Sarah iz N Tahr HaEDz TAkign op Allz ThiEr TouGhtz!!!!
Posted on 03/30/2013 9:27:04 AM PDT by Bratch
She’s baaaack.
Sarah Palin attempted to relaunch her political career and her political action committee, SarahPAC, on Thursday with a Web video called “Loaded for Bear,” which presented the former Alaska governor as the new kingmaker for conservative populists in the GOP.
The video riffed off her speech at CPAC, in which Palin railed against “the big consultants, the big money men, and the big bad media.” But there’s an irony alert ahead: the current stated purpose of SarahPAC is to raise money ahead of the 2014 election—most of which will be spent on conservative consultants.
Don't believe me? Well, this is a perfect time to page through SarahPAC’s Federal Election Commission filings, which—helpfully enough—were just released yesterday.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Since she's "not without sin" she has no business casting stones.
Robert Stacy McCain: Why John Avlon Hates Sarah Palin – Update: Ali Akbar: Avlon Needs to Do His Homework
Robert Stacy McCain posted a great response to John Avlon’s lame attack piece today:
OK, so the other day Sarah Palin’s PAC came out with an awesome new video declaring Mama Grizzly’s intent to continue being a major force in Republican Party politics, and naturally John Avlon decided this was a fine occasion to defecate all over Palin’s name.
Would it be possible to do a point-by-point rebuttal of Avlon’s ignorant arguments? Yes. Is it necessary to do so? No.
Once you understand the motives of people like that, their methods are mere details. If Avlon ever wrote anything that hurt Democrats, the Daily Beast wouldn’t publish it.
McCain also points out that Avlon:
“…co-founded the “No Labels” movement, funded by liberal donors and assigned the mission of helping Democrats destroy the Tea Party.”
Avlon certainly has a history of trashing Governor Palin, as we have written about here, and here. Considering everybody he works for and the sort of person that he is, I’m sure there will be much more of this garbage in the future.
Update: Ali Akbar shreds Avlon’s false argument , via The Blaze:
Avlon takes a cheap jab, “Palin’s PAC spent $5.1 million in the last election cycle (more than it raised in that time period, raising some questions about Palin’s claims of fiscal responsibility).” Avalon misses, not understanding that PACs are required to measure and assign value not only to all expenditures, but efforts “in-kind,” and anything that can legally be defined as “electioneering” must be reported as an expenditure. This is poor journalism at best, while we may suspect it as a malicious attempt to “punch up.” Avlon needs to do his homework before opining.
Palin’s multi-candidate PAC maxes out to each candidate they endorse, as per the Federal Election Commission’s rules, at $5,000 a pop per election (primary, run-off, generals counting as separate “elections”).
PACs then usually spend what are referred to as IEs, independent expenditures. Is Avlon arguing that the GOP needs to spend more money on useless TV ads, like those of Karl Rove’s Crossroads? On talk radio that he so frequently bashes? If so, he should stick to his own business. Every consultant will tell you that the value of Palin and having her PAC behind you is Palin herself! The value in the brand is that she is a high-profile figure whose endorsement garners more media hits and grassroots donations than an endorsement from anyone else in the center-right movement. The PAC invests in maintaining that brand so that candidates, many now sitting in office, can enjoy the benefits largely unique to SarahPAC. Anything else would be a waste of dollars and decrease the ability of grassroots challengers to win.
Consultants design websites, store data and lists, arrange the travel, vet the candidates, write the talking points, run crisis communications, and well, everything else. There are seldom “employees” on campaigns. Politics is always changing — campaigns are non-permanent institutions funded by limited donor contributions. Worker bees, hired as 1099 contractors? We’re all “consultants” in the broadest definition of the term.
What Palin is going after is specific elite category of the consultant class: Those who reap millions of dollars for controlling votes, for building candidates, for brokering bad deals, for finding awful consensus instead of fighting for victory.
Please go here to read the entire article.
GOOD~!!! I hope she raises a BUNDLE
This makes me want to donate more
Run Sarah, run! Stampede the RINOs!
