Palin Aides Relish Beltway’s Skepticism
By Scott Conroy
Throughout the better part of the last two years, the narrative among influential political operatives and opinion makers in Washington remained unchanged: Sarah Palin would continue to be a dynamic media presence and possible kingmaker in the next presidential election, but she would not be a serious presidential candidate herself.
That conventional wisdom cut across party lines, and even some of Palin’s most fervent backers wrote her off as presidential material. “Forget about Sarah Palin as the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 and probably ever,” Fred Barnes, one of Palin’s earliest and most vocal supporters, wrote in The Weekly Standard after Palin resigned as governor of Alaska in July of 2009.
As other prospective 2012 candidates began to build their organizations, courted prominent fundraisers, and meet with influential powerbrokers in Iowa and New Hampshire, Palin was widely seen as having missed the boat. Her political apparatus was frequently dismissed as disorganized, amateurish, and hesitant to take the fundamental steps thought to be necessary to lay the foundation for a viable presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, Palin’s small inner circle kept their eyes on the prize, pausing every now and then to chuckle at the dismissiveness of the Beltway establishment.
“Look at what’s happened over the past two years, and you tell me that we don’t have a more effective strategy than our peers,” Palin aide Michael Goldfarb told RealClearPolitics. “Who’s been able to get their message out more effectively? Who’s had greater influence? And you tell me why we should play by the same rules that the press wants everybody to play by. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Since resigning from office, Palin has proven time and again the primacy of her influence in the Republican Party, setting the tone and defining the parameters on issues ranging from health care to monetary policy. And she has done it by shattering the traditional rules of communication, using Twitter, Facebook, and her regular appearances on Fox News and conservative radio to bypass the traditional media to whom she and her staff have taken a special delight in deriding.
“She’s been very effective at setting up a new paradigm for communicating with people, and it’s been a great success,” Goldfarb said. “If that marginalizes reporters sometimes, well then boo-hoo.”
Now that the midterms are over and the campaign before the presidential campaign has begun, Palin is making some adjustments, fully aware that she cannot tweet, Facebook post, and Sean Hannity her way to the White House. She recently granted extensive interviews to the New York Times and ABC News, and her SarahPAC staff intends to make a more concerted effort to highlight to the media her prepared remarks on the frequent policy speeches she gives.
Meanwhile, Palin’s ratings-shattering TLC show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” will continue to show millions of American homes the kinder, gentler side of Palin’s personality each Sunday night for the next seven weeks.
Palin’s outsized influence on the midterm elections and her most recent pronouncements about her presidential intentions have caused the D.C. narrative to shift in recent weeks, as Beltway logic now holds that Palin is indeed seriously interested in running for president and could be a strong contender to win the Republican nomination.
SarahPAC officials have begun fielding more frequent calls from reporters asking about her revamped focus on policy and newly candid statements about being interested in the presidency, leading Palin confidantes to jokingly speculate that “the Beltway herd” suddenly woke up and decided that she is indeed serious about a presidential run after someone began talking about it at a cocktail party.
“She hasn’t changed her statement that ‘if the door is open, I’ll go through it’; she hasn’t changed in any way what she’s said all along.” Rebecca Mansour, a close Palin aide told RealClearPolitics. “None of them really understand her or get her in a lot of ways. They underestimate her, which makes me laugh. They don’t really understand how she thinks. She always keeps them guessing because they just don’t get it.”
For over two years, Palin has been more candid about how she is leaning toward a presidential run than just about any other likely Republican candidate. After all, it was in her very first national television interview after the 2008 election when she told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren in not-so-coy language that she would “plow through” any doors that God opened for her to the presidency.
And by all indications, members of Palin’s staff appear to expect her to run and are acting accordingly.
“I think she’d be an excellent president,” Mansour said. “Of course, I would support her absolutely if she ran.”
When Palin traveled to Iowa in September to speak at a Republican Party dinner, her speech was greeted with media attention befitting a presidential address, but the former governor was widely panned in Washington for neglecting to meet with key players in the first caucus state.
Mansour laughed at the criticism that holds that Palin has shown herself unwilling to do the necessary grunt work of running a grassroots campaign.
