As always, the numbers are pretty consistent month to month, with the candidate spread widening as people leave the field and votes get reassigned.
Sarah Palin has never done things the traditional way; she built her career on challenging political powerbrokers rather than courting them; and she has long demonstrated an uncanny self-confidence and grand ambitions for her own life that have confounded critics at every turn.Conroy takes the most prudent approach. Why not just listen to what Sarah Palin herself has said on the matter? "Actually, she gave a reply when asked on Fox News that makes a lot of sense. She's seeing how the field shapes up before making her final decision."
"She does not follow the typical playbook," Alaska Republican pollster Dave Dittman said. "Both the RNC and the DNC have a playbook, which is for the most part pretty predictable. And she's just writing a whole new book."
Dittman recalled that when Palin was deciding whether to run for governor in 2005, many Alaska Republicans correctly pegged her as a rising star but were unconvinced that she could win a primary contest to unseat incumbent GOP Governor Frank Murkowski. Although the odds were stacked against the relatively unknown former Mayor of Wasilla, and the party establishment voices were many and vocal in their discouragement, Palin ignored them.
"There were other people who'd announced they were going to run, and people were saying to her, ‘Why don't you run for lieutenant governor,' because that was the predictable thing-that she'd run behind John Binkley, who was a known individual," Dittman said. "And her response was, ‘Why doesn't he run for lieutenant governor?'"
Her decision to take on a veteran incumbent from her own party was emblematic of a natural aversion to Republican machinery - and following normal conventions -- that Palin has demonstrated throughout her career.
From her whistleblowing of ethical lapses committed by Alaska Republican Party chairman Randy Ruedrich before her gubernatorial run to her frequent battles with members of her own party in the Alaska state legislature and beyond, Palin has relished opportunities to take on the GOP powers-that-be. And time and again she has exceeded her critics' expectations as she has embraced seemingly every chance she has gotten to grow her star power.
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Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee have been cagey about whether they'll run for president in 2012. But the pair still sent political aides to a meeting at the Republican National Committee this week about party logistics headed into next year's presidential campaignIs it true? Considering that it comes from fact-challenged Politico, who knows? Nevertheless, this should add plenty of fuel to keep the ol' media speculation motor spinning...
According to Politico's Jonathan Martin, newly elected RNC chief Reince Priebus convened the meeting, which included staffers from the potential Palin and Huckabee campaigns, as well as aides representing all-but-declared candidates Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney. Notably, Mitch Daniels, who said last week that Indiana's budget crisis might curtail his 2012 efforts, didn't send anyone to the meeting.
Huckabee performs best among core Republicans, as opposed to conservative-leaning independent voters. He also performs best among Southerners, regular churchgoers and "non-supporters" of the tea party.But another surprise or two are in store when the results are broken down by the issues that are most important to Republicans:
Surprisingly, Palin performs best among self-described "liberal or moderate" Republicans and those who "seldom" go to church. The poll also finds she has greater appeal to people who didn't graduate from college and with Republicans who make less than $90,000 a year. She ties with Romney on support from Republicans from the East Coast.
Meanwhile, Romney is most popular on the West Coast and leads Republicans who are 50 and over and wealthy. He has a significant lead when it comes to college graduates. He ties with Huckabee and bests Palin among GOPers who describe themselves as "tea party supporters."
Mitt Romney still does badly among those who social issues as the biggest issue in 2012, as does Newt Gingrich. Perhaps more surprising, Sarah Palin wins among those voters who see national security and foreign policy as the most important issue.
Once every political generation -- which, for our purposes, equals two presidential terms -- liberals have selected a representative right-wing monster to serve as a lightning rod for criticism and invective. These included Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin.While we agree with most of Dunn's op-ed, we believe he gets one key point wrong. Gov. Palin does not, as Krathammer has suggested, try to answer "every little attack." There are so many attacks that no one person, not even a multitasking Mama Grizzly, has the time to try to answer every one of them. There are not sufficient hours in a day to do that. She has only responded to the most disingenuous of the attacks on her and her family. We are also left scratching our heads regarding how a murder accusation, no matter how baseless, could in any way be considered a "little" attack.