No Labels Smear Merchant At It Again
It appears as if the smug co-founder of No Labels John Avlon just can’t help himself. The reasonable, morally superior, moderate one has been trashing Governor Palin since she arrived on the national scene more than four years ago. He has made a small cottage industry out of this for himself and has parlayed this into getting a gig spewing his incoherent drivel on CNN. This site has taken him on several times for his garbage, and I bet will do so again in the future. I won’t link to any of his other work, as I don’t want him to get any more traffic. You can see a couple of takedowns of him here and here.
Today, the David Frum wannabe wrote his latest dishonest hit piece against Governor Palin in which he revealed the explosive bombshell that…wait, I hope you are all sitting down for this…Governor Palin has a staff! And she pays them!! I know. I’m just as shocked and dismayed as all of you are. I’m going to give Avlon the benefit of the doubt and assume he is not a stupid individual. He’s probably very bright. So, I think we have to conclude that Avlon is clueless due to the cocktail party bubble he lives in, or that he brings intellectual dishonesty to a new level. It’s probably a little bit of both.
What Avlon seems to be unwilling or incapable of understanding is that Governor Palin has never said no political figure should have a staff. She has always had people working for her. Her PAC does things that all other political action committees do- employ a handful of people, pay them for their services, raise money, and donate money to other candidates. Governor Palin has never claimed her PAC does otherwise. The point Governor Palin and others have been making about the consultant class is this- too many of them are only in it for the money and access to power, they have too much control over campaigns, and those that continue to lose over and over again keep on getting hired. Essentially, the political consulting business has become a racket. Does John Avlon want to dispute that? Maybe he’ll try, but he will look like a fool if he does.
Obviously, Avlon does not know the first thing about the people who work for SarahPAC or how Governor Palin operates. Not only that, he is not interested in knowing. Since I am not a part of Governor Palin’s inner circle, I am in no way an authority on her staff, but I have spoken to some who have interacted with a few of them. First off, her staff is relatively small. I have been told that the people who work for her are some of the most professional, loyal, and dedicated people in politics. In fact, one of her staffers is a founder of this website who went off several years ago to work for her. That does not sound like a political mercenary or hired gun to me. Her staff is never off talking behind her back or pining for face time on TV. I can’t recall ever seeing a staffer of SarahPAC do a TV interview. In other words, the men and women who work for Governor Palin do it for the right reasons. They believe in her and her message. What Avlon can’t comprehend is this- her small staff is not there to control her or handle her. They are there to assist her in getting HER message out to the masses. That is the difference between her staff and most of the consultant class Governor Palin referred to in her CPAC speech.
Another topic where Avlon goes horribly wrong is when he says Governor Palin doles out all this money for consultants, but does not give very much to candidates. This demonstrates such a low level of intellectual depth that he should probably call the financial office at Yale and ask for a refund for that expensive BA he received from them. What he and others of his ilk don’t seem to grasp is that Governor Palin could give all of her endorsees $1, and it would still have a huge effect. The simple act of her endorsement is far more powerful than the $5,000 maximum she could give to a candidate. Her endorsement has an exponential effect on a candidate’s fundraising and far exceeds whatever her PAC donates. We’ve all heard the stories of how the dollars flooded in like a tidal wave once Governor Palin went public with an endorsement. But it goes beyond that. Once the endorsement becomes public, the phone in the candidate’s campaign office starts ringing off the hook with people calling asking what they can do to help. Anyone who knows anything about politics knows that it’s the grunt work of making GOTV phone calls, stuffing envelopes, and precinct walking that wins elections. I have volunteered for and given money to candidates due to her endorsement. I’m not alone.
Ask any conservative candidate running in a GOP primary in a red state or district and they can only have one endorsement. Whose do you think they will want? Then ask them what would they rather have- $5,000 from SarahPAC that may not even be revealed until after the election, or a Tweet from Governor Palin giving her endorsement? Her endorsement is like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. It allows a candidate to go out there to GOP voters and say, hey, I’ve taken the Pepsi Challenge and I’m legit. I know how Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, Deb Fischer and others would respond. What would John Avlon say?
