It has been a week since Sarah Palin announced her intention to resign as Governor of Alaska later this month. As a Palin supporter, while somewhat sympathetic to her situation given the continuing assault from the media and their allies on the left, I am disappointed that this good woman decided not to tough it out and show her courage, her resilience under fire–as she did during last fall’s campaign.
While appreciating the many accomplishments of Sarah Palin (many more than the incumbent US President when he launched his first bid for national office), she was not my choice to be the GOP standard bearer in 2012. I believe she should wait until 2020–after she had completed two terms as Governor — and perhaps had moved out to the Senate, defeating the Last Frontier’s accidental Democratic Senator Mark Begich.
On several occasions, I have compared Sarah Palin to Ronald Reagan. Like the Gipper, she has a natural stage presence and energizes conservatives. Unlike her, however, when he made his successful bid for the White House, he had completed two full terms as Govenor of a state — and “served” for sixteen years as the de facto head of the conservativce movement. Not just that, he had spent several years educating himself, studying conservative ideas and economic theory.
Yes, we conservatives all love her energy and appreciate how she, just by her very existence, enrages the heads of left-wingers to “explode,” but that is not enough to make her a successful presidential nominee or Commander-in-Chief. She has the raw talent to lead this great nation, she’s just not there yet. If she had stayed on as Governor, she could have better developed her talents, turning that potential into leadership on a daily basis.
She can still do that in other roles, as did the Gipper before he made his first bid for public office. But, she won’t be ready in 2012, though she will surely be more ready than the man she would succeed should she win that year. And his first six months in office have shown how we don’t want a chief executive who needs on the job training.
Sarah Palin has it within her to be as Ronald Reagan was both to the GOP and to the nation, galvanizing conservatives into an effective political force and restoring the nation’s greatness and economic health. I fear, however, that the choice she made last week takes her one more step away from that goal.
But, elective office is not he only path to leadership. She could yet take on the mantle of the Gipper.
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While the conservative-wing of the Republican Party might follow Palin, is she the right leader for the Party in the 21st-century? To reference-backwards to Reagan only repeats the past and perpetuates old doctrines for good, and fo bad. It’s been 30+ years since Reagan’s run against Ford…and the times and the Nation have changed. The challenges and opportunities have changed.
It’s worth revisiting the words of Theodore Roosevelt in 1910, it still holds echoes in our troubled times;
“Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
— I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service… When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit… Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics… For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.” _ T. Roosevelt.
We need another Theodore Roosevelt with a “new” Square Deal leading forwards into the Second American Century, not one looking nostalgically backwards. I’m just not yet convinced that’s Palin…nor Romney or Pawlenty
As much as I find her refreshing and like her, I’m a little surprised that in these days with Obama in Russia, Italy, the Vatican and with Michael Jackson’s death, Sarah Palin manages to remain on the front page. She’s fascinating because she manages the seemingly contradictory: she simultaneously fulfills and challenges stereotypes. She’s a lighting rod, an icon, she’s humble, she’s a little strange, …
I think she has to strike while the iron is hot. She has a brand that people want to buy. The demand for expertise and ‘seasoning’ and ‘gravitas’ implies the requirement to travel on certain paths, in certain circles, litmus tests, and a resume that leans to sameness. Palin flies in the face of all of that and while I don’t trust a collective reactionary emotion against it to necessarily govern effectively, saying she’s not ready and demanding years of service playing by the rules of status quo politics is trying to have it both ways.
I should add that I too thought she needed seasoning, but I’ve changed my mind. She’s still fresh, but not new and we’ve grown more comfortable with her and less comfortable with the current administration. Some well-timed speeches taking shots at RahmObama & Co. and getting out on the campaign trails of reform-minded candidates for Congress will be both creating and riding a tide. She is the most interesting political figure since Reagan.
Great article Dan. As you are far more articulate than I am, I have nothing to add other than that I agree with you.
I haven’t seen official confirmation of it from SarahPAC, but I’ve heard that she is the keynote speaker at the Simi Valley Republican Womens Club at the Reagan Library on August 8th. I suspect that during the next 2 years we we see and hear a lot of fireworks coming from the Palin camp. Whatever damage done by her resignation will be only short term, and from the polls it looks like little if any damage has been done.
July 27th will be the first day of the Palin Revolution, get ready for it.
We need another Theodore Roosevelt with a “new” Square Deal leading forwards into the Second American Century, not one looking nostalgically backwards.
Sooooo……we shouldn’t look back to Reagan, but we should look even further back to Teddy to look forward???
Great article. I agree with pretty much all of it. Personally, I see her as our future, just maybe not the immediate future.
She’s still very young and has her entire political life in front of her–unlike Obama, who has for all intents and purposes, has shot his political wad. Even IF he should win a second term, he’s finished at a very young age. The coming year will tell us more about Sarah’s prospects, although I’m really looking forward to her getting out into the public square and verbally ‘pantsing’ Obama and crew in front of America.
I bet it kills Hillary and Pelosi every time Sarah Palin is described as young and attractive.
“But, elective office is not he only path to leadership. She could yet take on the mantle of the Gipper.”
Well put Dan, and concise as well. I agree she needs more development before setting foot into the oval office.
Sarah has this way of responding to today’s political-media axis that creates freedom, where it typically crushes most others. She’s like Luke in that scene in the first Star Wars– sticking a bone in that giant, oppressive beast’s jaw as if he can’t be bothered, then defeating it.
She is a person who both understands and nurtures freedom in an era where most don’t. It’s her great strength. Me thinks time will reveal the shrewdness of her recent decisions.
Go Sarah! You are nobody’s fool!
I think in 2012 President-Elect Mitt Romney should appoint her Secretary of Energy.
No one knows where the future will take Palin, not even the governor herself. Her reemergence on the national scene and the scathing response from so many of her party peers underscores one thing, however: Republicans may hold dear their memories of the late Ronald Reagan. But his famous 11th Commandment — “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican” — was laid to rest a long time ago.
mark.barabak@latimes.com