The Moderate Myth, Abortion and Sarah Palin

This is some very good stuff. We found it on a blog called Taxes, Stupidity, and Death:

The most damaging myth repeated today by so-called republicans is “We need to be more moderate, and the key to that moderation is the compromise of principle. Opposing abortion is so very provincial. Only a backward rube, or those who hate empowered women would willingly oppose a woman’s right to choose.”

[...]

There is simply no other process in this nation where a human being is deprived of life without due process of law... How can that not be antithetical to the very cornerstone of American liberty…the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

[...]

Standing against such an evil is not the wrong place to be. It is the only place to be.

And it makes a difference in elections. The Left knows this better than they will ever admit, and certainly better than the voices of vanilla extolling the virtues of being a moderate. Don’t believe me? I have two words for you : Sarah Palin.

Her entry into the race energized a Republican base that up to that point regarded the prospect of a McSame Presidency as the slow train to the same place that Obama is running the express to. This is not my characterization; it is the characterization of the Old Media. Abortion supporters knew this. Her very political existence underscored every lie the Left and feminists have told women for decades. She was the living proof that a woman could be successful and happy with a family. She didn’t put off having children in order to ‘work on her career’. She rose to a position of power and prominence based on merit and hard work and actually taking a stand for principles. She believed in God, and wasn’t afraid or ashamed to do so. She didn’t have an abortion when she learned she was carrying a child that did not meet society’s definition of ‘normal’, and never would. She stood by a daughter who obviously did not abide by the abstinence she stressed, and did not seek an abortion for the child, or force her to get one herself.

This made her a threat, which was recognized immediately. In a race where the winning ticket selected Sheriff Slow Joe Biden for the same slot, she was the one constantly derided as stupid by the old media and the Left. Even after the loss, she remained a lightning rod for the usual suspects, who did everything they could to bring meritless ethics complaints against her in her capacity as governor, hack her personal email accounts, continue to try to shout her down in public fora, and ridicule her in the popular media, even after their own candidate won. Why? Because they know that she still has a great deal of popular support among the Republican “extremists” precisely because of who and what she is, and the Left simply cannot afford to let her go unmolested. To do so would be disastrous for them.

Of course, one might ask if they aren’t running scared because despite their best efforts, the worm is already turning?

But you've just gotta read the unabridged original, especially the part where  blogger Blackiswhite says that moderates essentially differ from liberals only in the sense that their old steam locomotive travels more slowly, but it's on the same set of tracks and headed for the same station as is the liberals' bullet train.

- JP

Purging Moderates: Liberal Hypocrisy in Action

The drumbeat from liberal Democrats and their media attack dogs that the "Sarah Pain wing" of the GOP wants to drive moderates out of the party has been nonstop since liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava was unmasked as a Democrat Party fellow traveller up in New York State.

But according to the Associated Press, the leftists are guilty of the same thing they are accusing conservatives of doing:

Get on the health overhaul bandwagon, or don’t count on our help in your re-election.

That’s the hardball message liberal groups are hurling at moderate Democratic senators in a battle that is dividing their party. Their demands: Support a bill that offers optional government-run health coverage and oppose Republican attempts to derail the legislation.

At RedState.com, bk finds it verrrry interestink, as an Artie Johnson character used to be notorious for saying, that the story was kept under wraps until after the election.

Podnah, there ain't no bigger hypocrite in the world than a Libocrat.

- JP

Why independents are tuning out the Left

Independents and some blue-collar moderates are running away from the Democrat Party and the radical Leftists who control it in droves. What is turning them off? Liberals, instead of engaging in substantive debate or constructive criticism, can only insult conservatives, and that's not what independents want to hear.

