Posts filed under 'Sarah Palin'
November 22nd, 2009
Frank Rich CONCISELY ANALYZES the strengths and weaknesses of the former Alaska governor and smartly pegs her place in the overall scheme of American politics.
A few excerpts:
Palin is far and away the most important brand in American politics after Barack Obama, and attention must be paid. Those who wishfully think her 15 minutes are up are deluding themselves…
Palin’s political appeal has never had anything to do with facts — or coherent policy positions. The more she is attacked for not being in possession of pointy-headed erudition, the more powerful she becomes as an avatar of the anti-elite cause. As Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, has correctly observed, “She represents less a philosophical strain on the right than an affect and a demographic.”
That demographic is white and non-urban: Just look at the stops and the faces on her carefully calibrated book tour. The affect is emotional — the angry air of grievance that emerged first at her campaign rallies in 2008, with their shrieked threats to Obama, and that has since resurfaced in the Hitler-fixated “tea party” movement (which she endorses in her book). It’s a politics of victimization and sloganeering with no policy solutions required beyond the conservative mantra of No Taxes. Its standard-bearer can make stuff up with impunity: “Thanks, but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere; Obama’s “palling around with terrorists”; health care “death panels”…
Culture is politics. Palin is at the red-hot center of age-old American resentments that have boiled up both from the ascent of our first black president and from the intractability of the Great Recession for those Americans who haven’t benefited from bailouts. As Palin thrives on the ire of the left, so she does from the disdain of Republican leaders who, with a condescension rivaling the sexism they decry in liberals, belittle her as a lightweight or instruct her to eat think-tank spinach.
November 19th, 2009
It says HERE that the Dream Ticket for 2012 is not out of the question.
Oh, please, please, please let it happen. Please.
November 17th, 2009
Right-wing fans of Sarah Palin are in a major snit these days because Newsweek magazine dared to grace its cover (above) with a comely photo for which Palin willingly posed.
Is Newsweek guilty of sexism?
Steve M. doesn’t think so, as he explains HERE.
November 16th, 2009
Democrats should read THIS PIECE carefully and then fervently pray that the scenario envisioned therein actually happens.
Of course, by the same token, the dwindling ranks of Republicans who can walk upright and read stop signs without moving their lips should strive to make sure it doesnt happen, lest their party wander so deep into the wildnerness that it won’t find its way out for a generation or two.
An excerpt:
If Palin launches a 2012 race – and survives the South Carolina primary with her aura intact – she could theoretically sweep the winner-take-all states without ever winning a majority anywhere. The Republican establishment (the congressional leadership, the governors, the major donors and national consultants) could all agree that Palin would be an electoral disaster against Obama in November and still be powerless to halt her juggernaut.
The best way to stop Sarah would be for GOP insiders to rally quickly around a single anti-Palin candidate. But such cabals rarely work in politics because there are too many egos involved. Would, say, Romney be so panicked about Palin that he would prematurely abandon his presidential ambitions to support a potentially more winnable candidate like maybe Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty? Not bloody likely. For that matter, would populist Huckabee drop out in favor of a big-business Republican like Romney to prevent Palin mania? Yeah, sure.
Although the party rules are entirely different than in 1964 when Goldwater permanently decimated the Eastern liberal Republican Party, the guiding principle is the same. A well-known candidate with a passionate following who organizes early can win the nomination even if a large swath of the party believes that he or she is ill-equipped to be entrusted with the nation’s nuclear codes.
November 14th, 2009
Sarah Palin’s eagerly awaited book “Going Rogue,” which is set for release on Tuesday, is FACT-CHECKED by the Associated Press.
An excerpt:
Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer’s dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.
POSTSCRIPT: If Disney did a movie about Palin, the trailer would look something like this:
November 5th, 2009
Yesterday, we had THIS.
Today, we have THIS.
A few excerpts:
When Kirk decided to run for the Senate, it made some sense — Illinois is one of the more reliably “blue” states in the country, but Kirk has generally preferred to keep the far-right, Sarah Palin wing of the Republican Party at arm’s length…
Why in the world would Kirk sully his reputation like this [by seeking an endorsement from Palin]? Because he’s facing a little-known, underfunded anti-tax activist/political neophyte in a Republican primary, and a right-wing third-party candidate is a possibility in the general election.
November 4th, 2009
Mark Kirk, the erstwhile moderate Republican congressman from the Chicago suburbs, reportedly is pleading for an endorsement from Sarah Palin in his bid to succeed Roland Burris as the junior U.S. senator from Illinois.
At least, that what it says HERE.
November 4th, 2009
For 24 years now, the party that holds the White House has lost the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, and such was the case in Tuesday’s voting as Republican candidates carried both states.
But in the 23rd Congressional District of New York, a far-right-winger who had chased a moderate Republican from the race, lost to a Democrat.
This was a contest in which a passel of prominent ultra-conservatives — Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dick Armey, et al — had skin in the game. This was going to be the first great test-case in a nascent campaign by the teabagger crowd to rid the GOP of its so-called RINOs. And it failed — in a district that hadn’t elected a Democrat to Congress in more than 100 years.
Republicans would like to think the voting in Virginia and New Jersey was a referendum on Barack Obama, but exit polls show that the president wasn’t a factor (see HERE). In fact, voters in both states said they generally approve of Obama’s performance in office (see HERE).
Nor will the loss of governorships in Virginia and New Jersey directly affect Obama’s legislative agenda. Governors don’t vote in Congress. But the win in NY-23 gives House Democrats one more member than they had before this election.
UPDATE: Ruth Marcus WARNS AGAINST over-analyzing the results in Virginia and New Jersey. Read it all. It’s worth your while.
UPDATE II: Writing before all the votes were counted, E.J. Dionne CORRECTLY NOTED that Democrats need to do a better job of mobilizing young voters than they did this time in Virginia and Jersey.
UPDATE III: The FUNNIEST STORY from yesterday’s political doings was the one about right-wingers jumping to conclusions over a flat tire on the vehicle of a poll-watcher in NY-23.
October 28th, 2009
There’s BAD NEWS for the former governor of Alaska in a CNN poll released this morning.
Even among Republicans respondents, nearly half see Palin as unqualified for the presidency.
And yet, some of our commenters here at Applesauce tell us that Democrats are scared silly of a potential Palin candidacy in 2012.
Yeah, sure they are.