Liberals did not succeed in all cases. Only seriously flawed individuals such as McCarthy, Nixon, and Gingrich succumbed to these attacks. Politicians without serious failings prevailed. Reagan shrugged them off with his endless good humor. Bush faced them with his customary stoicism. Both were reelected, and while they departed office under the artificial clouds generated by leftist rhetoric, both had generally successful presidencies, with growing reputations as time passes.
Until recently, Sarah Palin hewed closely to the Reagan method, dismissing attacks with a joke and a smile (even when such slanders were aimed at her disabled infant child, a display of personal strength that would inspire anyone not blinded by ideology). She needs to return to that method. She need not comment on attacks of this level. She has no deep personal flaws such as Nixon's neuroticism or Gingrich's egotism, and she will not experience any similar downfall.
Palin also has something else, something not possessed by previous targets. She has a following. All previous figures had their admirers, and Reagan led a movement. But none had or has what Palin has -- a large group of people who look up to her, who view her as an example and a role model, who bleed when she bleeds and hurt when she hurts. It is those people who should be left to handle Palin's attackers.
They also provide larger possibilities. Republicans have never struck back against these attacks, lacking the means in a media-dominated political world. But now the means do exist, in the form of millions armed with access to the net and Twitter. What would happen if these people were turned on the next crowd who attacked Palin or any other politician?
Liberals are vulnerable. Consider Steven Cohen, soon to be ex-representative from Tennessee, who backed off from his rancid little Republicans-are-Nazis shtick as soon as the spotlight was shined on him. One thing we must never forget about leftists is their essential cowardice. They strike only as part of a mob, never on their own two feet. (Isn't that right, Larry O.?)
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An Open Letter to Republican Freshmen Members of Congress- JP
Welcome to all Republican Freshmen and congratulations!
Congratulations to all of you for your contribution to this historic election, and for the contributions I am certain you will make to our country in the next two years. Your victory was hard fought, and the success belongs entirely to you and the staff and volunteers who spent countless hours working for this chance to put government back on the side of the people. Now you will come to Washington to serve your nation and leave your mark on history by reining in government spending, preserving our freedoms at home, and restoring America’s leadership abroad. Some of you have asked for my thoughts on how best to proceed in the weeks and months ahead and how best to advance an agenda that can move our country forward. I have a simple answer: stick to the principles that propelled your campaigns. When you take your oath to support and defend our Constitution and to faithfully discharge the duties of your office, remember that present and future generations of “We the People” are counting on you to stand by that oath. Never forget the people who sent you to Washington. Never forget the trust they placed in you to do the right thing.
The task before you is daunting because so much damage has been done in the last two years, but I believe you have the chance to achieve great things.
Republicans campaigned on a promise to rein in out-of-control government spending and to repeal and replace the massive, burdensome, and unwanted health care law President Obama and the Democrat Congress passed earlier this year in defiance of the will of the majority of the American people. These are promises that you must keep. Obamacare is a job-killer, a regulatory nightmare, and an enormous unfunded mandate. The American people don’t want it and we can’t afford it. We ask, with all due respect, that you remember your job will be to work to replace this legislation with real reform that relies on free market principles and patient-centered policies. The first step is, of course, to defund Obamacare.
You’ve also got to be deadly serious about cutting the deficit. Despite what some would like us to believe, tax cuts didn’t get us into the mess we’re in. Government spending did. Tough decisions need to be made about reducing government spending. The longer we put them off, the worse it will get. We need to start by cutting non-essential spending. That includes stopping earmarks (because abuse of the earmark process created the "gateway-drug" that allowed backroom deals and bloated budgets), canceling all further spending on the failed Stimulus program, and rolling back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels. You can do more, but this would be a good start.
