May build on this post later.  Was just at a brunch where a very intelligent man refused to accept that Sarah Palin had a record of accomplishment as Governor of Alaska.  Why is it that some Democrats (and a few Republicans) refuse to acknowledge — or even familiarize themselves with this woman’s record?

Is it because she is a woman?

I mean, when John McCain tapped her as his running mate, she enjoyed a 75% approval rating . . . among Alaska Democrats.  When Katie Couric interviewed the then-Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, the CBS News anchor didn’t once ask her interlocutor about her record.  Or what she had done to win support among Democrats as well as Republicans.

Do these folks just assume that a woman can’t stand up to a corrupt political establishment and effect real reforms?

As per my previous post, won’t have much time to weigh in on Hilary Rosen’s attack on Mrs. Romney, but some quick thoughts, largely through links to other bloggers.  Seems she received a warmer welcome than her husband at the NRA Convention:  ”Via Supplyboys News, it’s hard to tell from the audio but ABC says Ann Romney got a ‘hero’s welcome’ and a ‘rock-star reception’ from the crowd.”

Hilary Rosen has made it a lot easier for conservatives, particularly social conservatives to rally to Mitt Romney.  When they see a liberal pundit take on his wife, they rush to defend the individual attacked, hence Mrs. Romney’s rock-star reception. And if people learn her story how she raised five boys, battled breast cancer and suffers from MS, this charming woman will a far more sympathetic figure than she already is.

This kerfuffle allowed one revere conservative woman to challenge the hypocrisy of those who attacked her in 2008 for the choices she made, choices a bit different from those Mrs. Romney made in her life.  Tina Korbe writes about Sarah Palin’s reaction to this kerfuffle:

When she ran for vice president, some on the left actually criticized her for not staying home with her five children. Clearly, it’s not a “mommy” thing, Palin pointed out. It’s a conservative thing.

True. When was the last time you heard Nancy Pelosi criticized for anything at all related to her five children? Why is it conservative families are fair game, but liberal families are off-limits? Thank goodness President Barack Obama at least made that point: He has no patience, he said, for attacks on politicians’ spouses. Neither should we.

Palin also specifically says she thinks Rosen’s comments awakened “apolitical” moms.

Seems Hilary Rosen’s commentary is going to make it a lot easier for Sarah Palin to back Mitt Romney.  Or at least very publicly defend his wife.

Didn’t we have a conservative reader who said that he media attacks on Mitt Romney make the former Massachusetts governor more sympathetic to him?  This guy, as I recall, had not previously been favorably disposed to the presumptive Republican nominee.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  sonicfrog finds that “what Rosen did, in order to score some political points, was akin to throwing fellow woman Ann Romney under the bus. And here it’s worse, because Mrs Romney wasn’t even in the road, but was a pedestrian on the sidewalk, and Rosen had to swerve to nail her!”

If, back in 2008, our legacy media had taken the time to look into Sarah Palin’s actual record in Alaska politics, three names of corrupt politicians would forever be associated with her, Frank Murkowski, Greg Renkes and Randy Ruedrich.  And the reason we would associate their names with hers was not because she turned a blind eye to their double-dealing, but because she exposed it.

She stood up against corruption in her own party.  Each of those men is a Republican.  As she put it in her post yesterday on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government:

Barack Obama and I both served in political office in states with a serious corruption problem. Though there is a big difference between serving as the CEO of a city, then a state, and regulating domestic energy resources, and being a liberal Community Organizer, bear with me on the comparison. The difference between my record and Barack Obama’s is that I fought the corrupt political machine my entire career (and I have twenty years of scars to prove it) on the local, state, and national level. But Obama didn’t fight the corruption he encountered. He went along with it to advance his career.

Read the whole thing.

And yet our friends in the legacy media bought into the claim that that career Chicago poll was some new kind of politician.  They neither asked nor looked for any evidence to buttress his claims.

Sarah Palin, by contrast, had a real record of reform.  It’s just that some journalists thought her tanning bed of greater interest.

But, we’ve been through this before.  That said, it serves as an important reminder about necessary battlefield preparation for the coming presidential contest.

