palin lacks gravitas also declared that "45 percent of NPR listeners were Saddam Hussein." Uh, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over? That's real gravitas there, Rove, you hypocrite. Texas should be ashamed to call you her son.

- JP

Christopher Massie's vetting of Sarah Palin

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Christopher Massie's CFP op-ed, "Vetting Sarah Palin—The Assignment of a Lifetime" is one of those pieces of work about which the oft-repeated blogger admonition to "read the whole thing" takes on special meaning. For it is simply one of the most outstanding articles ever written about Gov. Palin.

Massie sets the table for his editorial feast by by pointing to the attacks on Christine O'Donnell by heretofore conservative stalwarts Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer. By attacking Ms. O'Donnell, the pair are by proxy waging war on Sarah Palin, who has become somewhat of a mentor for candidate O'Donnell. The author then moves on the significance of the timing of the attacks, coming as they do at a time when a larger war is raging -- one between the new guard (the TEA Party movement) and the old (the establishment -- for the very soul of the Republican Party. He points out that a crucial in an even greater war is fast approaching. The battle is the midterm elections just a few short weeks away, and this war is for the very heart and soul of the republic. Gov. Palin, says Massie, is supplying much of the momentum for the TEA Party movement.

And so his vetting of Sarah Heath Palin begins. Massie take conducts a historic tour through her political career, from her beginnings as a city councilwoman, through her terms as a mayo, on to the governor's office and into the presidential campaign of 2008. The unifying thread which runs through all of these stages is her fight against the corrupt status quo of political establishments each one of these venues. Sarah Palin's abiding faith in God saw her through these many battles and allowed her to keep her strong character and personal character intact.

But her own political party has pulled out all of the stops in its effort to stop her, and in the process has even adopt the political playbook used by the Democrats. Now the national Republicans have embraced the same Alinsky rules used against them by the Democrats to try to destroy Sarah Palin and the TEA party movement:

As this nation heads towards November, a crucial turning point in American history, Palin’s foes are making hay. Political strategists the likes of Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer have emerged from the old boys’ network closet. The most infamous, nepotistically-influenced, former Palin competitor Lisa Murkowski has announced she will run again this November—as a write in. In these days, it is wise to recall the actions of Harry Reid in 2006 when he summoned then-Senator Obama, instructing Barack it was the Party’s intentions to have him run for the Presidency (even though it would not be until the summer of 2008 that Reid would publicly endorse the Senator from Illinois).

The Democrats (led by Reid) would have done anything to defeat Hillary—and they did it stealthily. The GOP is taking a page from that book. There is an all-too-familiar episode re-playing itself for voters to witness this season. The GOP loathes Sarah Palin. And the Party is now setting about to deeply unsettle those successful candidates she has promoted. The evidence is glaringly obvious. Murkowski has been unleashed; Rove and Krauthammer are doing their bidding. The events unfolding are towards one goal: the destruction of Palin’s bid for the Presidency.

Enough excerpts. Follow this link to the original opinion piece. Bookmark it, read it, email it to friends, no matter whether they are left right or center.

It's that good.

- JP

O'Donnell Money Bomb Raises a Million Dollars in a Day

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Wow. The Christine O'Donnell money bomb that we reported Wednesday morning has generated over a million dollars in donations in just a little over 24 hours. Impressive.

Take that, GOP establishment. Oh, wait. You can't take it. It was given to her campaign.

- JP

GOP establishment shows its ugly backside in wake of O'Donnell victory (Updated)

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The Republican Party establishment is acting like spoiled children who didn't get their way in the aftermath of Christine O'Donnell's stunning upset victory in Delaware. The first bad ol' boy to show his hind end was Karl Rove, as Michelle Malkin comments:

I just finished watching Karl Rove trashing GOP Senate primary winner Christine O’Donnell. It was on Sean Hannity’s FNC show. Might as well have been Olbermann on MSNBC. The establishment Beltway strategist couldn’t even bother with an obligatory word of congratulations for O’Donnell. He criticized her “character” and “rectitude” and claimed she hadn’t answered questions about her financial woes. She did so here. Rove mocked her security concerns as “nutty.” Yet, her concerns have been more than justified. See here (second video clip).

Rove came across as an effete sore loser instead of the supposedly brilliant and grounded GOP strategist that he’s supposed to be. Expect more Washington Republicans to start sounding like Tea Party-bashing libs as their entrenched incumbent friends go down.