“Of course she understands what she needs to do,” Mansour said. “At that time, we were trying to get people elected, and she was doing what she needed to do to get them elected. I think she’s one of those people who really takes that old adage that there’s a time for everything, and when the time comes to do that, she’ll do it.”
Mansour paused before adding, “if she decides to run.”
The consensus may have shifted to the idea that Palin is indeed preparing for a presidential campaign in earnest, but many establishment Republicans write off her chances of ultimate victory in private conversations and unattributed quotations. Meanwhile, Palin aides continue to be unfazed by the lack of respect that the former governor engenders among some in the media and many of her likely opponents’ aides.
“If she was out there making the case for bigger government and more welfare and universal health care in the same tone and in the same vein, she would be a hero of the New York Times editorial board,” Michael Goldfarb said. “They don’t like what she’s saying. It’s not how she says it or the basis of why she says it. They don’t agree with her, and they see her as threatening, so what you get is this, ‘She’s not up to the job,’ and there are people in the Republican Party who will say that, too, because people have different preferences as far as leaders in the party and have different agendas. But out there in the real world, Republicans respect Sarah Palin and they listen to what she says, and she has a real impact. And that’s why she was the most coveted endorsement among Republicans in the last election.”
Along with longtime McCain foreign policy aide Randy Scheunemann, Goldfarb briefs Palin primarily on foreign policy. Both men were publicly loyal to Palin during the internal civil war that developed in the final days of the 2008 campaign, and no Palin aide disputes that loyalty remains her foremost requirement for anyone who wants to work for her.
As some other prospective candidates have selectively chosen their battles, in fear of overexposure or offending the wrong person, Palin has weighed in frequently and forcefully on a wide range of topics. But when asked to define her foreign policy views, Goldfarb was careful enough not to put her in a box.
“I don’t see it in that binary set of choices,” he said. “She supported the president on Afghanistan, his call for increased troops there. She’s also been at odds with the president over his rather shabby treatment of some of America’s key allies, particularly Israel, but more broadly she’s made statements about Japan, and she spoke out clearly on missile defense when that was shelved, and the poor treatment of allies in Eastern Europe around that.”
A visit to Israel is high on Palin’s current to-do list, and her staff is still hoping to arrange a trip for her to meet with one of her political heroines, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Palin has taken a particular interest in the European debt crisis as of late, and SarahPAC recently hired Joshua Livestro – a Dutch newspaper columnist who has also contributed to the pro-Palin web site Conservatives4Palin.com – to research the topic for Palin on a freelance basis.
Palin’s second book, America By Heart, will be released on Tuesday and is a near shoo-in to join her first title, Going Rogue, as a quick bestseller. Unlike Going Rogue’s biographical focus, Palin’s new book is mostly philosophical in nature and reads as a series of essays on well-travelled topics ranging from the role of faith in the public sphere to the concept of American exceptionalism.
Palin and her aides recognize that her poll numbers with independent voters are nowhere near where they need to be, but they believe that she will find a way to rekindle the enthusiasm she engendered among the middle of the political spectrum when she was first announced as John McCain’s running mate and delivered a barnburner of a speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Her ideas poll well, they say, and she is far more interested in ideas than in party politics. During her first year-and-a-half as governor, Palin often worked more closely with Democrats than she did with Republicans, her aides will remind anyone who questions her broad appeal.
But hasn’t the scathing and often derisive tone she has reverted to in engaging with the other side made her irredeemable to everyone outside her conservative base?
“People don’t understand this, but she’s a happy warrior,” Mansour said. “She enjoys a good debate-she really does. When she was goofing on Politico and calling them ‘puppy kicking, anti-dentites,’ she was saying that tongue-in-cheek and smiling. It’s not really that she’s thin-skinned.”
Mansour granted that Palin’s casual use of the Twitter medium has made it difficult for many observers to understand that she has a smile on her face when she makes her most biting criticisms, but she insisted that Palin is “one of the happiest people I know.”
Asked if Palin would put her record up against any other elected official in the country, Mansour did not hesitate. “Absolutely,” she said. “And we would win on that undoubtedly because of what she accomplished in the time she was there.”
Mansour cited Palin’s achievements ranging from her successful fight to invite competition for plans to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska to education reform. Mansour also offered without prompting her take on Palin’s record on public employee retirement systems-an issue that sitting governors are currently facing nationwide.