NB:  Tweaked the title to make it less clunky

If Rick Santorum were the consensus conservative choice for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich’s support would long since have melted away. And although his chances of winning the Republican nomination are slim, he still wins the support of sucy prominent mainstream conservatives as Fred Thompson and Tea Party favorites and this former governor who dubs the former Speaker the “cheerful one”:

Since the former Pennsylvania Senator’s hat trick last month in the Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri beauty contests, he has not exceeded 40% in a single state whereas Mitt Romney finished well above that barrier in Arizona, Massachusetts and Idaho.* Newt won over 40% in each of his victories, South Carolina and Georgia, respectively.

There’s a lot of talk about Republicans looking for a non-Romney, but some conservatives, it seems, are looking for an acceptable non-Santorum.  Indeed, in John Hawkins’s poll over conservative bloggers, he found Gingrich coming out ahead of Santorum when all candidates were included and beating Santorum in a head-to-head matchup.

And to many conservatives with doubts about Santorum, Newt remains the most acceptable alternative.

* (more…)

From the headlines on AOL yesterday:

He, merely, as your own reporting indicates, challenged her assessment of his political leanings:

Mitt Romney defended his conservative credentials on Wednesday, deflecting doubtful comments made by Sarah Palin about his strength with Republican voters.

In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” the former GOP vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor said that she was “not convinced” by Romney’s conservatism.

When asked about Palin’s comments on Wednesday, Romney defended his conservatism, giving a laundry list of examples. (more…)

I never expected Sarah Palin to run for president.  She’s smart and knows that should she falter in the campaign, she would lose some of the cachet she has in certain conservative circles.  Plus, it does seem she enjoys her life now as a conservative celebrity.

It came as little surprise thus when she announced as much “in a letter to supporters Wednesday night that was obtained by ABC News and read aloud on the Mark Levin radio program.”

Allahpundit explains why, he believes, the accomplished Alaska reformer “did the smart thing by staying out“:

Just yesterday, CBS found that three out of four Republicans didn’t want her to run compared to just 23 percent who did. Her favorable numbers have been underwater for ages and she would have been hammered on the inexperience charge for failing to finish her term as governor. I do think she could have emerged as the “Not Romney” in the race over Cain and a weakened Perry, but realistically there was no way to beat Mitt once it was a binary choice.  . . . . Worse, there was a chance that she wouldn’t even emerge as the “Not Romney”: If Perry or Cain ended up faring better than her in Iowa or South Carolina, it would have shattered her mystique as the ultimate champion of grassroots conservatives. By staying out, her supporters now get to say “she would have won if she ran” without ever having to test their theory and she gets to kinda sorta play kingmaker as people wait to see if she’ll endorse Perry, Cain, or (gasp) Romney.

Emphasis added.  Sarah Palin can read poll numbers as well as any politician.  She’s not in a strong position to win the Republican nomination (and in an even weaker position to unseat the unsuccessful incumbent).  Should she falter in the primaries, her charisma would likely not be able to rescue her reputation.

She’ll remain a kingmaker.  Her endorsement could well help decide the contest.  Whatever the case, the former governor seems to be enjoying herself now.  Having already experienced the rigors of a presidential campaign, she may rest a little easier that she will no longer have to subject herself to that grueling routine.

And she’ll still be able to make sport of the mainstream media.

It seems that whenever I fault the news media for going overboard about Sarah Palin, any Palin-hater within earshot will rebuke me for demanding that people refrain from criticizing the accomplished Alaska reformer.  They contend I wish to silence Palin critics. Heck, I don’t even seek to silence the rabid Palin-obsessives, just lament that those who criticize the charismatic conservative celebrity (more often than not) exaggerate her flaws, if not make up (or truncate) comments she has made or views she holds, all while refusing to acknowledge Sarah Palin’s strengths as an individual and her record as an office-holder.

Why can’t some people just express their disagreement with Mrs. Palin in a civil tone — and take the time to familiarize himself with her actual arguments?  Those who question her competence to hold office should at least consider her actual record in office.  But, some in the news media would rather ask gotcha questions than inquire into that record.

Despite the ignorance of many Palin critics of what that Republican woman actually did in Alaska, she was an accomplished reformer who had worked with Republicans and Democrats alike while governor of the Last Frontier.  Before questioning Palin’s qualifications to lead, Ann Althouse did just that when commenting on a movie based on the Alaskan’s accomplishments:

The material — which impresses some people, even to the point of getting confused into thinking that the movie is good — shows Sarah Palin’s rise to power in Alaska and her excellent achievements and immense popularity as governor. The problem is that all of this happened in the context of boldly and bravely challenging the corrupt Republican establishment. This made her very popular with Democrats in Alaska. (more…)

Sarah Palin did more to bring down corrupt politicians in her own party before she became governor than Barack Obama has done in his party, indeed in both parties, in his entire political career.