Then, before O'Donnell even had a chance to deliver her acceptance speech, Dan Riehl relates:

... the NRSC rushed out to say they will not support her. Video here via The Right Scoop. One source I spoke with claims that RNC Michael Steele is purportedly going to go to Delaware to support Christine O'Donnell. As I said earlier on Twitter, the NRSC is dead on the web as far as I am concerned.

@NRSC Cornyn is one of the most incompetent NRSC heads ever. Now you won't support us? You are DEAD on the web ....

I would encourage all grassroots and conservative activists and bloggers to, not just ignore them, but proactively work to run-down whatever web based initiatives they choose to employ until this matter is resolved. John Cornyn should be held accountable and removed from his NRSC position.

Finally, Mike Castle proved to be as ungracious in defeat as he was during the campaign. Channeling his inner Lisa Murkowski, the old goat refused to endorse O'Donnell:

A Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) campaign source confirmed to The Hill late Tuesday that the longtime congressman will not be endorsing Christine O'Donnell.

[...]

As to whether the national party would back O'Donnell, a Castle campaign source said the campaign has no knowledge of their thinking but said "they should save their money."

Gov. Palin's appeal for unity seems to have fallen on deaf ears, at least as far as the old guard is concerned.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Lord wonders if the GOP is suicidal.

This is disgraceful behavior. The grassroots is going to have to completely take over the Republican Party and throw these corrupt bums out. But we will do it. The GOP will be the party of Reagan again if we have to drag every one of these sour old power-addicted ruling class elitists kicking and screaming out the door.

Updates...

Bravo, Jim DeMint. The South Carolina conservative Senator's PAC has set a goal of raising $174,000 for O'Donnell by next week.

Ed Morrisey has some excellent analysis and commentary at Hot Air.

Stacy McCain at The American Spectator: "This Changes Everything."

Dan Riehl looks at last night's winners and losers in the media.

Christine challenges her critics in the GOP establishment as she make the round of morning talk shows.

The GOP establishment feels the heat and turns on a dime.

- JP

Quote of the Day (September 13, 2010)

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David L Riddick at Conservatives 4 Palin:

"The fact is this rather mysterious woman panders to nobody, doesn’t care who she upsets on the left or the right and follows her own star. She has no influential family network or billionaire patron, no massive staff structure thronged with consultants and advisers, has for two years been ignored and/or despised by most media pundits, insulted and demeaned by third rate scribblers, cold shouldered by her own state party and ignored by her party’s national establishment. Nevertheless she has become one of the most influential and powerful figures in American politics."

- JP

Jacobson: Nuts and Sluts In Delaware

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Law Professor William Jacobson weighs in on the dirty nukes the GOP establishment has launched, with the grassroots candidate in Delaware as its target:

The "nuts and sluts" defense is a common employment law tactic whenever a female employee brings a claim. It doesn't matter what the claim is, the defense -- after the usual legal mumbo jumbo -- will be something like this:

"She's nuts. And by the way, pssst, she may be a slut."

That is the mode of attack Democrats use against conservative women. Sarah Palin is the prime example, as she routinely is called crazy and is sexualized by the left (to the silence of liberal feminist groups).

The nuts part of the attack is being used against Christine O'Donnell in Delaware by the local Republican establishment, and also by two leading conservative magazines, The Weekly Standard and National Review. If O'Donnell is so nuts, why did the Delaware Republican Party nominate her to run against Joe Biden just two years ago?

[...]

I am not "anti-Mike Castle," but I do have a problem with someone who was willing to destroy the economy by signing on to Nancy Pelosi's cap-and-trade plan. The vigorous attacks on Castle have been focused almost exclusively on his record and policy prescriptions. Almost none of the attacks on O'Donnell focus on her policies or political agenda.

Professor Jacobson adds:

Update: See what I mean:

"Our problem: Mike Castle makes John McCain look like Jim DeMint; Christine O'Donnell makes Sharron Angle look like Margaret Thatcher."

Read William Jacobson's full post at Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

- JP

'Hi, this is Governor Sarah Palin...'

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Courtesy of Palin TV, here's Sarah Palin’s Robocall for Christine O’Donnell in Delaware:



Support Palin TV

- JP

Jedediah Bila: Challenging the GOP Establishment

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President Obama mentioned the name of Rep. John Boehner no less than eleven times in a speech in Ohio yesterday, demonstrating that he's looking over his shoulder at the House Minority Leader as a threat to his leftist agenda. But Boehner, who is looking ahead at the prospect of being the next Speaker of the House, dare not look over his own shoulder. Nor should Senator Mitch McConnell.