In order to avert a fiscal disaster, we will also need to check the growth of spending on our entitlement programs. That will be a huge challenge, but it must be confronted head on. We must do it in a humane way that honors the government’s current commitments to our fellow Americans while also keeping faith with future generations. We cannot rob from our children and grandchildren’s tomorrow to pay for our unchecked spending today. Beyond that, we need to reform the way Congress conducts business in order to make it procedurally easier to cut spending than to increase it. We need to encourage zero-based budgeting practices in D.C. like the kind fiscally conservative mayors and governors utilize to balance their budgets and reduce unnecessary spending.
There in the insulated and isolated Beltway you will be far removed from the economic pain felt by so many Americans who are out of work. Please remember that if we want real job growth, we must create a stable investment climate by ending the tidal wave of overly burdensome regulations coming out of Washington. Businesses need certainty – and freedom that incentivizes competition – to grow and expand our workforce.
The last thing our small businesses need is tax hikes. It falls to the current Democrat-controlled Congress to decide on the future of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. If it does not permanently renew all of them, you should move quickly to do so in the new Congress. It would remove from households and businesses the threat of a possible $3.8 trillion tax hike hitting all Americans at the worst possible moment, with our economy struggling to recover from a deep recession! You must continue to remind Democrats that the people they are dismissing as “rich” are the small business owners who create up to 70% of all jobs in this country!
Another issue of vital importance is border security. Americans expect our leadership in Washington to act now to secure our borders. Don’t fall for the claims of those who suggest that we can’t secure our borders until we simultaneously deal with the illegal immigrants already here. Let’s deal with securing the border first. That alone is a huge challenge that has been ignored for far too long.
On foreign policy and national security, I urge you to stick to our principles: strong defense, free trade, nurturing allies, and steadfast opposition to America’s enemies. We are the most powerful country on earth and the world is better off because of it. Our president does not seem to understand this. If we withdraw from the world, the world will become a much more dangerous place. You must push President Obama to finish the job right in Iraq and get the job done in Afghanistan, otherwise we who are war-weary will forever question why America’s finest are sent overseas to make the ultimate sacrifice with no clear commitment to victory from those who send them. You should be prepared to stand with the President against Iran’s nuclear aspirations using whatever means necessary to ensure the mullahs in Tehran do not get their hands on nuclear weapons. And you can stand with the Iranian people who oppose the tyrannical rule of the clerics and concretely support their efforts to win their freedom – even if the President does not.
You need to say no to cutting the necessities in our defense budget when we are engaged in two wars and face so many threats – from Islamic extremists to a nuclear Iran to a rising China. As Ronald Reagan said, “We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.” You will also have the opportunity to push job-creating free trade agreements with allies like Colombia and South Korea. You can stand with allies like Israel, not criticize them. You can let the President know what you believe – Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, not a settlement. And for those of you joining the United States Senate, don’t listen to desperate politically-motivated arguments about the need for hasty consideration of the “New START” treaty. Insist on your right to patient and careful deliberation of New START to address very real concerns about verification, missile defense, and modernization of our nuclear infrastructure. No New START in the lame duck!
You can stand against misguided proposals to try dangerous, evil terrorists in the US; precipitously close the Guantanamo prison; and a return to the failed policies of the past in treating the war on terror as a law enforcement problem. Finally, you have a platform to express the support of the American people for all those around the world seeking their freedom that God has bestowed within all mankind’s being – from Burma and Egypt to Russia and Venezuela – because the spread of liberty increases our own security. You, freshmen lawmakers, can and will be powerful voices in support of foreign policies that protect our interests and promote our values! Thank you for being willing to fight for our values and our freedom!
In all this, you should extend a hand to President Obama and Democrats in Congress. After this election, they may finally be prepared to work with Republicans on some of these issues for the good of the country. And if not, we will all be looking forward to 2012.
Remember that some in the media will love you when you stray from the time-tested truths that built America into the most exceptional nation on earth. When the Left in the media pat you on the back, quickly reassess where you are and readjust, for the liberals' praise is a warning bell you must heed. Trust me on that.