Sarah Palin reminds me of one of my teenage nieces who knows just how to smile and just what to say in order to manipulate her father.  For an example of such behavior, see the first scene of the Odyssey on Olympus.  Athene knows how to get Zeus to do her bidding. My niece is not nearly as successful as was the owl-eyed Olympian, but she is aware (at some level) of her charm and her power over men.  And Sarah Palin sure knows, on a much deeper level, just when and where to bat her eyelash to whip the media into a frenzy.

Or to get them to follow her motorcade when she doesn’t share her itinerary with them.  Today, I occasionally looked up from the new cardio machine to catch a glimpse of CNN commentators caught in Mrs. Palin’s web.  They were talking about her recent pizza summit in New York with the man who bills himself as the Donald (the real Donald has his own bill) and bemoaning that Mr. Trump and Mrs. Palin were upstaging the more serious candidates and preventing a serious discussion of the issues.

Methinks they were doing the bidding of the Obama campaign, trying to make Republicans look like we’re obsessed with the Trump/Palin circus.

But, the only reason Palin and Trump might be upstaging the other candidates is because, well, folks like those on CNN are dispatching their production crews to follow her every move as they shine their lights and focus their cameras on their stage.  Message to CNN:  if you don’t want Sarah Palin to upstage those whom you bill as the more serious candidates, then don’t cover her.

“For more than two years,” Michelle Malkin observes, “Palin-bashing journalists (on the establishment left and the right) have mocked the conservative supernova while milking her for headlines, circulation, viewership and Web traffic.”

These guys just can’t leave her alone.  They give her a prominent role on their broadcasts while complaining that she gets too much publicity.  They should learn from wise fathers of teenagers.  It is possible to say, “No,” to a charming and attractive young woman.

UPDATE:  In a great post on the media’s Palin obsession, John Nolte wonders “how many of these so-called journalists who are now making complete fools of themselves choking on bus fumes left unfinished ‘Palin is irrelevant’ pieces on their desk to dash off and make fools of themselves.”  Read the whole thing.

While I have been more critical of Sarah Palin in recent days than I was during the 2008 presidential campaign, I still admire the accomplished reformer for her ability to drive liberals crazy without insulting them and to keep her name in the media.  Yesterday, Glenn linked this from Hot Air:

Once again, the former vice presidential nominee has proven she can tilt the political world on its axis in an instant. Last week, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann took their campaigns to Iowa, but it was the news of Palin’s bus tour that really had people talking. She made a simple announcement on her website, and she got all the attention, all the interest.

Today on Hot Air, Ed Morrissey tells us that the media have been grumbling “that Palin’s decision to keep them out of the loop on the tour’s stops have created a dangerous working environment for reporters“, with CBS reporting

Since Palin and her team won’t share where the potential candidate is headed, reporters and producers have little choice but to simply stay close to Palin’s bus. This has resulted in scenes of the Palin bus tooling down the highway followed by a caravan of 10 or 15 vehicles – including a massive CNN bus – all trying to make sure they don’t lose sight of the Palin bus.

It adds up to a dangerous situation, says CBS News Producer Ryan Corsaro.

I can just see the former Alaska governor looking back through tinted glass windows at the caravan of media struggling to keep up with her bus and laughing (a rich, deep, full laugh) at their obsession.  Morrissey offers them a means to spare themselves this dangerous pursuit:  ”Here’s your first option: stop chasing her.  If it truly presents a danger to journalists to drive behind the bus and attempt to keep up, then don’t bother doing it.”  Yeah, but, Ed, as Glenn put it, “She’s living in their heads, rent-free, 24-7.”  Like a jilted boyfriend, they can’t let her go.

In addition to being the official left-wing panty buncher, Sarah Palin may well also serve that role for the MSM.

UPDATE:  I believe the answer to this question is “Yes”: Media wonders: Could Palin be manipulating us?.

UP-UPDATE:  Jeff Goldstein finds that her failure to play by the traditional rules of political travel is. . .