Here's an example:

I really enjoy a good discussion no matter what the subject and it’s always fun to play devil’s advocate should the opportunity arise. I suppose this is why I listen to people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others on the extreme Right. I just wish there were folks like that on the Left which is why I had high hopes for Joy Behar on CNN. When I switched to Behar’s show the topic under discussion was Sarah Palin, which was no big surprise, she seems to be a favorite for discussions on the Left. I was so disappointed when the conversation was exactly what I have come to expect from the Left, just a bunch of insults. I really wish they would twist facts and statistics like their counterparts on the Right to make things more interesting. I heard comments like, “Sarah Palin is just promoting her book which is strange since she has never read a book”, and, “… George Bush who never read a book…”, which is just what I have come to expect from the Left. I was never a fan of George Bush and I’m always happy to debate his presidency and policies. From what I understand of the past President he was actually very well read, perhaps not the greatest speaker, but well read nonetheless which makes these kind of comments just insults and lies. Come on Joy, you can do better, I’m sure of it. Joy Behar really should try and learn more [than] Hannity and Limbaugh, if she did, people like me might actually watch her show once in a while.

While we're not sure where that blogger stands on the political spectrum, we can extrapolate that he or she is not a conservative, since the author considers a rather mainstream conservative such as Hannity (who is a big fan of moderate Rudy Giuliani) to be on the "extreme right." We can therefore reasonably assume that he or she is a moderate or an intellectually honest liberal.

What is telling here is that the Alinskyite tactic of ridicule is a big turn-off for the writer. Just how many others share this person's thinking remains to be seen, but we believe the number is growing rapidly. People are interested in hearing why one side believes its solutions to the problems that they face in this country will work better than what the opposition proposes, not childish insults.

Here is a golden opportunity for Sarah Palin to gain ground with independents and blue-collar moderate Democrats. As the Left continues to insult her -- and you know that they will because they didn't learn this lesson in Ronald Reagan's day -- she will ride above the smears and present an optimistic vision for America which can be realized through the application of common-sense conservative principles.

Please, leftists, don't change a thing that you're doing. You are turning out to be our best recruiters. Thank you for your contribution to our cause.

Update: Richard Cohen proves our point with his insults and lack of substance.

- JP

Moderate Madness and the Decline of the GOP

Good op-ed from last November by  Patrick Ross at New University. Most of the points he makes are just as valid today as they were ten months ago:

It says a lot that the media and the hacks inside the McCain camp have circled the wagons against Palin. The insiders, being their usual traitorous selves, are trying to slough off the blame for their miserable performance so that they can continue working campaigns and attending state dinners. It’s also telling that the worst they can come up with are petty personal smears...

[...]

The moderate and liberal Republicans got everything they wanted this election: an equivocating campaign about global warming and Joe the Plumber, no personal attacks – including the total exclusion of Jeremiah Wright from official discourse – and a nominee whose claim to fame is voting with the Democrats. Look where this behavior has gotten Republicans over the last 12 years: Bob Dole went down to insurgent, anti-moderate conservatives voting for Ross Perot, Bush narrowly won against candidates as weak as Al Gore and John Kerry and it all culminated with a candidate so “mavericky” that he defeated himself.

Even before Palin’s nomination, polls indicated that moderates were breaking for Obama in excess of 60 percent. Ronald Reagan won landslides with conservatism, not by courting back-stabbing independents like Colin Powel (sic)

McCain’s loss will be harmful in the short term, but it has thoroughly discredited the moderate heads of the party and is going to force a groundswell of reform for the GOP. People on the inside are obviously scared, as is evident by the panicked rush to blame Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and anybody else who didn’t genuflect to the messiah. Conservatives have been Balkanized. It’s time to flush the moderates before they crush the GOP.

We disagree with the author on one point. He equates moderates and independents by labeling Colin Powell an independent, which the former secretary of state is not. Many independents are unaffiliated conservatives, libertarians or right-leaning centrists. Powell is a liberal Republican who claims to be a moderate. Moderates are simply liberals who like to pretend that they are something else.

But we are in agreement with Ross that moderates have nearly destroyed the Republican Party. Even worse, together the big-spending wing of the neoconservative faction, they have split Ronald Reagan's winning coalition into feuding tribes. We believe Sarah Palin may just be the leader who can unite them, as Chief Pontiac united the Chippewa, Potawatomi, and Ottawa nearly 250 years ago.  