I and most Americans are so excited for you. Working together, we have every right to be optimistic about our future. We can be hopeful because real hope lies in the ingenuity, generosity, and boundless courage of the everyday Americans who make our country exceptional. These are the men and women who sent you to Washington. May your work and leadership honor their faith in you.
With sincere congratulations and a big Alaskan heart,
Sarah Palin
For better or for worse, the notion of voting for the candidate rather than the party is now mostly naive idealism. The Democratic Party is now fully left-wing, and is simply the American version of any European Social Democratic party. It is the party of ever-expanding government. (The Republican Party, in contrast, is -- at long last -- the party of small government.)- JP
[...]
This is my response to the liberal media, which have portrayed virtually every popular conservative in my lifetime as a mediocrity at best, a dummy at worst. In not one case -- from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to Sarah Palin -- was the media's depiction accurate. To give but one example, George W. Bush can probably run rings around Vice President Joseph Biden in his understanding and knowledge of history and of the world.
But even if the media's depictions were accurate, it wouldn't matter to me. I will take common sense and values over intellect any day and in any election. Left-wing intellectuals have abysmal track records when it comes to confronting great evil in the world. Their willingness to fight tyrants and despots is one of consistent and abject moral failure.
Take the left's favorite Republican to depict as a dummy, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
This country would be in considerably better shape if Palin were either vice president or president. Palin would have confronted Iran rather than place her faith in negotiations and the United Nations. She would not have sought to impose a peace on Israel (as if peace can ever be imposed by outsiders on any countries, let alone upon those in which one of the parties seeks to annihilate the other). She would not have bought into Keynesian economics and spent nearly a trillion dollars largely to keep overpaid and overcompensated government workers voting Democrat. She would not have expanded the number of government agencies and "czars" to the point that this country may well be governed for the next two years not by congressional laws but by unelected and unaccountable federal agencies. She would not have declared a date by which America will leave Afghanistan and thereby ensured that fewer and fewer Afghans fight alongside America. She would not have signed a 2,000-page bill about anything, let alone health care. She would have expanded oil drilling in America so that we can actually begin the long journey to energy independence, not the imaginary journey to windmills and solar panels. She would never have considered taxing energy, the engine of our economy, on the increasingly absurd claims that human carbon dioxide emissions will bring the planet to ruin.
So, it is time for us Americans to realize that the old days of choosing the better candidate are gone. The Democrats have, at least in this way, achieved their goal of rendering us more European -- we will have to vote by party.
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Ronald Reagan once hosted the television program "Death Valley Days," pushing 20 Mule Team Borax cleaner. The liberal media questioned his gravitas through both terms. Rudy Giuliani is leading a troupe of motivational speakers across the nation, promising to teach time management, leadership, and several other "skills" -- almost everything except how to stir-fry. Fred Thompson is hawking reverse mortgages to seniors. Mike Huckabee is playing average guitar on his FOX show. None of these former presidential candidates is wading hip-deep today in the Gravitas River that Rove claims does not flow through Alaska. So what's up with Karl?Tomorrow morning, after the midterm election results have been digested and analyzed, that struggle for the heart, soul and future of the Republican Party will no longer be a series of skirmishes. The battle will be on in earnest.
This assault on Palin comes, lest we forget, from the same advisor who either did not make the case or was unable to persuade Bush 43 to stand up and fight back against the relentless criticism from Democrats and the legacy media during six of Bush's eight years as president. Why the aggression now against Palin and the TPM?
Here's a possible explanation. "Bush's Brain," and the architect of the compassionate conservative strategy of George W's 2000 presidential campaign, is feeling the ground shift under his feet. As a consequence, the gyrocompass of his once-highly regarded political judgment is broken.
On Tuesday night, he'll have his signature whiteboard out charting numbers, but the Rove magic has faded some. He appears to be suffering from a severe case of Beltway Insideritis. It strikes when those who've been comfortable with their status as powerful political influencers lose some of their...gravitas...and become mere observers of the events they wish they could influence, but can't.
