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Why Sarah Palin Matters

by

And it’s not just that the mere mention of her name can whip liberals into a frenzy.

It’s that she is a natural politician who can, as few leaders have in recent years, command a stage and capture the popular imagination.  She has a natural charisma and public presence similar to that of the incumbent President of the United States.  But, unlike him, she actually has a record of accomplishment, even of transcending political labels and working in a bipartisan manner to effect real reform.

In short, Sarah Palin is what Barack Obama claimed to be.  Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric, putting himself forward as a post-partisan reformer, may have described his aspirations at the time, but it also described her record.  She keeps her promises.

In her short time on the national stage, Sarah Palin has shown that she can communicate a conservative message to a broad national audience.  More people might have warmed to that message had the media showed more clips from her speeches and provided fewer details about her family (and offered less speculation about her background).

She matters because of her presence and her record, a record with which most of her critics are both oblivious and in which many are entirely disinterested.  We Republicans need more people like Ronald Reagan, pragmatic legislators and gifted communicators.  She has that in common with the Gipper.  That said, she needs to do something the he did before his rise to power, take a good deal of time to study the ideas undergirding modern conservatism and relate those ideas to the contemporary political situation and to current economic and social issues.

In short, Sarah Palin needs a better education in the freedom agenda.

Not just that, like the Gipper, she needs to learn to rise “above the fray“.  She has his gifts, but needs to develop his substance.  While the latter can be learned, the former cannot be achieved (even with great effort).  Either you got it or you ain’t.  And, boys, she’s got it . . . in spades.  And that’s why she matters.  It’s the learning she has yet to do.  But, she’s already begun the process and is, as many have reported, a “quick study.”

Because she has those gifts, she will continue to get attention.  The time may yet come when she commands the national political stage as did Barack Obama in 2008.  But, I doubt it will be in 2012.

Comments

  1. Watching from Australia, I felt that she really was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, as the campaign progressed I came to feel that there wasn’t that much of substance to her that would fit her for the VP job and, more importantly, for the Presidential job in case John McCain’s health should get the better of him – she didn’t have the smarts for the job, although there’s little doubt she had the guts. That being said, I thought the way she was demonised and every small flaw brought up to drag through the mud was unconscionable.

    She really is the Women’s Lib dream come true – the problem is, she’s on the “wrong side” and I think she made a lot of left-wing feminists feel very bad about themselves, because she’s achieved everything they say they want for women while never at any point subscribing to their philosophy. She’ll never be their poster-girl, they can’t sell her as a product, and they can’t turn her to their purposes. So she has to be discredited or destroyed.

  3. Dan, I’m not a supporter of Sarah Palin’s but I have to admit she’s a dynamic, interesting take on what a career-mom in the GOP can truly be… and successful in juggling all of that, too. And she’s a great voice for the conservative movement.

    You hit on part of what irks the far Left and Democrats about Mrs Palin.

    I think the bigger part you’ve missed, though. I think she really gets them ticked off viscerally because they thought they had a lock on being the voice of the working moms, the career women, working families, families with disabilities, joe average moms.

    Then she came along with her Hockey Mom candor and record of incredible success –and facing all the adversities in life and parenting and juggling a career and serving others– and the far Left and Democrats felt their stranglehold on being the voice of working women and working moms was slipping away faster than a tray of BoTox syringes at a Democrat Congressional Caucus meeting.

    I think that’s a bigger part of what irks the Democrats about Mrs Palin.

  4. “I think that’s a bigger part of what irks the Democrats about Mrs Palin.”

    Nice thought, but of course wrong.
    What irks Democrats is the same things that irks McCain’s former staff, people like David Brooks and many many others is quite simple:

    She is very dumb.
    She is very impressionable.
    She seems very insecure.
    She comes across as a moron
    Oh yeah and she is a liar (she lied in her very first con. speech!)

    That’s what bugs people about her.

  5. While former-Gov. Palin has charisma and a folksy charm…I’m not yet convinced there’s much ‘there’ there for a national leader. And here cut-and-run from the Alaska Governor’s office so that she could hit the book and lacture circuit REALLY bothers me. Yes, she’s taking advantage of this inter-campaign lull in the Presidentiual cycle to travel and get some seasoning, I think she would have been better-served staying on in Alaska for the full-term…especially as I was her first-term. Instead it’s a multi-million-dollar book deal and tour, with lots of fund-raising visits for fellow Republicans who may be beholding to here in 2012 or 2016.

    She just doesn’t appeal to me as a potential-leader from an intellectual standpoint, and her Christianist world-view suggests her being a disaster for the G/L community, conservative or liberal.

  6. As to how well Palin did at the S’Oprah buffet, I can not say. I didn’t partake. But there is an ocean of difference between Oprah and Whoopie. Palin was wise to hawk her book with the only TV icon who has a book club or even admits to being able to read. Furthermore, Oprah is a lady.