“I don’t think that people realize she had to reform that in Alaska, as well, and there was tremendous pressure put on her to return to the unfunded underwater defined benefits program, but she had to reform it to make it solid, and because she didn’t cave on it, the unions ran full page ads against her in Juneau,” Mansour said. “She knows these issues because she’s been at the forefront of them for 20 years in public office.”
Palin was first elected to the Wasilla City Council in 1992, which was technically 18 years ago. But then again, the new “20 years” talking point in Palin world might work quite nicely once the calendar flips to 2012.
Team Palin does not seem overly concerned about the question of the former governor’s “gravitas,” in light of her social media persona and TV stardom, but the question continues to be raised. After all, skeptics charge, how many “documentaries about Alaska” include scenes in which the matriarch of a family is shown warning her teenaged daughter not to bring boys into her room?
“If you have to sit and complain about gravitas then you don’t have any,” Mansour said. “I remember a time when everybody was appalled that Bill Clinton appeared on the ‘Arsenio Hall Show’ to play the saxophone. Politics adapts to the times and how you reach the people.”
Palin’s aides are certainly cognizant of the difficult road they have to navigate in explaining to the broader public Palin’s decision to resign with a year-and-a-half left in her first term as governor.
Perhaps just as daunting in a Republican primary will be the squirming Palin will have to endure when she is inevitably pressed by free market fundamentalists over her support for TARP during the 2008 campaign.
“When you are running at the bottom of the ticket, you have to follow the top of the ticket’s lead; that’s just the way it goes,” Mansour said in a likely preview of Palin’s own explanation. “But I think she’s adamant that this is not good-adamant that the interference, picking winners and losers, and too big to fail, is not right.”
Palin’s challenges remain numerous as she comes to a decision on whether to run for president. If the answer is indeed “yes,” one of her first big moves will be planning the official announcement of her campaign-a date that one Palin confidante privately agreed will likely come later in 2011, after her lesser known opponents launch their own runs and she can assess the field.
Although Palin’s obstacles remain formidable, Mansour offered a warning shot to anyone who still assumes that the former governor’s star has shined as brightly as it ever will.
“They should not underestimate her,” Mansour said. “Well actually, they’re welcome to, because that would make it fun for us.”
Scott Conroy covers the White House for RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at sconroy@realclearpolitics.com.
Your calumnies about Sarah Palin which even Ted could not take.
Poppycock. Every liberal is pro-abortion while almost every conservatives is pro-life. The abortion feminists like Birdalone hate Palin because she is pro-life, even though she is far more feminist in real life than most of them.
Both these issues can affect Israel directly and the US very indirectly. Iran poses no direct threat to the US which already has it in its missile crosshairs. The Saudis would be far more dangerous to Israel if the US were not standing between them.
yamit responds to the repetitive [NOT]American[Weasel][who continues to viciously attack anyone who disagrees with HIMSELF Who Must Be Obeyed 🙂 ]
In Sarah Palin’s own words about why she could no longer afford financially to serve the rest of her first term as Governor of almost 700,000 people in Alaska, repeated again just in case AE can actually read anything other than his own words:
What vitriol? if there is any vitriol here it’s not by me. I have always taken a position that if you disagree with my comments or opinions show them to be not correct and don’t throw back lame opinions with no support other than it’s opinion yours or others.
The pro life crowd against the pro abortion crowd is not primarily a liberal/conservative debate it is a fundamental religious debate and as a supposed Catholic you should know that. I get a sense that, just at one time most Americans would not have voted for a Catholic for the presidency most Americans do not look favorably on fundamentalist Protestants either, especially on both coasts but that’s where most Americans live. That is also the opinion of most independents. You cannot hold staunch religious views that are in opposition to the vast majority especially women and expect to become a credible threat to the president. Obama has control of the printing press and can add as many zeroes as he likes to American paper money and if he can show through massive injections of money that the economy seems to be coming back he can be re-elected. A year and a half is a long time.