If that's the case, then Karl's just one among a cadre of certified conservative pundits, in the media and among the professional camp followers of the pols, who don't understand a grassroots movement they neither initiated nor can control.
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“Sarah Palin has every right to make her case to the Republican Party. How about we let the Republicans decide — not the so-called leaders — whether she is qualified or not? I think they are missing the whole point of what is going on in our electorate right now because that is the worst possible way to take that kind of a lesson out of this election. I think this time we have to have a Republican National Committee that disciplines Republicans who attack other Republicans. I see it starting already and it really disturbs me."h/t: Melissa Clothier
The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee will team up with the RNC chairman at an event in Anaheim, California, on October 16 and in Orlando, Florida, on October 23.Gov. Palin, who has the cultivated her reputation as a political outsider, appears to be making an effort to mend fences with the GOP establishment now that the primary season is ever and as she considers a possible 2012 presidential bid.
According to a copy of the invitation acquired by CNN, contributions for the events range from $25 per person to attend one of the rallies to $30,400 per couple for a private meeting and reception with Palin and party leaders.
The Republicans' plans were first reported by Politico.
In August, in what was considered a surprising move at the time, Palin attached her name to a letter and survey that was mailed to RNC donors soliciting contributions for the committee's Victory 2010 program, a nationwide get-out-the-vote effort.
Steele is under fire from the GOP Establishment, as always, this time for his travels outside the battlegrounds, and sometimes outside the 50 states. Palin's willingness to show up for him -- and not, say, for the "shadow RNC" led by Karl Rove and other GOP figures -- enhances his stature, and perhaps his bid for a second term of his own.- JP
He and Palin may not have all that much in common, but they've backed one another in the past, and they're both genuine outsiders at this point, with the same enemies inside the party.
More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the dinner, according to Danielle Plogmann, communications director for the Iowa Republican Party. She said that is the biggest crowd for a Reagan Day dinner in recent memory.And even Gov. Palin's colleagues at Fox News are speculating:
The Des Moines Register reported in its Friday editions that more than 50 news organizations have asked for credentials for the dinner, including foreign press.
There are some reactions to the Tea Party movement coming from many different directions -- illustrated by the patronizing mockery of Christine O'Donnell -- which I find quite misguided, revealingly condescending, and somewhat obnoxious. In two separate appearances -- one on Hannity and the other on some daytime Fox show -- Karl Rove, that Paragon of Honor, insisted that she lacks the "character and rectitude" to be in the Senate, and raised these points in support of his accusation:So if even a radical left winger like Glenn Greenwald can acknowledge the obvious elitism at play here, why can't alleged conservatives such as Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer see it? The answer is that elitism subscribes to no particular political philosophy. "Country Club Republicans" are still very much alive and kicking nearly a half century after they were so thoroughly bloodied by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. They simply licked their wounds and reappeared calling themselves "conservatives," but they are alien to nearly everything that Reagan was and stood for."One thing that Christine O'Donnell is going to have answer is her own checkered background . . . . These serious questions: how does she make her living? Why did she mislead voters about her college education? How come it took nearly two decades to pay her college tuition? How does she make a living? Why did she sue a well-known conservative think tank? . . . . questions about why she had a problem for five years paying her federal income taxes, why her house was foreclosed and put up for a sheriff's sale, why it took 16 years for her to settle her college debt and get her diploma after she went around for years claiming she was a college graduate. . . . when it turns out she just got her degree because she had unpaid college bills that they had to sue her over."Most people are not like Rove's political patron, George W. Bush, who was born into extreme family wealth. O'Donnell's financial difficulties, which Rove is describing, and implicitly condemning, are far from unusual for ordinary Americans. In 2009 alone, there were 2.8 million home foreclosures. Contrary to what Rove is trying to imply, an inability to pay one's college tuition bills or a struggle with taxes are neither rare nor signs of moral turpitude. Those are common problems for a country whose middle class is eroding as the rich-poor gap rapidly widens. If the kinds of financial struggles O'Donnell has experienced are disqualifying from high political office, then we will simply have an even more intensified version of the oligarchy which our political system has become.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion, at least for me, that, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, much of the discomfort and disgust triggered by these Tea Party candidates has little to do with their ideology.