    In my opinion, Sarah Palin does not owe Letterman, The View, Couric, et. al. a shot at making a punching bag of her. The tall dogs of snark theater always welcome one of their own (Hillary) with soft ball innuendo, but Sarah Palin would be walking into a whipping with concertina wire. She can not win on enemy TV. Those watchers and voters are there for the feeding frenzy, not to challenge their biases.

    Palin is smart to get experience with the press in the lower 48 and to make an effort to communicate with and through them. They only have three topics: quitter, abortion, and mayor of a toy town in a nothing state. I suppose there are others like hayseed colleges, tramp daughter, knuckle dragging church, seeing Russia from her bathroom window and naming her children after fast food kids meals. But once that level of “reporting” begins, Palin’s numbers rise among those who care about integrity.

    Obama has made himself into a smorgasbord for a tough, smart, witty politician who wants to take him out with clarity laced with finesse. Palin’s research and basic instincts should be more than a match for Obambi’s teleprompter and blackberry self. He goes all stumblebum and reveals his radical socialist self when he is under pressure and has to make his mouth move without a script.

    I am looking forward to watching Palin make her case.

  7. gillie at 5 gets it half-right: “Nice thought”.

    You should have stopped while you were ahead, gillie. Spitting out old democrat underground talking points that have been discredited even on liberal and moderate sites is a no-winner. Maybe you should loosen that tin foil hat on your head… it’s interfering with the alien transmissions.

  8. I’m with Ted B. I like her a lot, she can be a very strong voice for conservatives. But I fear she left the political arena too soon. Unless she’s rather be a pundit and speaker and will rally behind other candidates.

    She accomplished a lot in Alaska, then cut it all short – that is not presidential material.
    Last night with some friends, I mentioned that Obama is proof of why the President needs a lot more experience behind him/her.
    I was told that she is such a breath of fresh air, we ‘need’ someone like us.
    I wholeheartedly disagree with that. Being the leader of the free world isn’t a job for Joe the Plumber or even nice conservative mom from Alaska.

    Had she stayed governor I’d think differently, but leaving politics means you’ve left politics – it doesn’t make you better or stronger.

  9. Hmmm…..if Obama is smarter then palin (supposadly):

    1) Why is unemployment still over 10% arround the country? He is the “best and the brightest,” as you folks were saying last year.

    2) For all the TALK of getting rid of foreign oil, has there been any movement in the energy industry by the same person? (hint: NO)

    3) If the Democrats and Obama are so smart, why can’t they pass their agenda without any Conservatives or republicans? (Hint: yelling: BusHitler for 8 years does not endear us help. No apology and no-post-partisanship from same “Smart” President means no bills pass with any GOP support).

    And if Gov. palin is so dumb:

    1) Why was she able get a ppipeline deal passed when former Gov’s of Alaska could not?

    2) Why was she able to clean out corrupt Republicans from her state when Obama could not clean out corrupt politicians from his (Chicago and Blago)?

    3) If she really was stupid, why did the Obama Admin (2009) still send people after her in a Governing year rather then an election year? maybe that’s why Obama cannot get any bill passed, he still wants to go after Republicans.

    Sit back and enjoy watching President Obama follow in Carter’s path. It should be fun.

  11. Palin WILL get attention because she is a tap dancing vaudeville act, shimmying to the tune of Ka-ching…I can’t seem to look away from Sarah VAIN & SIMPLE, but not for the reasons you state.

    Sarah Palin/Fabio 2012!

  12. Do you see anyone on the right obsessing over John Edwards the way the left obsesses over Sarah Palin? Both of them were VP candidates on failed national tickets. Both of them have an excess of drama in their family lives. Both of them appeal to the base of their respective parties. Both of them are easily caricatured. But there’s only one of them who evokes visceral spitting hatred among one side’s partisans.

    IMHO, this has less to do with the individuals themselves than with the pathologies on each side. Left-wingers need to hate, and need to let everyone know what they hate. Right-wingers reserve their anger for those who are actually in power, like Obama and Pelosi.

  13. It’s the Obama Asian (Apology) Tour… I’m waiting until he gets to Singapore and the APEC meeting. I wonder if his tourism card includes a visit to one of the radical, anti-American madrasahs in Singapore? he could chant the call to morning prayers from the minaret at Masjid Al-Mawaddah… he probably still has that impecable Indonesian accent.

    Oh wait, just because the Jakarta Catholic school he attended in Indonesia listed him as “Barry Soetoro” and his religion as Islam doesn’t mean a thing.

  14. One thing that IS easy to imagine is that if Sarah Palin ran into the Emperor of Japan on her book tour, if it goes worldwide, she wouldn’t be bowing to the Royal Couple.

    Not like the Obama did. There’s a funny send-up on the Obama’s courtly bow… but no apology for using WWII nukes on Japan, kicking their butts back to the island or rebuilding their society in the image of America and stripping the Emperor of his divinity.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6fL7Y4BZA

  15. From the NRO article:

    Of course, there are lots of other issues that governors deal with — health care, social services, transportation, and others — and on some of them Palin has yet to make a significant mark.