The GOP's current leaders once had control of both houses of Congress. Prior to the 2006 elections, Boehner was House Speaker and McConnell was Senate Majority Leader. Their failure to reign in excessive federal spending and secure the nation's borders helped persuade voters to put the Democrats in power, with Nancy Pelosi becoming House Speaker and Harry Reid Senate Majority Leader. Boehner and McConnell are deeply entrenched members of the establishment of the Republican Party, and they represent much of what is wrong with the GOP. They are part of the problem, but conservatives hope that the "young guns," who are gaining on Boehner, McConnell and the rest of the GOP's "old boy" establishment, will be the solution. More from Jedidiah Bila:

What do Marco Rubio, Sarah Palin, and Joe Miller have in common?

One: They’re principled conservatives.

Two: They aren’t part of Washington’s business-as-usual machine.

And three: They – and many like them – have caused quite a few in the GOP establishment to shake in their boots.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has backed RINOs Lisa Murkowski and Charlie Crist over conservatives Joe Miller and Marco Rubio. I’ve repeatedly heard establishment media voices speak kindly of Sarah Palin while including a disclaimer that they wouldn’t support her for president or any role of that stature.

Rubio, Palin, Miller, and others from outside the Beltway are the independent conservative voices this country needs. Their allegiance thus far has been to their principles, not to some establishment big shot who did a favor for them last year. They are likely to call it like they see it, and if that means challenging members of their own party right along with big-government Democrats, they’re up for the job.

To the establishment Republicans who have prioritized political games, phony promises, and power-grabs over constitutional integrity, American founding principles, and honest leadership, the Millers and Rubios of the world are sometimes scarier than the Reids and Pelosis.

Pelosi and Reid won’t snatch their jobs away. But Miller and Rubio just might...

Read the rest of this Jedidiah Bila op-ed here.

Related: The Tea Partiers are coming to the staid Senate

- JP

Varadarajan: 'The Palin Primaries are now behind us. Make way for the Palin Midterms.'

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The Palin Primaries are behind us, and the GOP establishment, as is its habit, is itching to set sail for the center to try to attract more votes. But Hoover Institution fellow Tunku Varadarajan advises in a Daily Beast op-ed that the GOP should continue to chart a course to starboard:

These have been the Palin Primaries, a fact rammed home deliciously by Alaska’s Republican voters in their “refudiation,” as of this writing, of Lisa Murkowski. What a potent, irrepressible woman Palin is...

The question facing the Republicans is how best to deploy Palin’s energy for November—in effect, how best to channel the vim of the Tea Party. Midterm elections, as a rule, are base-versus-base battles: Both parties will spare no quarter or trick to get their faithful to turn out. For this task, Palin is as close to an indispensable figure as the Republicans have.

[...]

Palin and the Tea Party now command a right to dictate terms, and having been sidelined once already (in 2008, with disastrous consequences for the party), she is unlikely to be so easily governed again. After all, she secured for John McCain his Senate primary in Arizona, by endorsing him over the more Tea Party-friendly J.D. Hayworth. After that, and after Alaska in particular, she has acquired a quite daunting aura.

[...]

But what about “independents” — won’t Palin make the GOP much less attractive to them? I put the question to John Zogby, the pollster, who told me: “It is important to be reminded just who the ‘independents’ are. Almost half of them describe themselves as politically moderate and lean heavily toward President Obama and the Democrats.” So this group, it would seem, would spurn the GOP in November, with or without a Palin thrust.

“Of the remaining 52 percent,” Zogby continued, “two in three describe themselves as politically ‘conservative’ but weary of Republicans on issues like spending, civil liberties, and the war in Iraq during the Bush and Republican congressional years. So a conservative message can win their support except they don’t trust the Republicans.”

That would, of course, be the Republican Establishment; and here, precisely, is where Palin can make a difference: I am prepared to wager that many of these “conservative independents” have some inclination toward the Tea Party and its small-government message. So staying “on message” — especially on the need for fiscal conservatism — is more likely to win their vote than a Republican lurch to the center. And since any such lurch will have the inevitable effect of driving the base to distraction, I see the GOP embracing a version of the Palin-Tea Party message.

Read the full Varadarajan opinion piece here.

- JP