- JP

Quote of the Day (August 15, 2009)

*
The Rude News:

"Sarah Palin did the work the President, press and moderate Republicans refused to do. One FaceBook comment and one article and she makes a Democrat Senate destroy a socialist/statist provision. Pretty good for a quitter."

"What Republican has that kind of power? Take note moderates, this is what you should have [been] doing instead of attacking Palin."

- JP

Sarah Palin still the choice of GOP moderates

Via Tom Jensen at the PPP blog:

For the second month in a row we found Sarah Palin as the most popular of the leading 2012 GOP hopefuls among moderate Republicans. 64% have a positive opinion of her compared to 57% for Newt Gingrich, 53% for Mike Huckabee, and 45% for Mitt Romney.

Gov. Palin has arguably been the choice of conservative Republicans since the 2008 election in early November. Now she is winning over the GOP's more moderate voters. And according to a Pew Research poll released June 24, her favorability ratings have increased by 6 points among independents and 7 points with Democrats.

There's no question that Sarah Palin is broadening her appeal.

- JP

Frum shows why Vichy Republicans will kill the GOP

David Frum has done conservatives a great favor, and we should be thankful. The favor is not that he has written another negative piece about Gov. Palin. No, that's nothing new for Frum, who has been bashing the governor since she stepped up onto the national stage. Frum's gift to conservatives is that in the article, he clearly demonstrates why Vichy Republicans cannot be trusted to act in the GOP's best interests.

Referencing Todd Purdum's VF hit piece which has caused such a stir, Frum itemizes Purdum's anti-Palin talking points from the VF smear job, and then he makes this eye-opening statement:

"If true, the leaks constitute an urgent warning and public service. I believe they are true."

And there you have it. Vichy Republicans of Frum's ilk prefer to believe liberal Democrat media hacks and anonymous leakers rather than thoughtful and honest GOP moderates such as Fred Malek. Admittedly, thoughtful and intellectually honest moderate Republicans like Malek are all too rare these days.

Here's what Malek wrote about Purdum's anonymous sources today:

"I am not sure who the unnamed Vanity Fair sources are, but without question they lack chivalry and have acted in a craven manner. They also lack the facts. I am ashamed of my former campaign colleagues, whoever they are."

Of Purdum, Malek had this to say:

"The writer clearly had an unshakable point of view from the start and talked only to those who would criticize."

About Gov. Palin, Malek wrote:

"I have known many political leaders over four decades including all Republican presidents and VPs. I have come to know Sarah Palin over the past year and can state unequivocally that she is smart, curious, hard working, charming, and effective. She also has something her detractors clearly lack – a sense of honor and loyalty."

[...]

"I have seen Sarah up close with leading heavyweights, and have seen her hold her own and then some. At the dinner at my home referenced in the article, she engaged comfortably and deeply with people ranging from Alan Greenspan to Madeleine Albright to Mitch McConnell. She asked for a foreign policy discussion on her June 7 trip to Washington, and I saw her engage in an informed and spirited manner with Frank Carlucci."

We know that Vichy Republicans dismiss out of hand any argument made by conservatives. But one thinks they would at least consider what Fred Malek says. After all, he is no right-wing idealogue. Far from it, Malek is a moderate. Frum, however, totally ignores Malek, who knows Gov. Palin and has watched her closely, yet he believes Purdum, a leftist who acts as a Democrat operative. And he believes Purdum's hearsay  about what McCain staffers with a common agenda (saving their careers after running a presidential campaign into the ground) whispered into  Purdam's ear.

And that's why Vichy Republicans are such a threat to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. They trust liberal Democrats implicitly and refuse to entertain the ideas and advice of conservatives and even intellectually honest moderates. Ronald Reagan knew better than to trust liberals unconditionally. He dealt with them in the same manner he did with the Soviets,  i.e., "Trust, but verify." Vichy Republicans want to turn the Grand Old Party into a virtual clone of the Democrat Party. The American people want real choices between the political parties, not between Democrat and Ersatz Democrat.