[...]
To members of the establishment and the ruling class (like Rove), these are the kinds of people -- who struggle with tuition bills and have their homes foreclosed -- who belong in Walmarts, community colleges, low-paying jobs, and voting booths on command, not in the august United States Senate.
[...]
Bill Clinton's arrival in Washington caused similar tongue-clucking reactions because, notwithstanding his Yale and Oxford pedigree, he was from a lower-middle-class background, raised by a single working mother, vested with a Southern drawl, and exuding all sorts of cultural signifiers perceived as uncouth. Much of the contempt originally provoked by Sarah Palin was driven by many of the same cultural biases. As I wrote at the time, the one (and only) attribute of Palin which I found appealing, even admirable, when she first arrived on the national scene was that she came from such a modest background and was entirely self-made (Obama's lack of family connections and self-made ascension was also, in my view, one of the very few meaningful differences between him and Hillary Clinton). So much of the derision over Palin had nothing to do with her views or even alleged lack of intelligence -- George Bush, to use just one example, was every bit as radical and probably not as smart -- but it was because she hadn't been groomed to speak and act as a member in good standing of the elite class.
There has been a lot of carping about Republicans' prospects for November since Palin-backed candidate Christine O'Donnell defeated longtime Delaware officeholder Mike Castle for the Republican Senate nomination Tuesday. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the 2008 vice presidential nominee has kept the party strong. How? She has kept the Tea Party faithful inside the GOP tent. Had she instead encouraged these disillusioned voters to mount third-party challenges across the 2010 general-election ballot, dozens of Democratic incumbents, not to mention challengers, would be smiling like Woodrow Wilson in 1912.Read the full Goldman article here.
[...]
O'Donnell's victory follows a long GOP pattern in the Northeast of established, old-school moderates being denied the nomination in favor of fresh, sharper-edged conservatives, as happened with New Jersey Sen. Clifford Case in the 1978 Republican primary, Sen. Jacob Javits in New York (1980) and, most recently, Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. The bigger picture here is not about a dearth of moderate Republicans in the Northeast. And yes, on Nov. 2, events in Delaware might leave some Republicans wondering what might have been. But this would seem a small price to pay to avoid a massive party split thanks to the protest vote still sweeping across the country.
Consider: If Newt Gingrich or Glenn Beck held Palin's political clout, they might very well have used this power to encourage independent conservative challenges, figuring the resulting GOP chaos would redound to their benefit. Palin rejected this course, even though it probably would have been in her political interest.
Consider also that Palin has received no credit for being loyal to a party establishment that continues to treat her with maximum low regard. Americans have never sent to the White House an individual rejected four years earlier as a vice presidential nominee. So it is doubtful that Palin stuck with the GOP because she hoped to be rewarded with the chance to lead it in 2012. Think about it: A lesser person would have opted for payback, not party.
That the GOP establishment fails to appreciate the debt it owes her is reflective of the elitist outlook that is contributing to Tea Party activism nationwide.
[...]
Simply put, Palin started as Tonto but has become the Lone Ranger. Instead of fading out last summer, she remained strong and stood by her party. She has become a bridge between the old Republican guard and the growing right-wing dissatisfaction with not just Democrats but also Republican officeholders. Palin's ability to advocate for using the GOP, not a third party, to channel this angst has allowed Republican voter anger to boil, yet not boil over.
Should Republicans run up the score in November, Sarah Palin will deserve a lot of credit she will never get.
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Among the “229 Tea Party supporters” surveyed by the Sam Adams Alliance, Palin brought in 23 percent when up against 19 other candidates, according to the report. It is the first of three studies commissioned by the free-market non-profit group to analyze Tea Party activists before November’s midterm elections.Read the full Daily Caller article here.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney followed with 9.2 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took in 8.7 percent and Newt Gingrich garnered 7.7 percent of Tea Party activists’ support.