The candidate who I would consider being pro Israel is one who would rescind the arms deal with the Saudis and attack Iran because it’s in American interest to do so and not because of Israel. At the same time destroy N. korea’s nuke sites and put Pakistan on notice they are next unless the denuke. It won’t happen and in the end we will have to find our own ans. with our own response and capabilities. So I see no candidate who I would consider as being really pro Israel. A change in atmospherics is nice but it’s still more of the same which for us is not tenable.
Not true. The religious fanaticism and hysteria has come from Palin’s opposition from day one, based primarily on her staunch pro-life beliefs which she is a living example of. There can be no other explanation for the vitriol against her from women who describe themselves as feminists, whereas Palin is the epitome of a true achievement-feminist by the highest standards of feminism.
Yamit’s vitriol comes from his perverse campaign to drive a wedge between Israel and anyone American who might support it which is strange because America is Israel’s only real ally in tangible terms. Perhaps not so strange, if you know what I mean, because a persons actions do have meaning.
We saw what a staunch ally Canada’s Stephen Harper turned out to be when he was found to be MIA against the anti-Semitism at York University after bragging to a Jewish audience that he would stand up to anti-Semitism “no matter how high the cost.”
Not true, Tonto. Palin flew the Israeli flag on her office wall in Alaska when no one nationwide had even heard about her. The only other flag she flew was the American flag. Since there are very few Jews in Alaska, there was no one there to impress.
BTW, say hello to George Soros when you hear from him next.
This is yet another calumny against Sarah Palin in addition to the many we have seen here from Birdalone who apparently cannot get over the fact that Sarah Palin is pro-life. If it was a matter of money Palin could have stayed on as Governor and accepted her salary for the rest of her term as a lame duck after she decided not to run for re-election. Instead, she resigned and took the risk of becoming an author and a national spokesperson for conservative causes. There was no guaranty she would succeed in the face of the deadly onslaught of libel and slander by Birdalone and her fellow-faux-pro-abortion-feminists and the rest of the Soros-funded far left wing, not to mention the Obama political machine.
Palin had also resigned from the Chairmanship of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission rather than take a salary while running for Governor of Alaska, another huge risk because the powerful incumbent Governor Murkowski came from a popular political family and was from her own party.
By contrast, the ethically challenged Barack Obama continued to accept his Senate salary for 18 months while running for President even though he had no time to fulfill his duties as a Senator from Illinois.
Anyone with more than half a brain would know that one cannot choose to be a popular celebrity for conservative causes – that comes from striking a chord with millions of people by what you say and do and how you conduct yourself. Millions of ordinary Americans have made Palin a celebrity-politician-extraordinaire in spite of the determined calumnies of the pro-abortion feminists and the entire Soros-funded far left wing and the Obama political machine.
Her first book, “Going Rogue”, was a runaway best seller, she commands very high speaking fees and her latest book, “America by Heart”, came out yesterday and is sure to be another best seller. Her TV travelogue “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” broke all records at The Learning Channel, TLC, with 5 million viewers for the first edition of eight.
All of which will continue to drive Birdalone and her fellow-pro-abortionists, the Soros-funded far left wing loons and the Obama machine operators quite mad.
Thank you Bird, This Palin mania seems to be taking on proportions akin to religious fanaticism by some.
The population of Alaska is less than 700,000 people.
Why she resigned:
Okay, she could no longer afford to be governor of Alaska. so what has she done since her resignation besides be a celebrity-politician out of office?
Give it a rest for at least six more months.
Yamit makes very valid points – the attacks on him just prove how polarizing Mrs. Palin is. Her fans are just as defensive as are the remaining fans of Obama. It is like watching two polar opposites with no possibility for any serious dialog.
Doodiel, you are using rediculous arguments.
Kimosabe(cool it) Eagle. Palin has that flag to arouse impressionable yoyos like yourself. She has another 90 national flags available to place on her desk appropriate to the nationality of a particular visitor. Forget principles she is a politician for chr–st sake, Grow up, brave!
This is another a brazen calumny unrelated to the facts.
Palin’s image has been under attack by people like you from the day she was chosen by John McCain to be his running mate. We saw this in you comment about her quitting when what she has done is the opposite of quitting. Even the feminists attacked her because she is pro-life, even though she has a documented history of being a REAL achievement feminist in every respect, with a husband who looks like a movie star and supports her 100% in everything she does, even though he is a REAL man’s man and an Alaskan sports star in his own right being a 4-time winner of the grueling Alaskan 1,971 mile Iron Dog ice-machine race.
