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George Will: Sarah Palin and the mutual loathing society
The Washington Post ^ | February 18, 2010 | George F. Will

Posted on 02/17/2010 8:27:21 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

The Republican presidential nominee, an Arizona senator, was a maverick, which was part of his charm. He spoke and acted impulsively, which was part of his problem. Voters thought his entertaining dimensions might be incompatible with presidential responsibilities. For example, he selected a running mate most Americans had never heard of and who had negligible experience pertinent to the presidency. This was 1964.

Barry Goldwater, whose seat John McCain occupies, chose to run with Bill Miller, a congressman from Lockport, N.Y., near Buffalo. Miller, Goldwater cheerfully explained, annoyed Lyndon Johnson. After the Goldwater-Miller ticket lost 44 states, Miller retired to Lockport, where he practiced law and lived in dignified anonymity until his death in 1983. Although he had served as an assistant prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg and spent seven terms in Congress, no one suggested he should be considered for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination.

Yet Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska's governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states.

Conservatives, who rightly respect markets as generally reliable gauges of consumer preferences, should notice that the political market is speaking clearly: The more attention Palin receives, the fewer Americans consider her presidential timber. The latest Post-ABC News poll shows that 71 percent of Americans -- including 52 percent of Republicans -- think she is not qualified to be president.(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2010polls; 2012; adiosjuan; adiosmcdemocrat; adiosrinolovers; elististmeltdown; georgewill; huckabee2012; jdgoodman; jdhaworthgojd; mccain2012; mexicanbarbie; moneygrubber; nomorerinos; nonccain; obama; overexposure; palin; pds; rino; romney2012; sarahpalin; sarahtwoface; secondcoming; senorapalinrino; senoritakewpie; votehaworth
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To: presently no screen name

Interesting, you think I care what you think.


141 posted on 02/18/2010 12:07:08 AM PST by FTJM
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To: editor-surveyor

George Will isn’t taking irrelevance very gracefully, is he!


CLASSIC! (snickering)


142 posted on 02/18/2010 12:13:35 AM PST by bjorn14 ("The Constitution is a fundamentally flawed document..." -Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Dorothy Rabinowitz has a column asserting that Reagan never appealed to resentment. Now George Will is promoting the meme.

BALONEY! Anybody can look up Reagan’s 1980 Acceptance Speech. It’s hard to believe the Republican Convention was in Detroit that year.

Reagan’s indictment of Carter’s “economic stew that has turned the national stomach” is elegant and damning.

There was PLENTY of resentment and fear—both in the country AND in Reagan’s 1980 campaign.

Most campaign years there’s a lot of commentary about “positive” and “negative” campaigning. BALONEY! What matters is: Is it TRUE?


143 posted on 02/18/2010 12:14:15 AM PST by Arthur McGowan (In Edward Kennedy's America, federal funding of brothels is a right, not a privilege.)
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To: NavVet

And he’s doing a bad @ss job of it - and it’s impossible for him to do a good job for America because he HATES America! What he has done ‘so far’ is proof. A con man Marxist as president of the USA and his voters are wondering when is the economy going to turn around since they are out of a job and homeless.

After throwing a party for the con man Marxists, a little man sits in his mansion and tells his readers what they think is good is really bad - after all, ‘he’ knows. The con man’s mantra - ‘he knows best’.


144 posted on 02/18/2010 12:16:41 AM PST by presently no screen name
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This jazz about “qualified” is another bit of BALONEY!

A person who understands economics, who knows how to run a business, who has sound moral convictions, and who loves the country, is qualified to be President.

A Communist, baby-killing race-baiter who hates the United States is unqualified to be President.


145 posted on 02/18/2010 12:20:39 AM PST by Arthur McGowan (In Edward Kennedy's America, federal funding of brothels is a right, not a privilege.)
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To: nowheretohide

They use ‘qualified’ because they have nothing against Sarah. Your list is perfect and speaks for itself. Their problem is and they know it ... she is MORE than qualified and her love of America gives her true grit!


146 posted on 02/18/2010 12:34:24 AM PST by presently no screen name
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Yet Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska's governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states.

Will is wrong on this one.

147 posted on 02/18/2010 1:21:49 AM PST by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
If experience is a criterion for the White House, explain Mr. Obama to me, George.

Exactly!

148 posted on 02/18/2010 1:22:47 AM PST by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Well, George Will finally outs himself. Feckle East Coast idiots.


149 posted on 02/18/2010 4:09:28 AM PST by FastCoyote (I am intolerant of the intolerable.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

He’s the dork at the party wearing short pants, white socks and brown penny loafers and eating foie gras on peanut butter cookies.


