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Has Sarah Palin saved the GOP?
The Washington Post ^ | September 17, 2010 | Paul Goldman, former chairman of Virginia's Democratic Party

Posted on 09/16/2010 10:22:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Delaware Republicans have proved it: Sarah Palin is the best asset the GOP has right now.

There has been a lot of carping about Republicans' prospects for November since Palin-backed candidate Christine O'Donnell defeated longtime Delaware officeholder Mike Castle for the Republican Senate nomination Tuesday. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the 2008 vice presidential nominee has kept the party strong. How? She has kept the Tea Party faithful inside the GOP tent. Had she instead encouraged these disillusioned voters to mount third-party challenges across the 2010 general-election ballot, dozens of Democratic incumbents, not to mention challengers, would be smiling like Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

That year, a simmering feud between two wings of the Republican Party resulted in the "Bull Moose" independent presidential candidacy of former president Teddy Roosevelt. The Rough Rider's support four years earlier landed William Howard Taft the GOP nomination, but the two had a falling-out. Their disunity allowed Wilson, the governor of New Jersey, to claim the White House with the lowest winning percentage of the popular vote since the two-party era began in 1864. Wilson was only the second Democrat elected president since the Civil War; a GOP united by a temporary, even testy, marriage of convenience would have triumphed easily. But egos proved too large. It did not matter that Wilson was, in TR's term, the "coiner of weasel words."

Establishment Republicans, including former Bush aide Karl Rove, have said this year that the strength of the Tea Party movement has sometimes forced the nomination of contenders with weak prospects for winning a general election. This is surely right; O'Donnell's upset on Tuesday is merely the latest example, but there were similar complaints about the Nevada Senate contest.(continued)

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


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2010; gop; karlrove; obama; odonnell; palin; sarahpalin; teaparty; teapartyexpress
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To: jessduntno
This guy is a jagov

I don't think I've ever seen that word in print before.

41 posted on 09/16/2010 10:58:42 PM PDT by Minn
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To: Carry_Okie

LOL, so the most bashed and attacked politician in American history and that is your big post? How creative.


42 posted on 09/16/2010 10:59:25 PM PDT by ansel12 ([fear of Islam.] Once you are paralyzed by fear of Mohammedanism...you have lost the battle.)
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To: pissant

Man, you’re her biggest fan, and you don’t think so?!


43 posted on 09/16/2010 10:59:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I don't need a newspaper to know the world's been shaved by a drunken barber.)
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To: Carry_Okie

“I was operating from the premise that there is no such thing as bad press compared to being ignored. IMO the media is promoting Palin in a left handed fashion, hoping that by their derision they’ll simultaneously poison the center while conservatives take the bait.”

I came away with the opposite conclusion .. this sounded to me like a professional that is getting his clock cleaned by whom he presumed an amateur ... and is trying to say so through somewhat clenched teeth. The barbs and digs are there, but he knows this is not a hick chick with a little pizazz .. which is the way the rest of the MSM has tried to push it ... including th “astroturf” meme which was also designed to knock HER down as well ... I see a turning point here.


44 posted on 09/16/2010 11:01:26 PM PDT by jessduntno (The Victory Mosque will be built over our dead bodies over our dead bodies ...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

She’s doing some good things. But we’ve yet to see if the GOP has been saved.


45 posted on 09/16/2010 11:02:08 PM PDT by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)
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To: Freddd

“The Tea party is not the Republican party. And it’s made up 40% of Democrats and Independents.”

But it IS remaking the Republican party - as we speak.


46 posted on 09/16/2010 11:02:48 PM PDT by SeattleBruce (T minus 46 days to SMACKDOWN - Tea Party like it's 1773! Pray 2 Chronicles 7:14!)
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To: ansel12
LOL, so the most bashed and attacked politician in American history and that is your big post? How creative.

You have a weak memory. This is no less vile than what either Reagan or Bush suffered.

My objections to Palin are well documented on this board. Because you have falsely (and wishfully) characterized one post as my entire position, I'm not going to bother repeating my arguments to you.

47 posted on 09/16/2010 11:03:11 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: Minn

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that word in print before.”