Maybe the most egregious point Avlon made, and that’s saying something, is Governor Palin is attempting to raise all this money so she can live the high life and travel in style. This is total garbage, and anyone who has seen Governor Palin in action knows this. Myself and others have witnessed this. At the big premiere of The Undefeated in Pella, the Gov and Todd rented a red Ford SUV and drove themselves from Des Moines to Pella. Myself and a couple others went out to Kansas City last summer for the Steelman for Senate rally. She was there with Todd, Willow, and Piper. They had the family RV, and a black SUV was rented for her 2 or 3 staffers that were there assisting her. Many others have reported running into her at the airport and being on her commercial flight after she did an event. Not exactly champagne and caviar living, huh, John? So there you go, John. Your patent dishonesty has been exposed yet again. We know you’ll try this crap again in a few weeks. We’ll be here. I’m guessing that Yale and Columbia education bought you many things, but class and a clue were not among them
Go Sarah! I’m donating!
The politcal class fear the exposure.
Go Sarah!
KMA, John Avlon.
You’re using Sarah Palin as a proxy to attack me, and every other decent, patriotic American.
FOAD
Sarah iz N Tahr HaEDz TAkign op Allz ThiEr TouGhtz!!!!
RENT FREE!!! (bonus)
Of course Sarah isn’t wrong or hypocritical at all in this matter. It’s Avlon misrepresenting and twisting illogical findings in a ill prepared article in branding Sarah as wrong. The Hit Piece article proves that Sarah is precisely over the target and getting that flack. Sarah’s message is resonating with people and the libs and Establishment bunch knows it and its frightening them because if Sarah starts to galvanize a wide spectrum of voters (and she will) then the tide will start to turn against D.C. because they keep on surviving by dividing people and voters against one another instead of focusing on the real culprits - Washington DC and both parties
Libs using a standard Alinsky tactic.
What we do (staying home and not voting) giving up before the election happens, believing lies, being complacent, and failing the next generation by our seeming readiness for servitude.
Is indeed DUMB bordering on STUPID! MOO! Our greatest weapon is OUR VOTE. Participate. IT MATTERS!!!
It takes money to run for high office in America. Unfortunately it is necessary to have teamwork and sincere faith in the candidate in order to actually aid and not sabotage the candidate.
I am for Sarah. I will vote for her and support her.
How does she stay alive in the mind of the public because it is expensive and energy draining to be in/on the minds of the voters. It is two years before the campaigning must be hot and heavy.
Pray protection for Sarah, power, strength, energy,, including her family.
We are discussing the most powerful position on earth, there are evil men that will do most anything to capture the office for their intentions. Truth.
With these kind of GOP bastards in our party who needs enemies..At least with Dems they are supposed to hate Sarah Palin..but seeing this come from our “own” side is disgusting..this is why the GOP is what it is..meanwhile the Dems are sticking together while we are tearing each other apart..the problem with the GOP is that there are the Rove types, the Christie types, and the Jeb Bush types that agree with Obama..on practically everything..these RINOS want “Immigration Reform” which means amnesty to 20 million illegals..they will NEVER vote Republican..you have these fools supporting “Gay marriage.” When you have people looking at both parties and can’t tell the damn difference this is where we have a serious problem. These RINOS can’t stand the fact that Sarah Palin chose WINNERS while they chose LOSERS
Well said, BTM.
And watch this aspect also - for Sarah Palin (and most of us) this is truly a battle for a way of life, about values, traditions, and a nation we love. But for the “political class”, it’s about power and money. Elections mark turning points in history to us, but they are nothing more than an uptick in the demand curve for the consultants. Propaganda and spin are their “services” and influencing elections is their business model.
The more people like Palin point this out and act according to their hearts, not their wallets, the more nervous and vicious the consultants will be. She is hitting them right in the most vulnerable spot - the pocketbook.
If she runs, I’ll be voting for Sarah Palin.
And if she doesn’t, she still has my support.
I despise Avlon and love Palin, but he is partially correct. I noted this on FR in 2011 when I saw what a piss poor percentage of SarahPAC donations actually went to candidates. A pox on all their houses. I give only to candidates directly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.