Frum's timing was terrible. Rather than back off on the Palin attacks for a while, he instead showed his solidarity with those who are so desperately engaged in trying to destroy her. This comes at a time when many Americans have grown tired of the constant dissing of the governor, and also at a time when her favorability ratings among independents and even Democrats are on the rise.

So conservatives owe David Frum a debt of gratitude. He has demonstrated that Vichy Republicans have more in common with liberal Democrats than with center-right Republicans. Now we have a clear example to cite in the arguments we make in the battle for the heart and soul of the Reublican Party. Had it not been for Sarah Palin, who unhinges the Vichy Republicans as much as she does the liberal Democrats, Frum and others of his ilk might have kept their cool and not made this critical error.

Thank you, Mr. Frum. Keep up the good work.

- JP

Rush: 'The Left is Afraid of us, Folks'

Excerpts from ElRushbo's show today:

It's like I had some things yesterday to say about this listening touring and how they left out Sarah Palin. The Drive-Bys are all over this today. Wait 'til you hear these sound bites. I didn't even know this was happening last night because I was of course making a speech at the Heritage Foundation, but I'm getting notes, "It looks like you forced the Republicans to include Palin in their listening tour."

-snip-

The left is still out there trying to destroy Sarah Palin. She's up in Alaska.

They're filing ethics complaints against her every week forcing her to have to have a legal defense fund! They're trying to break her; they're trying to make her go broke so she won't be able to have a political future. They're scared to death of her. If they weren't, they'd leave her alone. They'd let her go moose hunting, and that would be it. Why...? Do you see how easy the conventional wisdom is? The conventional wisdom is that Palin's a dork, that Palin's an idiot, that Palin is unsophisticated, that Palin is this or that. She doesn't know the lingo. She has a bad wardrobe. It's all of this irrelevant stuff to try to destroy her, to destroy her credibility with people, to impugn her. I just listened to what she said, and I liked what she said and I liked the way she said it. It's no more complicated than that.

-snip-

Sarah Palin could build the party, and all these moderates and independents think that she's going to be a drag on building the party. Why? Because, true, she will not attract liberals. She won't attract moderates. Thank God! We don't want 'em in our party -- and this business about polling data, 38% are independents? I ask you to remember -- and Koko, I want you to go to our archives. We drag this poll out every now and then, the Battleground poll, which shows that 60% of the American people, since, what, 2000, identify themselves as conservatives. The telling part is that 30 to 34%, 30% call themselves Republicans; but 60% call themselves conservatives. And if you look at the individual polls on individual Obama policies, you'll find that they're nowhere near as highly approved of as he is personally. There is a gold mine waiting to be tapped.

There's much more. The transcript and MP3s are here.

- JP

Malek: Arlen abandoned allies for another team

Republican Party heavyweight Fred Malek, perhaps Gov. Sarah Palin's most important admirer inside the GOP establishment, guest-posted today at RedState.com on the occasion of his old friend Arlen Specter's switch back to the Democrat party. Excerpts:

I have always viewed the GOP as a Big Tent Party, and appreciate the inclusion of moderates like Arlen.

However, in leaving the Republican Party, Arlen has abandoned people who have been his allies for another team. He has thrown in with people who have a fundamentally different vision for America, and one that I profoundly disagree with.

-snip-

I will be supporting Pat Toomey for US Senate against my friend Arlen Specter. Right now, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are taking America in the wrong direction. And we need a strong voice in the Senate fighting for our party’s perspective against them.

I normally have very little use for moderates. Fred Malek is a rare exception to my rule of "Don't trust moderates; they will stab you in the back and walk all over your corpse." He is, first and foremost, a party guy, and his loyalty to and passion for the GOP are without peer. I'm not a party guy (I'm for conservative principles first), but I can appreciate that. And I will always appreciate him for his kindness to Gov. Sarah Palin, his admiration of her, recognition of her political potential and support of her, always talking up the governor to the Republican Party's other movers and shakers.

- JP