Sarah Palin: Freedom Trail

"Walking in the footsteps of the Sons of Liberty is an extraordinary experience."
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Gov Palin has posted another dispatch from the One Nation Tour at SarahPAC:

Freedom Trail

It's a sunny day in Boston but our thoughts are still with those affected by yesterday's storm, which ripped through the western part of the state.

There's so much history here. It’s amazing how much of our nation’s history can be found in just two and a half miles on the Freedom Trail.

We visited some of the cradles of American freedom today - Old North Church, Paul Revere's home, Bunker Hill - and met many patriots young and old. We met Augie Parziale and his family who took us through the family business. Their bakery has been in business for more than 100 years and going strong because of hard work and determination to fight through the government's sea of red tape.

Walking in the footsteps of the Sons of Liberty is an extraordinary experience. The history of the rebellion and the republic lives on in these hallowed grounds. These sights are living symbols of our past that remind us to work towards a brighter future.

On to the Granite State!

- Sarah Palin

- JP

RealClearPolitics: Palin Slams RomneyCare In Massachusetts

There will "obviously" be more explanation from Romney for his support of government mandates.
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On the road with Sarah Palin's One Nation tour, Scott Conroy of RealClearPolitics reports that the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee criticized RomneyCare just minutes before the former Massachusetts governor who signed that bill into law formally announced his candidacy for president:

After noting that he would be a "great candidate," Palin quickly changed his tune when asked about Romney's record.

"I think that he'll have maybe a bit more challenges with independents who make up the tea party movement, wanting to make sure we are not going to--we won't have any excuses or perceived political reasons to grow government," Palin said. "In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not a good thing, obviously, and I am not the only to say so. But obviously there will be more explanation coming from Gov. Romney for his support of government mandates."

Pressed on whether Romney would have a particularly difficult time attracting support from members of the tea party movement, Palin did not hold back.

"That perhaps will be a big challenge for him because tea party activists are pretty strident, in a good way, in making sure that the candidate that many of the tea party patriots will support--the candidate has a record of living out the principles that tea party patriots do embrace," she said.

Palin added that Romney may have a "good argument" that what he implemented in Massachusetts applied only on a statewide level and would not be appropriate nationally. But then she quickly went back on the attack.

"However, even on a state level and a local level, mandates coming from a governing body, it's tough for a lot of us to accept because we have great faith in the private sector and in our own families and in our businessmen and women in making decisions for ourselves," Palin said. "Not any level of government telling us what to do."

[More]

Conroy says that both candidates could benefit from the local media's Palin vs. Romney narrative because it draws attention away from other players in the crowded presidential field.

- JP

Sarah Palin: Residents Hit Hard in Massachusetts

"Our prayers are with the victims of yesterday's twisters..."
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From SarahPAC:

Residents Hit Hard in Massachusetts

Drove through the rough weather last night in Massachusetts, hoping folks are safe this morning as residents survey the aftermath. Our prayers are with the victims of yesterday's twisters and all those who are faced with what may seem insurmountable rebuilding challenges. The damage we saw was shocking.

It was an honor to meet great MA residents as we pulled off I-91, heard their concerns and hopes for their state and country, and shared their appreciation for the East Coast's inspiring history. We handed out copies of the Constitution and asked that they help explain our nation's blueprint to their children. I was happy to be invited to call in to local radio station WTIC to talk about our nation's foundation and our victories, respecting the blessings a child provides - including our most special kids with special needs, and impressive UConn basketball programs.

Obviously in these parts the storm's widespread damage is the focus today. May these resilient MA residents find strength to move forward. God bless them.

- Sarah Palin

- JP

Callahan: Sarah Palin is right about Scott Brown

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Gerry Callahan, co-host of the Dennis & Callahan morning show on Boston radio station WEEI-AM, said he was disgusted with Brown’s moderate votes, according to the Boston Herald:

“I’m going to get my Victoria Reggie Kennedy lawn sign if he votes with (U.S. Rep. Barney Frank) again,” Callahan told listeners yesterday. “It’s very disappointing for those of us who supported Scott and feel like we sent him to Washington. I don’t know how he would think we wouldn’t be disappointed.”

[...]

“I honestly thought I’d see some compromise, but never to this level,” said Callahan, who’s also a Herald sports columnist. “He’s turning his back on the people who sent him there.”