. . . driving the mainstream press to distraction — giving her the media coverage she needs, on her terms, because they just can’t quit her, and because they can’t help but take offense at her audacity in ignoring them, which serves to remind them, uncomfortably, that their cultural significance is based solely on people’s willingness to believe in their power.

In commenting on Josh Green’s Atlantic piece on Sarah Palin, Jennifer Rubin takes slight issue with said reporter’s conclusion that the former Alaska governor is a tragic figure and elucidates a pitfall of politics — and of blogging as well:

One can’t but feel that Palin was not only snared in the web of resentment but that it determined a particular course for her post-2008 career. She embarked on a particular path, one incompatible with being a serious force on conservative policy and a credible presidential contender. . . .

But one can’t really call it a “tragedy” as Green does. She’s attained fame and fortune and she has as loyal a following as any popular figure. But she made a choice — to bear grudges, to forgo serious policy study, to reject the advice of all but a handful of advisers. It is a shame for those who saw a star-quality and enviable political talent. But tragedy? No. She simply chose a different path.

“Snared in the web of resentment”:  a good way to describe what sometimes happen to bloggers who end up responding to hate comments where the critic makes little effort to understand our arguments, even less to acknowledge the sincerity of our expression.  But, alas, they’re not interested in our opinions, but see us instead as targets for their own animus.

Just as most Palin critics are little interested in her record.  Josh Green is.  Outlining her successes as governor and asking a question which almost perfectly parallels an exchange I had with a liberal Alaska woman last summer*, he asks:

WHAT HAPPENED TO Sarah Palin? How did someone who so effectively dealt with the two great issues vexing Alaska fall from grace so quickly? Anyone looking back at her record can’t help but wonder: How did a popular, reformist governor beloved by Democrats come to embody right-wing resentment?

I do think he’s a little harsh here, but he is onto something.  Sarah Palin doesn’t so much embody right-wing resentment as she taps into it, but she also exudes conservative enthusiasm.  She can still articulate that vision of the Gipper, painting a picture of that shining city on a hill and expressing the confidence that we can still find our way toward that idyllic place.  But, in promoting that visions, she’s become more of a cheerleader than a policy leader.   (more…)

Kinda wrecks the narrative:

HOPE: Sarah Palin Throws Support Behind GOProud Participation at CPAC.

Ed Morrissey sums its up:

Palin has quietly backed the end of DADT and expressed support for conservative gays and lesbians in the past. Speaking here with David Brody from the Christian Broadcast Network and excerpted by Breitbart TV, Palin doesn’t endorse GOProud but does defend their attendance at CPAC, and argues that the value of events such as CPAC is to debate the issues and provide as much information as possible to attendees

Not quite a ringing endorsement, but she does seem to subscribe to the view that the conservative movement should be open to all who embrace conservative ideas.  And note also that the accomplished former Alaska Governor is talking to someone from the Christian Broadcast Network which surely includes some viewers who would not welcome GOProud’s participation.  This lady is not pandering to her audience.

Make sure to check out Ed’s post for his poll on GOProud participation.

As our long-time readers know, Dan and I are “Reagan Babies” — we grew up with Reagan as THE President of the United States.  I was physically born under LBJ, but I was ‘born-again as a conservative American’ under Ronald Reagan.

Sunday, February 6, 2011 is The Gipper’s 100th Birthday and there are major celebrations going on all over the nation and around the world.  The focus of the anniversary party is one of my favorite spots in the United States — The Reagan Library. 

Tonight, the party starts with a keynote address by Gov. Sarah Palin at the Reagan Library.  The speech will be shown on C-SPAN at 11PM Eastern Time.  And we will “simulcast” it right here.

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

Come back tonight at 11PM Eastern and watch the speech.  Follow me on www.twitter.com/gaypatriot throughout this weekend … and next week at CPAC where there will also be Reagan100 festivities!!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Democrats were in major meltdown when John McCain tapped Sarah Palin as his running mate just days before the Republican National Convention in 2008, in large part, because Sarah Palin was the change agent Barack Obama claimed to be.  As governor of Alaska, she actually took on entrenched interests, worked across party lines and shook up her state’s political establishment.

No wonder Democrats (and their allies in the MSM) chose to ignore her actual record of accomplishment and dwell on her occasional verbal gaffes.