Here are some more facts that you seem unaware of. I’m posting this in the hope that you are only misinformed and not a mind-numed left wing stooge:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40120
Here we see yet another libel based on information from the George Soros funded far left wing blogs. Palin is a strong supporter of Israel and has been since before she became a national figure, and had an Israeli flag mounted on her office wall as Governor of Alaska when hardly anyone had heard about her nationwide.
I am very well aware of the fact that Palin is the favorite candidate of the Democrats. She makes for a great opponent with her vapid platitudes. She might be more intelligent than Einstein but her image is that of less than bright aspiring starlet.
Her tea party colleagues whose ideaology she embraces are in the main isolationist Ron Paul types who call for a retreat from expensive foreign entanglemts.Such as retreat fom Israel-Afghanistan- Iraq support.
Yamit. Give it up. You are just being negative to show the supporters we are not on solid grounds. Your arguments are tired and limp. You do yourself no credit to fly in the face of facts. At a minimuym you should recognize the facts and then go on to argue that they are not enough.
But to diss her while at the same time taking no notice of her record and abilities is to discredit yourself.
Palin RESIGNED from the governorship for reasons of ethics and concern for the governance of Alaska, as I have explained above. To say Palin QUIT is a manifest calumny because anyone with more than half a brain who follows American politics knows she hasn’t quit but has actually increased her political involvement several fold and has taken it nationwide.
Her reasons fit all the facts as I have explained above. Only Palin-haters and political character assassins can claim to not buy her reasons for their own self-serving and politically motivated reasons.
This is clearly yet another political libel. As any honest person who has followed the facts of Palin’s resignation as Governor of Alaska would know, her resignation had nothing to do with “taking the heat”. Every attack and every bogus ethics charge was confronted and dismissed with one minor infraction based on defending her family from a threat made against them.
Not only that, Palin has raised her profile from Alaska to the entire country, has become a conservative spokesperson by acclamation nationwide and has openly endorsed dozens of candidates across the country, more than half of whom were elected. Thus she has stuck her neck out far more than just as a state governor, which clearly makes liars out of anyone who claims she cannot take the heat.
She quit so it’s not calumny. She gave reasons many don’t buy. How many governors can you name that quit in mid term except over criminal malfeasance, scandal or health reasons. Many think she put personal ambitions for higher office or lucrative financial offers over her obligation to the people of Alaska who voted for her and supported her. She couldn’t take the political heat in a small populous state like Alaska and you expect non committed and non partisan voters to support her? This goes to the question of Character and for some Americans it a deceive point.
This is yet another popular anti-Palin calumny that is repeated ad nauseum, this time by a new name who is probably a member of the infamous 78% Club which helped to foist on us the worst president in US history.
Since this person is new, I will patiently explain the facts of Palin’s RESIGNATION. If she had QUIT, she would not be kicking Democrat and liberal patoody from here to kingdon come as we speak, making MILLIONS and driving the left wing mad with every Facebook post and Tweet.
Because the Democrat ninjas were interfering with her job as Governor, Palin decided not to run for re-election. This made her a lame duck. Rather than just accept a state salary for being a lame duck, which she could easily have done, she decided on the more ethical course of letting her Lt. Governor take over and resigned. She took a huge risk in doing this because the entire Democrat spin machine including the entire media except Fox News and the Tea Party movement, was arrayed against her. There was no guaranty she would succeed in becoming the huge conservative spokesperson she has become in spite of the left wing ninja army.
Palin had also resigned from the Chairmanship of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission where was hugely successful, in order to run for Governor. Once again she did not want to take a salary from the Commiccion while running on her own behalf. This was also a huge risk because she was running against some of the most powerful politicians in Alaska, including the incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski from her own party, whom she defeated in the election for Governor in 2006.
Now, I will respectfully ask doodiel to refrain from repeating the “Palin quit” calumny, which is a left wing lie when taken in proper context and perspective..
I agree with this assessment.
, or, in Sarah-speak, ‘lamestream media’.