Over at WRKO, Todd Feinberg, who co-hosts the Tom and Todd show, is also unhappy with some of Brown’s votes but said that he’s not ready to throw the junior Senator “under the bus”:

“I wish he was a Tea Party guy but he never really represented himself as that,” Feinberg said.

It's interesting how everything Sarah Palin says gets put on a slide and goes under the media microscope. She was merely pointing out the obvious in response to a question. On the political grid, liberal Massachusetts is in the opposite Cartesian dimension from conservative Alaska, and the moderate Brown reflects that difference.

What's the big fat deal?

- JP

Jacoby: Massachusetts for Palin?

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Jeff Jacoby, a conservative columnist at the liberal Boston Globe, addresses the left's latest effort to subvert the republic that our founders so carefully constructed in his Sunday commentary:

IT IS Election Night, 2012. The polls have closed. State by state, the votes are being counted, and gradually it becomes clear, to the bottomless horror of some voters and the unbridled delight of others, that Sarah Palin, the Republican presidential nominee, has bested President Barack Obama in the popular vote nationwide.

In Massachusetts, where Obama crushed Palin in a 79 percent landslide — the most lopsidedly anti-Palin vote of any state — “bottomless horror’’ doesn’t begin to describe the political reaction. For in 2010, Massachusetts joined the National Popular Vote compact, making a commitment to cast all of its electoral votes for the presidential candidate receiving the most votes nationally, regardless of the results in Massachusetts. The compact took effect in December 2011, when California became the 15th state to join, thereby uniting enough states to control a majority of the Electoral College. Now Massachusetts, the bluest of the blue states, must award its presidential electors to a candidate Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly opposed.

. . .

Well, that’s one scenario. Maybe it won’t be Sarah Palin, maybe it won’t be 2012, but sooner or later a Republican is going to win the largest number of votes in a presidential election, and that Republican probably isn’t going to carry Massachusetts. What will Bay State liberals and Democrats say when the National Popular Vote compact that so many of them endorsed requires Massachusetts electors to line up behind the Republican? Imagine if Massachusetts had been compelled to give its electoral votes in 1972 not to George McGovern, but to Richard Nixon. Or to the first George Bush in 1988, instead of Michael Dukakis. Or to George W. Bush, not John Kerry, in 2004.

As the National Popular Vote bill was making its way through the state Legislature last month, Senator Thomas Kennedy, chairman of the Election Laws Committee, warned opponents against trying to block it. “We’re committed to this,’’ he said. “It’s the will of the people.’’ The will of which people? Not the people of Massachusetts: The whole point of this scheme is to frustrate their will. From now on, anytime Massachusetts voters march to the beat of a different political drummer than most of their countrymen, the National Popular Vote compact will make sure their votes don’t count.

Massachusetts is the sixth state to approve this end run around the Constitution, following Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington. It is no coincidence that all six are Democratic strongholds. The movement is fueled by lingering Democratic resentment of George W. Bush, and of the Electoral College system that made him president in 2000, even though Al Gore drew more popular votes. It is a comical irony that if the compact ever goes into effect, its only practical impact in these states will be to occasionally award their presidential electors to the Republican nominees their voters reject.

Democrats talk about 2000 as though it represented some colossal subversion of democracy. “Something happened in the 2000 presidential election that should never be permitted to happen again,’’ writes Michael Dukakis in the Salem News. “The candidate who failed to win the popular vote became president of the United States.’’

But the national popular vote total has no constitutional significance and never has...

Read this Jeff Jacoby op-ed unabridged here.

Related: Paul Greenberg explains why casting aside the electoral college is not only a bad idea, but a dangerous one:

Edmund Burke tried to tell us: "The Constitution of a State is not a problem of arithmetic." Rather, it is a way to take into account the many dimensions of an electorate and forge a consensus that is greater than all its parts. That's where the Electoral College comes in. It may be an antique piece of clockwork, but it performs a valuable function within all the gears and levels of our constitutional system. It needs to be saved, not sacrificed to an empty slogan.

In our view, one of the best arguments against turning our backs on the wisdom of the founders is that so far, the only states to approve the compact are the bluest of blue states. If the left has its way, it will destroy this republic.

- JP

Sarah Palin: "This is what democracy looks like, Democrats!"

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Sarah Palin comments on Scott Brown's stunning Massachusetts victory:



h/t: PalinTV.com

Update: Jennifer Rubin on Palin's Take.

