If you really, honestly, REALLY want to know the REAL reason Sarah Palin is the target of so many vicious assaults, you need look no further than this article from the Kansas City Star's Prime Buzz, which tells of her endorsement in the New York 23rd Congressional race of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican Party candidate Dede Scozzafava, whom many conservative Republicans accuse of not being truly conservative enough to run as a GOP candidate.
In other words, Scozzafava is a typical New York Republican, much like the inside the beltway crowd of country club, so-called moderate Republicans who went quietly but obviously ballistic when fellow RINO John McCain chose Mrs. Palin as his running mate. And let's face it, despite the fact that Palin breathed a kind of life into his campaign that was neither warranted nor deserved, the two of them had very little in common. McCain was not conservative enough. Palin, if anything, is too conservative, certainly too conservative for the chattering classes who run the present day GOP and whose main area of conservatism is a concern for tax breaks for their wealthy friends and government welfare for their corporate buddies, especially those within the military industrial complex (for those out there who insist that is conservative, which I don't buy for a minute).
Palin's statement in support of Hoffman is as follows-
"Doug Hoffman stands for the principles that all Republicans should share: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and a commitment to individual liberty," the former Alaska governor wrote on her Facebook page. "Political parties must stand for something."
Contrast that to the meandering, mealy-mouthed statement of Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, considered by many to be Palin's chief rival for the 2012 GOP nomination, when he was asked whom he would endorse-
"You know I haven't been following that, I haven't studied the race at all," he said. "It's not that I would or wouldn't, I just don't know anything about it. I haven't taken the time to study their positions, their records, so I haven't taken a position on it."
That's the kind of thing that passes for statesmanship in today's political climate. Guess which one the GOP establishment will probably pull behind in 2012, were it to come down to a choice between Palin and Pawlenty.
If you guessed NOT the one who fought the Alaska State Republican machine and legislature during HER all too brief tenure as GovernESS of ALASKA, well whatever gave you that idea? Oh, I know, that would be because you would probably be right.
When a politician-strike that, when a public servant is feared, despised and reviled by the key operatives of both political parties, I can't think of a better reason to give such a person my unvarnished support.
I just wish she would come to her senses and stop standing in the way of Democrats aborting their (future Democratic voters) babies. But well, nobody's perfect.
8 comments:
John McCain would have lost to Obama by 30 or more percent had it not been for his selecting Sarah Palin.
Yep, and the Democrats would probably have had at least sixty-four Senators even before the defection of Magic Bullet Specter and Stewart Smiley's Minnesota "victory". And they probably would have had at least twenty more representatives than they ended up with.
Pawlenty is an unaccomplished governor. He can't be put in the same sentence as Ventura. He won the office, because the Dems picked a weak candidate.
Both are easy targets.
Ren, Ventura is a wrestling icon, but can you honestly say he was a good governor? It's too early to tell how anybody will do more than two or three months out from an election, and even two or three months can be a long time. Situations can change over night. In a country with so many people who have no hard set party loyalty or affiliation, you do yourself a disservice by assuming certain trends are written in stone.
As a relative outsider to all of this, I have to ask: How can you tell Scozzafava is a RINO or a country club Republican or whatever? Are there certain positions that she's taken, or is it about abortion or some particular issue? From the outside, it's hard to keep straight who's a "real" Republican and why. What's the litmus test?
Rufus-
She's probably a Giuliani Republican, which is fine, and even understandable. For one thing, I like Giuliani, generally speaking. For another, an actual conservative Republican would be unlikely to be elected in New York, even upstate New York.
I kind of jumped on this, to tell you the truth. It was more about Palin than it was Scozzafava.
In retrospect, I am kind of coming to the conclusion Palin might be in the wrong here, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and probably for no other reason than to shore up her conservative credentials and to extract some payback at a symbol of those establishment Republicans who have denounced her as surely as any liberal Democrat.
The interesting thing is you are seeing a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party fought out these days between the Palin wing and, ironically, the McCain wing. The bad thing for both sides is, one won't win without the other at the national level, so maybe Palin would be well advised to step out of this one and let the regional inclinations prevail.
Otherwise, the split might turn into a matter of irreconcilable differences come the next national election.
Not that that really matters a whole lot. I have an idea the Republicans are going to make significant gains in the 2010 mid-term elections, after which they will proceed post-haste to drive the electorate running and screaming right back to Obama in time for the 2012 elections, just like they did for Clinton in 1996 after their gains in 1994.
Politicians never learn from history, I'm afraid, any better than the rest of us.
Well, they definitely could make serious gains- the economy is stalled, unemployment is through the roof, the government is mucking around in everything. But, instead, it seems like they're having these increasingly arcane fights amongst themselves instead of focusing on winning over voters from the Democrats. They'll probably gain some seats, but if they don't gain a lot of them next year, people will start recycling that old joke about Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for the GOP.
I would like to see an end to all political parties, to tell you the truth. Let local candidates run in their areas and if they're good and do good jobs, they can rise to regional and state levels, and on from there get the support they need to run for national office. By the time they make it that far, they have the experience and hopefully the wisdom it takes to run the country without being beholden to corporate or special interests. They can be their own people and represent their constituents without having to make backroom party deals in order to stay in office and get things done for their constituents at the whim of some group of corrupt party bosses.
It's a dream world, I know. That's why I like Palin more than most other politicos. She strikes me as representative of that ideal.
Post a Comment