Although activists tend to support GOP candidates for president, the report found that some — who largely identified as Republicans before they joined up as Tea Partiers — have dropped their party affiliation with the GOP as they became more involved in the movement.
Among new activists polled, 74 percent originally identified themselves as Republican, with 20 percent saying they are independents. But since claiming to join the movement, there’s been a near 30-point drop in affiliation among Tea Partiers with the Republican Party, according to the group, with many activists switching to independent, Tea Party or Libertarian party labels.
The pollster says that compared to two weeks ago, Moran is down one percentage point, and Tiahrt is up three. Tiahrt’s strategy to paint himself as the true conservative appears to be working, at least among conservative voters. Today he leads among conservatives by five percentage points, where two months ago Moran led by 21 percentage points in this group.If these potential Moran voters don't turn out tomorrow, it could be good news for Tiahrt.
The poll notes potential trouble for Moran: “Most ominous for Moran: Among the 17 percent of voters who report they have already cast their ballots, Tiahrt is nominally ahead, 46 percent to 43 percent. Among those who tell SurveyUSA they are likely to vote, but have not yet done so, Moran leads by 13.”
Sarah Palin I want to remind the good people of Kansas to vote on Tuesday for Todd Tiahrt for U.S. Senate. He is a strong commonsense conservative who will serve Kansans with honor and help put our country on the right fiscal track.And from NRO's The Corner, "(Mostly) Good News from Kansas"
About Todd
www.toddtiahrt.com
Kansans for Tiahrt
More than 13 months ago, I wrote a column that began: “Sarah Palin can be the Republican nominee in 2012. I am not saying she will be, but she can be. Those who underestimate her do so at their own risk.”Read Simon's full Politico piece here.
[...]
Now, more than a year later, I have not changed my mind about Palin’s political potential. This is not based on the polls — especially a recent one showing her in a 46 percent to 46 percent tie with Obama in a hypothetical 2012 face-off. I don’t believe such polls tell us anything meaningful.
I am basing my belief now, as back then, on Palin’s ability to connect with the base of her party. Name a bigger name in the Republican Party today. Heck, name any name in the Republican Party today.
[...]
Since unsolicited advice is a columnist’s stock in trade, I had seven suggestions for Palin, back last summer when she was still governor of Alaska: Dump Alaska, surround yourself with people smarter than you are, pick a handful of issues and stick to them, study up, don’t believe you can’t do it, don’t go changing and don’t worry about failure.
Whatever Palin has been doing since then seems to be working. And I have noticed a certain change in how the media are viewing her. In a recent column giving advice to journalists, Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic wrote: “Be humble about conclusions. ... Sarah Palin may not be ready to be president today, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be ready to be president tomorrow.”
In even better news for Palin, her political opponents continue to dismiss her. Mark Halperin wrote in Time magazine recently: “An adviser to Mitt Romney ... says of Palin, ‘She’s not a serious human being.’”
Which leads me to believe that Romney needs to get himself some new advisers.
With the kind of buttoned-up, disciplined political operation Romney runs, it seems implausible to think such attacks on Palin were not part of a coordinated strategy, one in which Romney green lighted himself.You can read the Guerrero op-ed in its entirety at The DC.
A trial balloon for how he and his inner-circle may go about undermining Palin in the months ahead. A good cop-bad cop routine permitting those around him to play dirty while he keeps his nose clean. It’s an eerily reminiscent tactic that was used to great effect by top operatives within the McCain campaign, who through a slow drip of media leaks portrayed Palin as a combustible diva.
[...]
Still, for all of her flaws and baggage, higher ups within the GOP consider Palin a legitimate threat to win the party nomination. No other Republican commands the kind of loyalty and bedrock support amongst the party faithful that she does. And in a primary filled with dull suits, Palin’s electric presence, accompanied by her litany of red-meat bombshells, could galvanize GOP primary voters in a way that no other candidate could.
[...]