    That’s a problem I think.

  16. Third, she is dead set on fulfilling campaign promises. “There was this absolute expectation that if it was an issue that had been talked about during the campaign and there was a particular commitment that she had made, then we had to live up to it, no matter how difficult,”

    Unless of course, it’s difficult for her, then she quits – see Alaska Energy Commission and Half a Term Governorship.

  17. lots of cognitive dissonance in this post.

    palin is bipartisan? maybe as governor, but during the campaign she was redmeat to conservatives. her function was to rally the base. since the campaign, she hasn’t deviated from doctrinaire conservatism. she’s one of the most polarizing figures in american politics, and polarizing figures aren’t bipartisan.

    palin is a communicator in the same vein as reagan? seriously? if anything, communication is her greatest flaw. i know you discount her interviews with charlie gibson and katie couric as examples of the “liberal media bias” but the bottom line is that palin looked foolish and unprepared in those interviews. she couldn’t speak intelligently about the economy, foreign policy, the bailout, health care, the supreme court, etc. these were not lofty expectations: these were the issues that were important to the american voter in the election. perhaps the american people would know more about her “accomplishments” if she was better able to communicate them. but that’s HER fault, not the media’s.

    broader audience? what, exactly, has she done since the election to broaden her appeal? in my opinion, she has intensified her appeal to the republican base at the expense of appealing to a broader audience. this, again, is a failure that distinguishes her from reagan. he built coalitions of voters; palin, by her very polarizing nature, divides people.

  19. The time may yet come when she commands the national political stage as did Barack Obama in 2008. But, I doubt it will be in 2012.

    Someone said yesterday that the Obama machine is already gearing up to GOTV for Palin at the Iowa caucuses in 2012. Dunno if its true or not, but wouldn’t surprise me one bit from this most corrupt president.

  23. Just like the Dems put Howard Dean in charge of the party after 2004, the GOP should put Palin in charge. This is a win-win in my opinion. Folks on the right either love her and hate her. The folks that love her, get to know she will help pick our candidate in 2012. The folks that hate her, will be happy she won’t be running in 2012.

  28. In the era of the Obama White House so few people evaluate Sarah’s resignation based on what was best for Alaska. All the judgement stems from today’s political standard: he who best milks the office for personal gain wins.

    Let’s face it, a government Lear Jet for sale on E-bay while you’re firing the in-house chef is so un-glamorous. It just doesn’t wear well with Prada, nor get people excited and whispering at a 30 Rock rooftop fundraiser. Ick. We can’t have that. How dull.

    Despite the fact Palin spoon fed us reason after reason for her resignation with respect to benefitting interests of the State of Alaska at her exit Press Conference, so few people could hear her. Especially Oprah and Company. And by the way, $500K-and-counting in legal debts thanks to sleazy liberal character assassins, when you’re raising a bunch of kids, is nothing to sneeze at.

  29. “Despite the fact Palin spoon fed us reason after reason for her resignation with respect to benefitting interests of the State of Alaska at her exit Press Conference, so few people could hear her.”

    Nobody had any problem hearing her. Its just that nobody over the age of 13 believed her, except those few who for some bizarre reason are thoroughly smitten….

  30. Oh, Tano, Tano, Tano, go read Continetti’s book before casting aspersions on those who believe her. And if you stay up long enough, you may not need to read the whole book, but just my next post should I blog on one of the reasons he gives for her resignation.

    And I grant he explains those reasons much better than she does, a sign that she still needs hone her gifts of communication.

  32. Livewire, it isn’t pictures Tano demands in his nightstand reading, it’s cartoons. You missed the difference. And no, no cartoons in the Palin book… so, Tano will just use the usual “read and rip” democrat underground comments spun by other, more-clever, people and post them as his.

  33. Nobody had any problem hearing her. Its just that nobody over the age of 13 believed her, except those few who for some bizarre reason are thoroughly smitten….

    Tano must be quoting one of his favorite polls here. I admit that Tano has presented a “Tano fact” that leaves a very small universe for Palin supporters. Sort of like being a member of the flat earth society and venturing into parts unknown. Of course, maybe the earth is not flat and maybe the “Tano fact” is, well, gosh, um, whattosay?,……. just……wrong.

  36. It has absolutely everything to do with Palin.

    Your premise — that it is somehow unreasonable or hypocritical to allow an interview while also demanding that the press not try to use the children as political punching bags — is false. One does not follow from the other.

    You are confusing the legitimate, reasonable desire of the people to meet a candidates children, with the illegitimate and unreasonable demand to rifle through their underwear drawer, read their diaries, and gossip about them behind their backs.

    It also shows (as do previous interviews with the Bush twins, and Chelsea Clinton) that Palin’s expectation that she should be able to allow her children to be interviewed without expecting them to be abused by the press is supported by a great deal of precedent.