Monday, November 17, 2008

More on the Great GOP Civil War

More on the GOP "old boy" network and its hatred for Sarah Palin:

Attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin by McCain campaign staff at first appear to be a case of making her a convenient scapegoat, but the attacks have a more devious motive. This post-election barrage is the first volley of the campaign to choose the Republican nominee in 2012. The Washington, D.C. based establishment that rules the GOP wants her career over now. She threatens them.

Firefighting 101 teaches it is easier to stomp out a wildfire when it is small. Don’t allow the fire to grow, spread and become an inferno. Sarah Palin was the spark of McCain’s reform campaign. She ignited the campaign and gave the reform message legitimacy.

Those knifing Palin are the old-guard Republicans who don’t want to see her as the nominee in 2012. The old-guard GOP candidates are likely Gov. Haley Barbour or former Gov. Mitt Romney.

Sarah Palin brought a vibrant, fresh face to the Republican Party. The GOP elitists saw how she easily connected with voters. Palin drew huge crowds of up to 30,000 people anxious to see and hear her. The crowds flocking to see Gov. Palin bond with her culturally. She has the potential to garner Obama- or Reagan-like devotion.

The Republican Party needs this grassroots energy and her reform agenda after a decade of broken promises and the disappointing Bush presidency.

Looking back at history, you see resemblances of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in Palin. Both Thatcher and Reagan were dismissed and insulted by their own party stalwarts. “Useful idiot” was a term once leveled at President Reagan.

Palin hails from Wasilla, Alaska; Margaret Thatcher grew up in the apartment over her family’s grocery store in a small town in England. Thatcher’s father taught her never to do things because other people were doing them. He said, “Do what you think is right and then persuade others to follow you.” Like Thatcher, Palin’s political philosophy and economic policies emphasize reduced government intervention, free markets and entrepreneurialism.

Margaret Thatcher was willing to take a hard line and earned the nickname “Iron Lady” for her tough-talking rhetoric defiantly opposing the Soviet Union. Likewise, Palin is tough enough to stand up to present-day threats. While Thatcher earned the moniker of ‘Attila the Hen,” Palin calls herself a “Pit-bull with Lipstick” and others dub her “Sarah Barracuda.”

Human, likeable, personable and witty like Reagan, with loads of common sense and confidence, Sarah Palin lives what she believes. And the camera loves her as it loved Ronald Reagan.

Grass-roots efforts are sure to encourage Palin to run in for president in 2012. Meanwhile, she trusts a higher power, saying she is, “Putting my life in my creator’s hands---that is what I always do.” She also said, “I’m like, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, …don’t let me miss the open door…And if there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”

This rising star is now too bright to be extinguished by attempts at sabotage. She has addressed the criticism, setting the record straight concerning the purchase of clothes for herself and her family by the Republican National Committee, saying, “Those are the RNC’s clothes, they are not my clothes. I never forced anybody to buy anything. I never asked for anything more than maybe a Diet Dr Pepper every once in a while.” And then there’s the ridiculous rumors regarding the debate prep about NAFTA and Africa. Palin summed it up well, calling it “cruel, it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, and it’s unprofessional,” and said, “Those guys are jerks if they came away with it taking thing out of context, then tried to spread something on national news.”

Yet Palin realizes criticism is to be expected in politics. “Your life is an open book and you open yourself up to criticism and you’d better be ready to take that criticism,” she said. “In other words, don’t run for office if you can’t handle it.”

Those staffers guilty of anonymous attacks are cowards. Their agenda to control the GOP needs to be seen for what it is -- an attempt to kill the career of Sarah Palin because it threatens them. Americans can see through the falsehoods and love the real Sarah Palin. Nearly 400 letters arrive daily addressed to Gov. Palin and are now piled high in big bags waiting for her.


Given that one presidential campaign has just ended and most people are sick of politics and the general mood seems to be that we ought to just "wish the new president well and give him a chance" some people are wondering why I'm jumping into 2012 with such intensity.

Good question. Here's the answer: Do you know why George w Bush is the president right now? After Bill Clinton was reelected some Republican pundits wrote some articles saying that the Bush brothers, George and Jeb, were the men to watch for 2000. That's all it took. George was interested in the job, Jeb less so. Over the next 2 1/2 years that little bit of speculation snowballed into George W Bush's exploratory campaign taking in over 100 million dollars in, mostly small, donations.

The rest is, as they say, history.

There is no question that Barack Obama generates feelings of ecstatic adolration in many millions of people. It is true that he gives many millions a sense of hope for the future. However among many of the 48% of the American people who voted against Obama (and they were either voting against Obama or for Palin - almost no one voted for John McCain) he inspires feelings of deep misgiving and even dread.

Those people who are standing outside the Obama Euphoria Zone and looking in at what can only be described as the birth of a frightening personality cult are already looking for someone who can mount a successful challenge to Obama in four years.

Whoever leads the GOP in 2012 is going to set the tone for the Republican party for years to come. If another McCain "Republican" is chosen the GOP will be doomed to permanant minority status for at least 40 years, and maybe just doomed period.

However if an authentic Reagan-style conservative captures the nomination in 2012 the party will be reborn even if Obama manages to get reelected.

Sarah Palin isn't the only person who can do this but she is the best known and she has already forged a connection to the GOP base that any other candidate would have to spend years building. Sarah has a massive head start in name recognition and she can stand up to everything the press can throw at her. Her background has already been put under a microscope and the worst they could find about her was that her husband got a DUI 22 years ago and that her daughter was impregnated by the young man who will soon be her husband.

Governor Palin is, all things considered, the best choice for the GOP in 2012. History shows that a head start can be invaluable in constructing a winning campaign so I intend to keep beating thew Palin drum.