- JP

Sarah Palin: Mr. Brown Goes to Washington In His Pick-up Truck

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On her Facebook Notes page Tuesday night, Sarah Palin congratulated Scott Brown on his victory in the special election in Massachusetts to fill the remainder of the unexpired U.S. Senate term of the late Ted Kennedy:

Mr. Brown Goes to Washington... In a Pick-up Truck, No Less!

Congratulations to the new Senator-elect from Massachusetts! Scott Brown’s victory proves that the desire for real solutions transcends notions of “blue state” and “red state”. Americans agree that we need to hold our politicians accountable and bring common sense to D.C.

Recent elections have taught us that when a party in power loses its way, the American people will hold them accountable at the ballot box. Today under the Democrats, government spending is up nearly 23 percent and unemployment is higher than it’s been in a quarter of a century. For the past year they’ve built a record of broken promises, fat cat bailouts, closed-door meetings with lobbyists, sweetheart deals for corporate cronies, and midnight votes on weekends for major legislation that wasn’t even read. The good citizens of Massachusetts reminded Democrats not to take them for granted.

Americans cheered for Scott Brown’s underdog campaign because they viewed his candidacy as a vote against the Democrats’ health care bill. You know that there’s something wrong with this legislation when opposition to it inspired a Republican victory in a state that currently has no Republicans in Congress and last sent a Republican to the Senate nearly 40 years ago.

Clearly this victory is a bellwether for the big election night ten months from now. In the spirit of bipartisanship, let me offer some advice to the Democrats on how to stem this populist tide. Scrap your current health care bill and start from scratch. We all want true reform, but government mandated insurance is not it. Scott Brown campaigned against this top-down bureaucratic mess. We need common sense solutions like reforming malpractice laws, allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, giving individual purchasers the same tax benefits as those who get coverage through their employers, and letting small businesses pool together to provide insurance for their employees. Focus your efforts on jobs, not on job-killing legislation. Such a change in approach would show Americans that you’re listening.

My best wishes to Senator-Elect Brown. When you go to Washington, may you never forget the ordinary citizens you met while driving that truck through the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

- Sarah Palin

Update: Gov. Palin also offered her congratualations to Senator-elect Brown in a telephone call late Tuesday night.

- JP

Matthew Continetti: Dems in Mass Panic

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On The Blog at the Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti say the Democrats are showing the depth of their desperate over Scott Brown's strong showing in Massachusetts:

Democrats must really be worried about the Massachusetts special election. The DNC dispatched partisan fire-breather Hari Sevugan to help with Martha Coakley's communications strategy. Coakley's in trouble because the Democratic health care bill is unpopular in Massachusetts, Democratic incumbent governor Deval Patrick is a flop, and the unemployment rate is at 8.8 percent.

The rule in politics is to change the subject when your campaign is in trouble. Sure enough, Sevugan wasted no time spilling ink in a desperate attempt to link Republican Scott Brown to Sarah Palin. In last night's debate, Coakley acted as though Brown were just a stand in for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. And a harsh new Coakley ad tried to connect Brown to Rush Limbaugh--before everyone noticed the campaign had misspelled Massachusetts in the text.

Leftists are nothing if not predictable. Those tired old scare tactics and demonization of Sarah and Rush may not help them this time. Brown raised over a million dollars in 24 hours Monday.

Stacy McCain explains why Palin populists support the more centrist Brown.

- JP

Stop the music: Drumbeat grows louder for Palin to endorse Brown

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Sissy Willis asked the question New Year's Eve and even sent a message to Brown via Facebook encouraging his campaign to seek the endorsement of the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee:

"I encourage you to seek Palin's support. She is DYNAMITE and much loved by red staters like me behind enemy lines here in Massachusetts, not to mention the vast army of tea party people across the nation. Her charisma and common-sense understanding of how the world works are totally energizing. If you haven't already, I urge you to read Going Rogue. Let's ROLL!"

Moe Lane has picked up the drumbeat and says that it's time:

"So let’s light this candle."

But before the blogging community gets too caried away by the seductive beat, everyone should back off and think for just a minute. Remember, the decision rests with Brown and his campaign. Gov. Palin is politically astute enough to withold any endorsement of Brown unless and until he asks for it. He may not ask for it. 

In Massachusetts, one of the bluest of blue states, Brown may only want the endorsements of Republican Lites, and he has received such a nod from John McCain. We doubt that Brown would turn his back on any PAC money, however, even if it came from Red Rock Reagan Republicans, as Sissy reports that Brown is being underfunded by the NRSC. 

- JP