...Oh my Joe, you are going to the dark side a little with that pronouncement, a bit pissantian if I may say so.
Most of the criticizm is tempered with facts in an effort to inform those who don't get it.
It is and was those PDSers that were mostly responsible for the invective and personal attacks.
When it got too distracting to the purpose and direction of Free Republic, several of them had to be farewelled.
Most Americans are more conservative than they realize, even if they don't identify themselves as such.
Thousands, and I dare say probably millions, of them have awakened to their conservative side in the last two years.
I noticed that when I embarked on my journey of attending hundreds of tea parties across this great land.
I asked dozens of people at each one (starting in early 2009) if they had ever been to a rally, or been involved in political activism, and almost all that I asked said no.
The TPM has inspired middle America to realize that it is up to them, We The People, to come out at all costs and speak up for our Great Country and the Constitution.
To win them, Sarah has to awaken in them the realization of how conservative they actually are, and how much closer she and her views are to theirs.
She's been doing a good job of that as I have observed when she immediately knew the importance of the Tea Party Movement the moment it hit the scene. And she became a permanent enthusiastic supporter of it as it paralleled her take of what needs to be done to bring back our country to it's Constitutional Republic status.
Sarah does a good job of raising the conscience of middle America
You got that right Joe.
But maybe you should have stopped there....heh.
Joe, don't worry about "careless photos/video and comments", I do think she has a handle on that.
It's sometimes better to be in control and let things like that out, and not censor them.
(Of course if they come from her camp, such as the Monsour debacle, she needs to get right on it as she did in that case.)
It gives her the opportunity to have a leg up on the Media spin imo.
The cult of personality I was referring to has absolutely nothing to do with Sarah, but some of her followers. I'm pretty firm in my convictions and politics, so it's really no sweat of my back, but all I did here was voice an opinion on a photo, and suggest/observe that she and her staff may wish to be tighten that up a little. Many of her dyed in the wool supporters here took that as a personal attack, and jumped all over me for it.
There are a lot of people out there who fence sit, and don't follow politics closely. They won't start looking and deciding until late next summer. They will raise issues and doubts planted by the MSM. Will the die hard supporters attack them too, simply for repeating something they heard, or a doubt they express or will they try to win them over? The evidence on this thread suggests to me that any comment that is anything less than flattering toward Sarah is going to be met harshly by her staunchest supporters. That's going to be counter-productive, and that's something I'd hate to see.
I say this because of numbers of otherwise conservative leaning people I've spoken to since 2008 and in the wake of the founding of the Tea Party. The media has successfully planted doubts and misrepresentations about SP in their minds. Personally, I've tried to debunk them and defend Sarah, but I get the feeling here, that there are more than a few followers whose 'in-your-face' advocacy are going to turn a lot of people off who might have otherwise been persuaded.