But Romney has his share of weighty liabilities too. Perceptions of him as a chronic panderer never went away in 2008 and questions regarding the sincerity of his conservatism still linger today. He’s been called more robotic than authentic, and his past life as a corporate big shot may not sit well with a Tea Party crowd who holds the bailout of the banks as the grand and final betrayal of Big Government Republicans. Oh, and wait until his primary opponent’s begin running ads comparing his Massachusetts health care plan with that of president Obama’s. It could have a devastating effect on his candidacy.
[...]
Romney’s candidacy would garner the support of the prototypical northeastern, moderate Republican, a group more open to a campaign embedded in political pragmatism rather than ideological crusade. Palin’s candidacy would attract those who favor a wholesale and voluminous rejection of the Obama agenda, decrying any hint of bipartisan squeamishness.
If only Romney had anything resembling the “common touch.” Those who remember his visit to Jacksonville for an MLK Day parade, where he attempted to lead a crowd of people in a chant of “Who Let the Dogs Out? Who? Who?”, know too well that Romney’s presentation was that of a genuine throwback, as unabashedly patrician and “elitist” as George H.W. Bush in 1980. He broke a cardinal rule of retail politics: never let the people believe you are superior to them. Americans don’t vote for role models anymore. They vote for people with whom they identify.Read this opinion piece unabridged at The DC.
Which is where Sarah Palin comes in.
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When Romney functionaries were quoted in TIME recently savaging Palin, saying “she’s not a serious human being” and “if she’s standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than fifteen seconds long, she’s in trouble,” they revealed something fundamental about what the Romney operation will do to defeat Palin. They clearly have no issue with taking memes popularized on the left by the late night talk show troupe and the Keith Olbermanns of the world and using them many months before the first primary votes will be cast. Nothing wrong with that, necessarily. This in all likelihood will be Mitt Romney’s last campaign, and so things will be said (especially by operatives) that can’t be taken back. Things that will be used against Palin should she become the 2012 Republican nominee.
And she likely will. Mitt Romney is the Willy Loman of Republican Presidential politics. Liked, but not well liked, he is the perpetual salesman, with artfully darkened hair, a ready smile, and shrewd eyes, forever looking to close the deal. But in terms of the Republican nomination, even if Mitt plays the perfect game with the insiders yet again, he won’t do any better than he did against the flaccid field in 2008. The grassroots doesn’t like Mitt and isn’t going to learn to like him. And these, fortunately for Palin, who is as much a totem as she is a candidate, are grassroots times.
So even if she isn’t a “serious human being”, the fact remains that people identify with her in ways they can’t with Romney. Incapable of reinventing himself, Romney thus is consigned to a fate very similar to the one he suffered in 2008.
For me, the ad was indicative that Palin is interested in running for president. Second, I thought what Palin tried to convey in that ad is that all women, young and old, white or black, rich or poor, are the future of politics in America. She personally knows, as a female, that the women’s movement is not about liberal policies and abortion. It is about women getting a fair shake and independence, while caring for their children and their country.Read the rest of Jennifer's post here.
Let’s think about this for a moment. The democrat party has taken the women’s vote for granted. They expect women to side with them and vote democrat down the line. For the most part, the majority of women have voted for democrats. But are the democrats really for independent women or are they for dependent constituencies? I think with this last election, women are realizing that the democrat party is not ideal.
Independent women feel that they have been disenfranchised by both parties.
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Instead of concentrating on winning elections and defeating the left, we have some people in the GOP, either in the establishment republican media or inside the beltway “endorse” Palin to be an RNC chair because she is “not well versed in policy.” Her only attributes are to bring excitement to the GOP and raise money. Basically clerical work. Now isn’t that sexist? Way to cajole women to the party, republicans.
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I know I’ve heard that Mitt knows how to raise money and support candidates ideal for Washington. Well if he is such a genius, why is it that no one in the establishment GOP called for him to be RNC Chair? Because he’s not as great as described perhaps? Or is it because Palin is a threat to his candidacy? I say yes to both...