Exhibit A from the Sunday New York Times magazine, taking her very seriously indeed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/magazine/21palin-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
Interesting litmus tests:
The Sunday NYT allocated all of their slime (repeat for emphasis: ALL their slime) for Israel with Ethan Bronner’s “Why America Chases an Israeli-Palestinian Peace” in the Week in Review section. Congratulations to Ramat Shlomo, now immortalized as “contested land” in this slimelie:
Laura-
Based on her quitting the governorship of Alaska without explanation nor providing reasonable notice does not establish Palin as a person of firm conviction.
When you mention Palin’s conviction, do you really know what they are. She speaks in platitudes and cliches. She never exposes herself to the scutinee of a press conference and she always addresses friendly audience.
We have little idea of whether she really is presidentiasl timber.
What we know is that she has transformed herself into a celebrity but so has Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
The media has little influence on most people who progressively are giving most of the traditional MSM a pass. Today Fox should be considered MSM. That said most MSM are preaching to their choirs. Actually I am starting to like Ron Paul at least where the economy is concerned and he is one of the very few who understands what is going down and why. Not sure if he has an ans , or anyone else does but at least he understands the fundamentals. I’m sorry to be so negative but Christi is now out-polling Palin in every demographic and political poll. I have no idea where he stands on most issues which goes to show you that most people go with impressions and not critical investigation of views and depth of the people they choose to elect. Obama is a good example.
Actually I’m tired of Pallin I don’t think this cheer-leading is positive, it’s too early, she hasn’t even declared and we don’t have all the choices in front of us. The more she is Pushed at me I have a tendency to blindly reject. If I feel that way I suppose others do as well.
Again, if standing by her convictions makes her a polarizing figure, then so be it. I don’t want a candidate who changes their positions according to polls. Sarah is extremely popular amongst the tea party people. That’s not a problem. I have no doubt that Sarah can gain popularity with the majority of Americans if she can overcome the liberal media slime machine. The media HATES principled conservatives. I like Christie and think he would make a good running mate for Sarah. The media will eviscerate him as well because he stood up to the teacher’s union.
They want to destroy Palin because she reminds them of the genocidal tragedy of abortions of convenience.
Yamit responds:
I didn’t think it would resonate with you. Which substantiates my point.
It doesn’t resonate with anyone because the quote makes no sense. Here it is again, “Intelligent people know of what they speak; fools speak of what they know.”
.
I don’t think Ted intended people who make no sense to hide behind him and pretend they make sense.
Nate Silver reports
I didn’t think it would resonate with you. Which substantiates my point. Thanks
All the rest is puerile sophistry each point can be destroyed but out of deference to Ted I will refrain.
Why are the detractors attacking Palin even before the race gets started. There is time enough to attack her afterwards. What bothers you that you are trying to stop her from putting her hat in the ring. What’s your problem. You want to abort the candidate Palin before she is born. Lighten up.
If she wants to run she has every right to. Let the democratic course take its toll.
The quote above makes no sense whatsoever.
Here is the incredibly clueless comment by Yamit referred to earlier, “……. Bush even after 9/11 didn’t digress far from Clinton etc.”
1. Palin took on the most powerful oil barons and politicians in her state, some from her own party, and defeated then on issues of corruption and influence peddling.
2. Palin was elected Governor against powerful opposition
3. Palin’s approval rating was over 85% when she was simply running the state, before the character assassins tried to destroy her and her family with false charges and innuendo which all turned out to be bogus in retrospect.
This is a clueless comment when written without proper context. Palin resigned from the Governorship for valid asnd ethical reasons provided here previously. She has hardly “quit” as anyone with a clue about politics in America would know.
All well and good but apparently almost 70% of the voting public so far disagrees with you and nobody else has yet to challenge her directly from the Republican side. Christie seems more popular choice among Tea Party voters and he says he isn’t running. Maybe he would agree to a draft?
The whole population (Human) is less than a mid sized city in the lower 48. Peanuts. The Grizzly population is probably not smaller than the human one.
How does one measure success? In a normal condition the voter decides by re-electing and thus rewarding their officials. She quit! How then could you know if things got too tough for her as president she wouldn’t do it again? You can’t and nobody can but that will always be an open question and the Democrats will use it against her.
