Posted on 05/17/2009 11:42:27 AM PDT by Josh Painter
In a column for Townhall.com, The Quayling of Sarah, David R. Stokes lays out the strategy being used by the Democrats and their Vichy Republican fellow travelers to shoot down former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's national political possibilities:
Any nine-year-old child or MSNBC show host (pardon the redundancy) understands that the idea is to vex and therefore hex Sarah Palin. The goal is to click repeatedly on her image and drag her into a folder marked either "too dumb to lead," or "demonize by caricature."The strategy is nothing new. It has been tried in the past, without success against Ronald Reagan and more effectively against Dan Quayle (whose quixotic battle with "Murphy Brown" was doomed from the outset - he should have taken on real villians instead of television characters). It will fail to stop Sarah Palin. She has chosen to fight not the liberal characters of "Sex in the City" but the very real evil of abortion. And her son Trig, born a Downs baby, is a living testament that she's not just a weekend warrior.
The problem with Quayling as a strategy goes beyond the weakness of the tactics used to implement it. It is doomed because the troops being deployed to carry it out are inferior. Against Palin, Quayling was first trotted out by intellectual elitist scribes who appear in the columns of the New York Times, The Nation, Washington Monthly and even Townhall.com and National Review. Unfortunately for the elitists, the largest audience for such fare is composed mostly of other elitist writers. No one takes Kathleen Parker seriously anymore, with the possible exception of her editors. Your average independent swing voter doesn't hang on every word written by Maureen Dowd, and most of them have never even heard of David Frum. They may remember who William F. Buckley was, but Christopher Buckley's name doesn't ring a bell.
The B-Team is now trying to do the job, but - let's face it - the audience for clowns like Chris Matthews is very small and has already bought the meme. Yet Matthews keeps on trying to sell it via television's doormat of cable news outlets, MSNBC. Like a demented Billy Mays hawking bogus OxyClean by saying "I get so excited every time I do this," Matthews gets a thrill running up his leg from ShamWow President Barack Obama. Matthews is not one of the intellectual giants of The Left, yet he rarely misses an opportunity to mock Gov. Palin's intelligence, as he did when discussing her recently signed deal to pen her memoir:
"Sarah Palin – now don’t laugh – is writing a book. Not just reading a book: writing a book. Actually, in the word of the publisher, she’s collaborating on a book. I love the way that sounds. Does that mean that she answers questions of the writer, and then the writer writes the book? I guess the reason to have someone write a book for you and claim it’s your book is you get to do a nation-wide book tour, and act the part of a, of an author yourself."Please don't anyone tell Matthews that Ted Sorenson wrote JFK's Profiles in Courage and that Barack Obama likely had a ghost writer also, one whom many suspect is mad bomber Bill Ayers. It might chill that thrill going up Matthews' leg.
The Quayling strategy won't work when it is entrusted to such as Matthews, who has become such a cartoonish parody of himself, he is increasing being known as Tweety. Stokes writes:
"The problem is, all this will do is make her more popular with an important constituency – her core base, in fact – that could very well propel her to the Republican presidential nomination in 2012."What Stokes is overlooking here is that the governor is in fact reaching out beyond her base.
Though she made news with her support of Miss California Carrie Prejean in the flap over gay marriage, the Palin record in Alaska was to veto a bill that would have disallowed benefits for the same-sex partners of state workers on constitutional grounds.
Yes, she is a vocal proponent of ANWR drilling and stands with the oil companies in support of offshore drilling in Alaska's coastal waters, but the governor has been a tough bargainer with those same oil companies, and she has called for Alaska to get half its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
Her opponents on the left see Sarah Palin as a right-wing idealogue, but she is actually a mainstream conservative with a strong libertarian streak who has enormous populist appeal. She has taken a page from Ronald Reagan's play book and has learned how to walk the fine line of principled pragmatism. The first step toward winning your battles is to choose them carefully.
Sarah Palin's strongest suit may be her uncanny political instincts. Practicing what she preaches about the sanctity of innocent human life has made her the country's leading advocate for the pro-life position at precisely the moment when America's attitudes are shifting on abortion and the gruesome procedures used to carry it out.
A recent Gallup Poll shows that a pro-life view is now held by a majority of conservatives and independents, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. There's no guarantee that the public will continue to recoil from abortion, and the issue is not the key to the White House. But it will certainly get her through the toll gate on the highway that leads to it. Gov. Palin will have to demonstrate that she will be able to clean up the train wreck Obama's policies have the economy headed for and put it back on the right set of tracks. If Alaska can avoid the sufferning the rest of the nation will be forced to endre under Obama's corporatist system, it will greatly enhance her credibility. She will also have to show that she has a firm grasp on the issue of national security, and her arguments for a strong national missile defense are a good start.
With her unwavering stand for life and her more pragmatic stance on issues which have cooler buttons, the governor is not only bolstering her base, but she is determined to win over independent swing voters at the same time. She is going about it the right way - Reagan's way - and her political detractors, by attempting to define her as stupid, just as they tried unsuccessfully to do to Reagan, are headed for an EPIC FAIL.
- JP
Qualye never got to defend himself because the Bushes and RINOs don’t fight. They are big tent uniters aka LOSERS. Palin with a shotgun and bear rug has bigger testes than 99% of the typical RINO loser.
Time will tell about Ma Palin. She has yet to be subjected to a national primary, state by state.
And, don't forget that Hitlery's, "It Takes a Village" was written by, well, a village.
good article.
thanks.
Vichy Republican
Methinks we need a new designation behind the names of politicians beyond (D), (R), and (I): (VR).
What's more, a village that didn't get paid...
I was just thinking about this yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXK-LNEU9A0
Republican National Convention Sarah Palin Speech
Sarah Palin is much more..personable? Then fmr VP Quayle was, and that adds a great deal to her appeal, she also has walked the walk on pro family issues even to her own hurt.
In a political landscape full of fakes and phonies, Gov Palin is a bit of fresh, artic air blowing across the lower 48 states.
As for the Vichy Republicans, they can try to destroy her personally, they cannot engage her argument, and they know it.
Even Kennedy’s senior thesis, which was later published was ghost written. Pretty much everything we were told about Jack Kennedy was a lie/half-truth , although there is no doubting his personal charm and intelligence. But, heck, probably George Clooney was as well qualified to be president.
Great Post!
The smear campaign being waged by the left against Gov. Sarah Palin has been a reactive defense, or pre-emptive attack from the moment she made her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last year.
The fact that it has continued beyond the election of Precedent Obama is solid evidence that the left considers her the most dangerous politician in America.
Watching that video proved to me once again, who had the Gravitas in that fight!
It sure wasn’t McCain!
Excellent post.
We should not make the mistake of thinking the media attacks on Sarah have no effect.
Given sufficient time to work, they become the conventional wisdom and are extremely difficult to overcome.
For some reason I’ve never figured out, such attacks just bounced off Reagan, but they have been quite effective against many other Republicans, notably GW. Although GW was in many ways his worst enemy when it came to PR, there is no question the media onslaught was highly unfair to him and his policies.
Sarah needs to not only get her facts and figures straight, she needs to learn methods of counter-attacking aggressive interviewers. She could do a lot worse than watch Cheney’s interviews over the last couple months. But hopefully she will also be getting some professional advice and training.
Those who question Sarah’s intelligence need to be reminded that the so called “smarted people in the country” got us into this mess. We need leaders with integrity who love our country and will put our country first above their own needs.
bump for postgame
Umm, I do believe Lynne is Dick’s wife, not his daughter.
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