150 posted on 02/18/2010 5:06:58 AM PST by sergeantdave
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

George, Orville Reddenbacher wants his bow-tie back. It is cutting off the oxygen to your brain.


151 posted on 02/18/2010 5:11:52 AM PST by Puddleglum ("due to the record harvest, rationing will continue as usual")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It seems to me that all these posts from effeminate Ivy League snobs like Will should have mandatory barf alerts. That will save me the trouble of starting to read one.


152 posted on 02/18/2010 6:15:58 AM PST by Brices Crossroads (Politico and)
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To: jimbo123

“The president-elect (Obama) arrived at the Chevy Chase, Md., home of syndicated columnist George Will shortly after 6:30 p.m., according to a press pool report. Greeting him at the residence were other luminaries of the conservative commentariat, including the Weekly Standard’s William Kristol, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post.”

With the exception of Kristol, I will predict that the other three (Will, Brooks and quite possibly Krauthammer) will endorse Obama for reelection over Palin. This election is shaping up not as liberal versus conservative(although Will etc are not what I would call conservative) but as elite versus populist, similar to the Jackson versus John Quincy Adams election of 1828.(BTW, the elites lost that one 57-43, losing the entire country except.....you guessed it the Northeast)


153 posted on 02/18/2010 6:23:58 AM PST by Brices Crossroads (Politico and)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; jimbo123

“Besides, full-throated populism has not won a national election in 178 years, since Andrew Jackson was reelected in 1832.”

This guy will is an Oxford don, with a PH.D from Princeton, an elitist snob to the core and yet he is historically illiterate. Although he was involved in the election as I was, he does not realize that 1980 was such an election. (of course, I think he does realize it and refuses to acknowledge it both because it is so recent that it could be repeated and Palin is just the kind of candidate to repeat it.) Matthew Continetti had an excellent article in the weekly standard analyzing the Jackson-Adams election, Bryan-McKinley and Reagan-Carter elections , concluding that all involved populist versus elite contests and that the populist had prevailed in 1828 and 1980.

The elites such as Will and his ilk, try to present the electorate with two alternatives, both of which are guaranteed to maintain the elite’s power. That is what Will’s idiotic column and many others are about. He would love to present the country with the choice of two elitists, Romney and Obama. That way, the Establishment wins before the first vote is counted.


154 posted on 02/18/2010 6:39:43 AM PST by Brices Crossroads (Politico and)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This is so patently untrue! Gov. Palin has showed ten times the competence of any Washingtonian while gaining heavy EXPERIENCE in governing!

George Will is here participating in a BIG LIE! He talks like a Liberal or, more likely, a NWO.


155 posted on 02/18/2010 6:50:12 AM PST by RoadTest (Wealth isn't obscene. Poverty is obscene. - Thomas (man of few but dynamite words) Sowell)
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To: Tolsti2

Where in Texas?


156 posted on 02/18/2010 6:59:10 AM PST by Jacob Kell
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To: SmokingJoe
“According to CBS News, only 29% of registered voters considered then presidential candidate Barack Obama experienced enough to be President in August of 2007, just six months before the Iowa caucuses. This CBS News poll shows that a plurality of Democrat primary voters considered Obama to lack the experience to serve as President. By a almost a 2-to-1 margin, Independents answered the question negatively.”

But after his showing in Iowa, the press anointed Obama as Once and Future King and and offered only adoring press coverage from that point onward. That will not happen with Palin.

157 posted on 02/18/2010 7:08:38 AM PST by Sans-Culotte ( Pray for Obama- Psalm 109:8)
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To: Sans-Culotte
That will not happen with Palin.

None of the other R candidates will get any better, so that argument is a non starter.

158 posted on 02/18/2010 7:10:49 AM PST by Lakeshark (Thank a member of the US armed forces for their sacrifice)
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To: Finalapproach29er
"God decides these matters."

Yep.

159 posted on 02/18/2010 7:11:54 AM PST by oprahstheantichrist (The MSM is a demonic stronghold, PLEASE pray accordingly - 2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
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To: MrRobertPlant2009

“One could make the argument that it’s really only since we started electing yahoos from the lower class like Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, and Obama that this country has gone to hell in a handbasket.”

Clinton may have started out lower class, but when his mom married his stepdad, Clinton became part of the upper class. Also, Obama spent all his time with his mom Ann Durham, and she was from a well to do white family. I doubt that either of them were truly lower class. Also, all of the pol you mentioned were liberals, except for Nixon. I doubt that Palin is like him in ay way.


160 posted on 02/18/2010 7:12:46 AM PST by Jacob Kell
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