Sarah isn’t polarizing. Her detractors are. I’m glad she has strongly held beliefs and won’t compromise on her convictions. If that makes her polarizing, so be it.
Bullshit! Sarah Palin ran the largest state in the country, the largest energy producing state in the country and succeeded. Read gungfusifu’s comment. Obama was nothing more than a “community organizer”, translation: marxist agitator.
Angelina Jolie is nothing like her father. She is a typical hollywood limousine liberal. She knows nothing about international affairs. She speaks about such things in the typical fuzzy liberal “why don’t we all just get along” mindset. Like the typical hollywood liberal, she has no substance and no understanding of the hard realities of international affairs. Sarah Palin fully understands the nature of our annihilationist enemies.
“Intelligent people know of what they speak; fools speak of what they know.”
The Camp David Accords (1978)
The Reagan Peace Plan (September 1, 1982)
The Madrid Conference of 1991
The Oslo Accords (1993)
The Wye River Memorandum (October 23, 1998)
The Clinton Peace Plan (December 23, 2000)
The Mitchell Commission (Plan) ( October 17, 2000 )
The Tenet Plan (June 10, 2001)
The Camp David 2000 Summit (2000)
The Taba summit (January, 2001)
The Zinni Plan (March 26, 2002)
The Elon Peace Plan (2002)
The Arab Peace Initiative (March 28, 2002)
The 2002 Nusseibeh-Ayalon Principles
The People’s Voice (July 27, 2002)
The March 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative
The Geneva Accords (October 20, 2003)
The Sharm el-Sheikh Summit of 2005 (February 8, 2005)
The 2006 Franco-Italian-Spanish Middle East Peace Plan
The Binational solution
Two-state solution
The Saudi peace proposal
The Red Sea Summit
The Road map….
Read them each, and concentrate on them. We bled and paid a high price for each one of those American forced down our throats ‘solutions for peace’!…. Didn’t matter Democrat or Republican liberal or conservative and what the make up of congress was.
“Intelligent people know of what they speak; fools speak of what they know.”
Birdalone is absolutely right. Anyone who is a pro-abortionist is more qualified than Palin for President.
So? What’s your point?
I agree. Palin is a steadfast supporter of Israel. How many of you fly the Israeli flag on your office wall as she did as Governor of Alaska when no one nationwide knew who she was?
Relax. I am a Christian and could care less whether you converted or not. But when you write “without success” you have probably forgotten that there would be no Christianity without thousands of Jews converting.
Not true. I just quote you and your contradictions.
This one of your contradictions which does not fit any of the facts.
Perhaps in cooking and cleaning she may be. Even then, I’m not too sure. Certainly not for president, except among some pro-abortionists.
When I say Yamit is clueless about the US, this comment is a great example.
I’m not ashamed to say I’m shallow enough to vote for a pretty face with killer bod. Who cares what her politics are, in the end it hardly matters anyway. A real candidate who told the American people the truth would never be elected. Obama is continuing the policies of Bush and Bush even after 9/11 didn’t digress far from Clinton etc. 🙂
Anjelina Jolie is more qualified on international issues than Sarah Palin. No one is certain of Jolie’s politics, but her father is Jon Voight, outspoken conservative.
I just figured if people want someone with charisma, name recognition, optimism, and a pretty face, why not Martha Stewart? At least she knows how to create jobs and really beautiful pastries without causing half of America to go into ideological seizures, meaning she is not polarizing 🙂
Hmmm, Is Martha Stewart a conservative? I would suggest Michael Jackson but he’s dead but I’ll bet if he had run he would have won against either the right or the left.
Note to UNAmericanWeasel: being charismatic, optimistic, and photogenic are not qualifications for the American presidency. You continue to attack me personally for assessing the realities of American politics, which is exactly what Rubin does every day she posts, as in:
Palin is as much an ultra-lightweight as Obama. His on-the-job-learning has shown he thinks he knows-it-all, and is deeply partisan. Palin has a lot of the same polarizing traits. Obama was elected as the NOT-Bush43. The world deserves better in 2012 than the NOT-Obama, especially someone who uses the scenery of Alaska in a powder puff vanity excursion on a cable channel.
Martha Stewart is more qualified to be President than Sarah Palin.