She has become better at handling the media today than she was in the campaign.   She’s won every round with them since she stepped down as governor July 2009.  But, in winning, she has made herself less presidential.  She has gone toe to toe with the media rather than let others challenge their malicious (and often inaccurate) reporting.

On Wednesday, she released a statement on the shooting in Arizona and, as she put it, “the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.”  On the whole, it was a sound statement, but save for her vigorous defense of America and its ideals, entirely unnecessary.  Long before she released this video, she had, thanks to countless pundits and bloggers (including some on the left) already won this round — and decisively.

With no evidence to tie her to the mentally unbalanced men who shot Congresswoman Giffords and murdered six innocent civilians, those accusing her were quickly exposed and denounced.

She didn’t need to say anything.

The problem with her video was not its content, but that she entered the fray when others were already defending her against the malicious attacks from Paul Krugman et al.  And even after beclowning themselves with said attacks, they went on the rampage again on Wednesday attacking her for using the expression “blood libel” in her video message.  They just can’t help themselves; they’re just looking for an excuse to attack her — as if they need vent against this charismatic conservative in order to quiet some demon plaguing their psyches. (more…)

This morning, a piece on GOProud’s web-site reminded me of something a reader told me our LA dinner last month.  Sarah Palin who loves to use Twitter and Facebook to comment on the events of the days was silent on an issue about which everyone was then buzzing:  repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT).

This silence doesn’t fit with the media image of a Palin as a socially conservative anti-gay demoness eager to keep gay people in the closets and lesbians at the loom.

Our good friends at GOProud report that the former Alaska Governor re-tweeted a Gay-Friendly, Anti-DADT Comment:

New York Magazine has this great post about a Twitter tweet sent by conservative radio talk show host and GOProud Advisory Council Chair Tammy Bruce.  Bruce’s comment was re-tweeted by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Read the whole thing.

With comments like this, seems he’s trying to get his old job back:

JUAN WILLIAMS says that Sarah Palin can’t stand on the same intellectual stage as Barack Obama.

Yeah, but to keep your liberal credentials in good standing, you have to both attack Sarah Palin and FoxNews (while equating George W. Bush with Emperor Palpatine and Dick Cheney with Darth Vader).

As long as Williams maintains his berth on FoxNews, he won’t enjoy the status he once did in left-of-center circles.

Tom Diemer reports:

In an interview with Parade magazine, Winfrey said America could “fall in love” with the former Alaska governor as a television personality, at least based on her reality show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” But Winfrey, the queen of talk-show TV, said she didn’t really know Palin personally and wasn’t sure if she would run for president in two years, CNN said.

Does the prospect of a conservative Palin candidacy frighten Winfrey? Parade asked. “It does not scare me because I believe in the intelligence of the American public,” she replied, somewhat ambiguously.

At 9:23 AM, he posted this:

L.A. TIMES: The Sarah Palin puzzle: A plurality disapproves yet a growing majority now identifies with her view

Then, at 10:36, this:

JOHN HINDERAKER: “True, to describe someone as ‘better than Obama’ may be damning with faint praise nowadays. But that fact, too, can hardly give the Dems comfort.” Think how much bigger the gap between Palin and Obama would be if the two got equivalent press . . . .

Emphasis added.

(Seems kinda like an ask & answer to me.)

I couldn’t express it any better than Kevin Williamson did at The Corner on NRO.

About Christine O’Donnell: No strong opinion about the candidate, though I understand the reservations about her. I do not much weep for RINOs and rather enjoy the sight of them going down in flames.

What this really should communicate, I think, is that the Right needs a lot more Club for Growth–style candidate-recruiting efforts. If conservatives do not like O’Donnell, then they should be out identifying better candidates to run against vulnerable RINOs — because somebody is going to run. These incumbent takedowns are going to inspire a lot of new people to get into electoral politics, many of them without the sort of experience or backgrounds that Establishment types are comfortable with. Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Another member of the Alaska Republican establishment falls victim to the reforming zeal of Sarah Palin:  Incumbent Lisa Murkowski has conceded to challenger Joe Miller in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

Speaking to reporters at her campaign headquarters in Anchorage, Murkowski said “based on where we are right now, I don’t see a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor.”

The concession come after a day of counting absentee ballots in which Murkowski gained little ground on Miller, the Fairbanks attorney backed by former Gov. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express.

There will be another Republican committed to cutting the federal budget and repealing Obamacare in the 112th Senate.