Posted on 06/20/2013 6:37:17 PM PDT by Bratch
Sarah Palin, former Alaska Governor, Tea Party inspiration and FOX News contributor leads our CHQ Republican presidential straw poll, as she has for the past several weeks.
No doubt some will attribute Palin’s lead to her active community of online supporters – and there is no doubt that Governor Palin’s online network gives her an advantage in any net-based vote.
But that, in our opinion, is not why the feisty Alaskan continues to lead in our poll.
Plenty of the other potential Republican presidential candidates have active online communities.
What many of the other candidates lack – even some of the candidates with otherwise impeccable conservative credentials – is Palin’s “tell it like it is” authenticity.
And in our opinion, it is that authenticity that keeps Governor Palin in the lead.
Who else is going to say, “We are so screwed” when Obama announced his new national security team?
And then back it up with facts detailing why Obama’s choices of Susan Rice for national security advisor and Samantha Power for U.N. ambassador were dangerous for America.
Who else among the potential Republican presidential nominees is going to go to the Faith and Freedom Conference to take-on the faithless and freedom eroding Republican establishment by saying, "Don't you dare marginalize us (conservatives)?"
Few of the others would choose to.
And who else would call-out the White House press corps for their ridiculously self-absorbed correspondent’s dinner by tweeting, “The rest of America is out there working our asses off while these DC assclowns throw themselves a #nerdprom.”
No one, that’s who.
Palin is popular with the grassroots in some measure because she defies the pseudo-intellectual conventions of inside-the-Beltway political conversation – or what most people outside-the-Beltway call double talk or B.S.
But attributing her lead in the CHQ straw poll or popularity at the grassroots strictly to her sometimes colorful speeches is much too shallow an analysis to explain Palin’s enduring popularity.
Establishment Republican Party leaders and their sometime abettors in the establishment media would like to forget that the Tea Party rebellion of 2009 and 2010 was presaged by the outpouring of grassroots support for Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential campaign.
The Tea Party rebellion was as much a rebellion against the entrenched GOP leadership as it was a rebellion against Barack Obama and his liberal agenda.
Tea Partiers and grassroots conservatives frustrated by the slow pace of change in the establishment GOP or its tendency to equate change with lurching to the left see in Palin one who articulates our own frustration with big government Republicanism and the abandonment of the Republican Party’s support for traditional marriage and other elements of the traditional values agenda. And we vote for Sarah Palin because she’s one of us.
Republicans alienate theirs.
And then wonder why they lose elections.
Well not to take issue with your point but,
In the particulars of this article, Sarah did take herself out of the last race.
I believe, for one race. Some believe it was permanent.
We shall see. :)
PS: I’m (totally!) for Sarah’s candidacy, if she runs.
I’m not sure why she took herself out to begin with. There was no reason not to run, as it would have been an easy win. I hope she does not make this same mistake again, because otherwise we’re going to be picking between Christie, The Second Coming of Paul, and Amnesty Pimp Rubio.
She is either the smartest or the dumbest politician. Because those who believe she is the dumbest are themselves certified idiots she must be the smartest. Who else could alienate the very people most needful of alienation?
I also don't think the country was ready for a woman president. I had HORROR visions of Hitlary Clintbutt being president.
Do you remember why Oprah Winfrey took Hitlary for a plane ride? So someone would have a bigger butt than hers. :o)
FR had a WONDERFUL moving graphic of Hitlary's wiggling butt. Hahaha, I LOVED it and laughed a lot!
I believe that Perry stepped on her planned entry, and I can’t help but wonder if there is a back story to his big, splashy, but short lived theatrics that served Romney so well, I’m suspicious that earning favor with the GOPe was the reason for Perry’s publicity burst, it sure had the effect of closing off the timing and effectiveness of Palin running to rescue the nation from Romney.
IMO, she wanted to enter the race.
I think “something” happened after her September speech in Iowa that caused her to change her mind. Whether family or Republican Party pressure or some outside influence, I don’t know. But I’m nearly positive that the GOPe is working behind the scenes to insure she doesn’t run in 2016.
We’ll see.
I wondered the same thing about Michelle Bachmann.
Some type of deal was brokered in 2010 when she challenged the GOP leadership. Was financial backing for her primary campaign part of the deal?
Sarah Palin has my support and if she runs, she will have my vote.
Sarah and Cruz please run
family is the reason why she did not run I think and after what her family has been through then who could blame her
I can’t figure out where to separate her personal ego from her ambitious ties to the GOPe when it comes to reading Bachmann, she seems determined to play above her game although she is clearly not made for the big time, when she could have been just a good conservative voting, effective congresswoman.
Two unfortunate curses diluting Palin, have been the two females who have capitalized on their similarities to Governor and vice presidential candidate Palin, her shadowers, Tina Fey, and Michelle Bachmann.
I truly believe that Palin was going to run until some powerful force worked their agenda to get Rick Perry to step in.
She even said she was surprised that Perry got in after she said that he gave his word that he was not going to. She knew then too many conservatives would be divided; not united. I hope she does run.
I don’t know if this is a good poll to make a decision upon. To put this poll into perspective, we should look atbconsrvativehq.com.
The web tracking site Alexis ranks conservativehq.com at 138,894 on the web.
Free Repulic, on the other hand is ranked at 1,571.
This poll is simply a very small sample of respondents from a conservative website that is only one percent of the size of Free Republic.
The Tea Party rebellion was as much a rebellion against the entrenched GOP leadership as it was a rebellion against Barack Obama and his liberal agenda.Sarah Palin to the Republican establishment:
"Don't you dare marginalize us (conservatives)"You go girl!
that’s one of the few reasons I’m looking forward to the book by those Game Change guys about the 2012 election. If anyone is able to ferret out what really happened in Sep/Oct 2011, it may be those guys.
I too think she was going to run. A lot of the stuff she did in 2010/2011 doean’t really make any sense if she wasn’t planning on running.
Something clearly happened in Sep of 2011. I don’t know if it was family or health related, or something more nefarious.
Of course we’ll never know how a run would have turned out. I think she’d have either won comfortably or totally flamed out like Perry did. Either she’d have done well in debates and on the trail and won IA, SC and then FL and the nomination. Or she’d have crashed and burned like Perry did with some bad debate answer or tv interview.
If she had gotten the nomination we’ll never know either, and Obama probably still would have won, but I think if she had the right advisors and ran the right campaign(going after Obama on crony capitalism and hisl ack of action against Wall St and calling for an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan) taht she’d have won a close election.
In any event, I think she’d at least have had a chance to win. Romney never did. Romney had a much better chance of losing by a tighter margin than she did(she could easily have gotten blown out Mondale/Goldwater style), but she also had a chance of actually winning.
Palin leads because she has not had to vote on anything.
Bzzt.
Wrong. Try again. :D
“Sarah and Cruz please run”
Yeah. I’ve seen the light. No more mamby pamby candidates even if they are nice guys/gals. If Cruz can help stop the immigration bill in the senate he has my vote and support. Sarah is battle tested and ready too.
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