“bedrock says: “What Every Jew should know about Sarah Palin’s religious affiliations.”
Christians have been trying to convert us for two millennium without success, I could really care less about her personal religious convictions. Her successes in the short term in Alaska against an entrenched republican good ole boy administration, her quick wit and intellect, ability to learn quickly and make good decisions, and her common sense combined with her love of this country, make her an excellent candidate for the Presidency. So what if she loves jesus, and wants others to accept that belief; thats what christians are SUPPOSED to beleive!! At least she isn’t trying to cut my head off and dance around in glee with my body parts!!!
And, she will treat America’s allies as if they are her allies.
Bedrock is a typical leftist Jew who is confused about who are his real friends and who are his enemies. These are the types who do outreach to muslim groups who advocate the destruction of Israel and justify terrorism but will not even be in the same room as an evangelical Christian on the grounds that they are religious “extremists”.
C4P has a very informative post that all of you in denal could benfit from.
10 Qualifications Sarah Palin Has Over Five Recent Presidents (Part One)
Belman: You are in deep denial.
Scant evidence and unsubstantiated conclusions. Therefor a lie and not the truth.
What Every Jew should know about Sarah Palin’s religious affiliations.
most of her life Sarah has been a member of the Wasilla Bible Church. A nondenominational body connected to “The Jews for Jesus” movement. This group claims to not to seek the conversion of Jews to christianity but merely to graft the concept of the Jesus Deity onto as many Jews as they can convince. If you can see the subtle difference between this concept and that of conversion to Christianty, you are a lot more intelligent than I am.But ever since she joined the ticket in late August, the Alaska governor’s various religious affiliations have caused headaches. The Bible Church became an issue again when Katie Couric asked Palin about the church’s promotion of a program to help gays “overcome” their homosexuality.
And finally, a videotape surfaced of a 2005 service at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, the Pentecostal church that Palin attended for most of her life. In the scene captured on video, Palin stands at the front of the sanctuary while a visiting African pastor prays that God will help her gubernatorial campaign and protect her “from every form of witchcraft.” Later in the same service, the pastor complains that “Israelites” held too many prominent positions in business, a comment that has further alienated Jewish voters.
Palin’s strong fixation on Jews and Israel stems her belief that the armageddon , the great war to be fought in the middle east will inevitably result in the destruction of the world and the return to earth of Christ. The choice to be given to all non christians, and especially Jews, accept christ as your Messiah and be redeemed, or failing that burn in hell.
It is time to expose the truth about Palin,
Two more years of this fight over the “soul” of America is going to destroy the Union that Lincoln cared so much about. We should never have fought the Civil War. We are still fighting it, and it will never end.
I am once again considering emigration to Mongolia, where the memory of Genghis Khan rules 🙂
I can see that.
It is good to see that Jennifer Rubin is having a positive influence on Birdalone, who has been on a tear against Sarah Palin, demeaning and dismissing her on this forum when she previously wrote:
And then continued with:
Which was contradicted by the facts:
http://www.okmagazine.com/2010/11/sarah-palins-alaska-pulls-epic-ratings-for-tlc/
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2010-11-12-1Apalin12_CV_N.htm
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117944004/
Here is some good news for Sarah Palin, whose focus has not been on forcing her pro-life choice on others but on restoring the economic principles of less government and lower tax rates that made this country great and restoring our standing in the world that has been deliberately diminished by Obama’s embarrassment over American exceptionalism and illustrated by his repeated apologies to Muslim tyrants and dictators:
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/democrats-are-losing-women/
Quote:
While national surveys have indicated a ten point shift to pro-life as opposed to pro-choice positions over the past twenty years, so dramatic a reversal from 2008 (when Obama carried women by huge margins) cannot be attributed to an attitudinal change on the abortion issue. Rather, it indicates that the issue has diminished in saliency, particularly as economic conditions have worsened and concerns about the impact of Obama’s legislation on health care quality have grown.
Unquote.
my apologies to Jennifer Rubin to quoting her in this thread, but she remains the voice of sanity who makes my day, every day.
Let me put it this way, if Palin succeeds in turning things around, she deserves to be President because she would have proved her ability.
let me know when you post on Palin after April, 2011.
Ron Paul will have to watch out if he wants to win the nomination.