Sarah Palin in 2012
Lee on Nov 07 2008 at 12:58 pm | Filed under: Domestic Politics
Rasmussen reports today that Sarah Palin is the choice of 64% of Republicans for the 2012 Republican nomination, and that a staggering 91% of Republicans have a favorable impression of her (equally remarkable, 65% rate their view as ‘highly favorable’).
It’s perhaps unnecessary to mention that there is no figure of comparable popular prestige left standing in the Republican party. Assuming she puts to rest lingering concerns among the Republican commentariat about her knowledge of foreign affairs, she’s in a remarkably similar political position to Ronald Reagan in 1976…standing as she is, alone among the wreckage of the GOP. And in 2012, the conservative grassroots sentiment will likely be quite similar to 1980, when no one in the GOP was eager to give the establishment favored candidates of George H.W. Bush or Howard Baker another chance, after the painful defeat of their previous hero, Gerald Ford.
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I pray that this won’t be the case, and I think history points in a separate direction. Back in 2006, we all were saying Giuliani and Clinton were going to be the next candidates, and both lost. She may have the spotlight now, but that will fade.
And I pray it will.
I dunno Roland, the Republican Party is essentially dynastic, as Dick Morris always argues. The perception of who is “next in the line” is powerful…and was the primary reason they defaulted on McCain in 2008. Also certainly a factor in 1980 (due to Reagan’s primary challenge in 1976). After failing to find a credible alternative, McCain was the “next in line” due to his experience in 2000 and they just settled with that. How that line of descent is determined is a bit ambiguous, but it tends to be the most prominent national figure from last time. That is most definitely Sarah Palin.
BTW, it’s not a bad thing. Half the stuff being said about her is blatantly false right now. She wasn’t taking advice from Bill Kristol in opposition to McCain (Kristol has spoken to her exactly twice in his life), nor does she not know who is a party to NAFTA (she discussed it during her governor’s race), nor is she some kind of social-conservative monster.
Palin was in the race, what? 80 days? In those 80 days Palin endured more attacks and of an unprecedented level of brutality and slander from more sources than all the other candidates from both parties combined, and appears to be the only candidate still enduring attacks now that the race is over. And guess what? Although she was a little shaky at first (and seriously, who wouldn’t be), she’s fine. She handles them with aplomb. Has Palin been “Quayled”? Democrats (and perhaps paleocons) f*cking wish.
Peter Jackson, laying down some law in here. Thumbs up.
Either Republicans start choosing and sticking by Conservative candidates like Palin or we might as well pull up stakes and fade into history.
The Fords and Doles and (sorry W) Bushes have gotten us where we are today. I didn’t particularly like McCain. Is there a difference between Mac’s worldview and Hillary’s big enough to slid a credit card through?
Obama and Palin were the motivating factors in my support for the Republican ticket this time. Without Obama to be against, and Palin to be for, I’m not sure Conservatives would have voted at all.
The venom with which Palin was attacked took me by surprise. (Silly me!) Chuckie and Katie disgraced themselves. I heard their interviews described as “engaging in games of Trivial Pursuit”, and it’s hard to imagine anything more apt.
Our mission, if we choose to accept it, is not to worry how Gov. Palin will be treated by the media during the next 4 years, but see to it that the scurilous, lying, scabrous whore media are rendered irrelevant, as they so richly deserve.
What I seem to be hearing a lot of now is how Palin was horrible and how the Republicans need to get rid of the social conservatives in order to compete. It’s not just the media by any means. It’s self identified social liberals who, like most liberals, think they know better.
And sure… there’s social conservatives who have what might be called an evangelical outlook on the political sphere, but the most of them who do, only do so weakly and as a response to perceived threats, (with the exception of abortion issues, which is felt as opposition to infanticide and not really amenable to a “victim-less crime” argument.)
Most people do just want to be left alone. But even more than that, they want their *kids* left alone. They really don’t care what people do in the privacy of their own homes, but they do care about what happens in public… and don’t want to have to be an unwilling voyeur or have to explain to their kids what *that* was. They don’t want to have to wonder what deprogramming they need to undertake when their children get home from school. On the ID/evolution front, what most people *want* is a simple assurance that their children aren’t being told that God is a myth and that science *proves* religion wrong.
I’m convinced that a great many of those most offended over social-con issues, really DO feel like being *right* gives them the right to impose their correct views on the benighted social conservatives. Which is anti-freedom through and through.
Rather than push for fiscal conservatism, rather than push for “government out of your business and out of your life”, rather than push for small government and a healthy attitude about what government is and is not due… we’re worried that someone wants an ID disclaimer stuck in the front of a science text book, believes that our attitudes toward unborn humans matters, has a backward opinion about stem-cell research, and thinks that marriage is important and that children and teenagers shouldn’t be having sex.
If a person believes in liberty and small government, how are any of these things a terrible threat?
Except for the exact thing that the liberals have been complaining about for years… the Europeans won’t think we’re enlightened enough? Only in this case, the swing voters? Is this all about gaining the approval of people who get the hives at the mere mention of ID but who worship at the altar of the Goracle?