I love America; we still have some colorful colloquialisms ... I’m pretty sure it’s local to Pittsburgh ... like something that is “wicked pissah” in New England, it always means much more than the simple word.

John Kerry, for instance, in a VFW hall would be a poster child for a jagov ...


48 posted on 09/16/2010 11:05:49 PM PDT by jessduntno (The Victory Mosque will be built over our dead bodies over our dead bodies ...)
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To: Carry_Okie
You have a weak memory. This is no less vile than what either Reagan or Bush suffered.

No I don't have a weak memory, the unrelenting attack on Palin is more vicious, and more constant, more unrelenting, and more made up than what Reagan and GW saw.

As bad as it was for Reagan and Bush, we have been watching worse this last 2 years.

49 posted on 09/16/2010 11:06:04 PM PDT by ansel12 ([fear of Islam.] Once you are paralyzed by fear of Mohammedanism...you have lost the battle.)
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To: jessduntno
I see a turning point here.

The old saw of 'a week in politics is close to an eternity' being what it is, insofar as a presidential election is concerned, "turning points" are immaterial until late 2012. For now I would chalk that up to wishful thinking.

50 posted on 09/16/2010 11:06:25 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The accompanying A/P photo and caption:

Sarah Palin addresses the National Quartet Convention in Louisville on Thursday.


51 posted on 09/16/2010 11:06:36 PM PDT by onyx (If you support Sarah and want on her Ping List, let me know!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

We don’t need a rocket scientist in the white house, which the media thinks that O’Bammy was.

All we simply need is someone who who has enough plain ol’ common sense to realize the simple reality that the government is not there to help, it is there to grow itself and reducing it is the best thing one can do for one’s country.

Sarah Palin is a lot smarter than her critics would like you to think and she carries the above attribute in spades.

I would vote for her.


52 posted on 09/16/2010 11:06:36 PM PDT by GraceG
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I don't know how history will treat her, but I think she'll go down with Reagan as a great, great American.....

Well there is a saying that "Truth is the daughter of time", though in this leftie dominated media and institution age you have to wonder.

If the adage is true, yes, she will be seen as a unique and trailblazing political figure, from the moment she first stepped on the national stage in 2008.

And certainly, the first woman to have had such an impact.

53 posted on 09/16/2010 11:07:31 PM PDT by militanttoby
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
What utter rubbish.

Last time I checked Christine O'Donnell ran on the
Republican ticket not the Tea Party ticket.

Secondly, Castle was a congressman from a relatively
moderate to left district. He was now running for Senate.
The state of Delaware only has one Senator.
His chances of taking Biden’s seat from a state
that has slid to the left over the years was poor as it was.
What ever support he had from Republicans and
independents was ruined after his vote for cap
and trade and his alignment with Soros and Podestra’s
Center For American Progress among many other
violations of Conservative principals.

That's why he lost to Christine O'Donnell.
It had little to do with Sarah Palin.

Ruined the RNC’s chances?
After running Dole and McCain and putting a communist appeaser like
Michael Steele as chairman I don't think the RNC
needed any help.

The RNC is at fault here.
They have gone the direction of the socialists.

Christine O'Donnell is the result.
The GOP voters are fed up!
They elected her.

We support the RNC through our donations (many small
business did before McCain destroyed that) and
it is owned by its members. Not the betraying politicians that
try to control it.

The people that are destroying the GOP must go! If the
people of Delaware wanted to elect socialists or
communist's all they would need to do is vote Democrat.

54 posted on 09/16/2010 11:08:13 PM PDT by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: Carry_Okie

“For now I would chalk that up to wishful thinking. “

I can see that. Chalk it up however you wish, FRiend. I’ll think for meself.


55 posted on 09/16/2010 11:09:24 PM PDT by jessduntno (The Victory Mosque will be built over our dead bodies over our dead bodies ...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Interesting, but ... more interesting is that the pundits are reaching farther and farther back into history looking for some shade of political parallels with which to fill their columns.

The reality is that none of the historical molds fit. The Revolutionary war had 3% support, more or less depending on the source. If the patriots had had the level of support that our Tea Party candidates have today, that war would have been over in one season.

56 posted on 09/16/2010 11:12:12 PM PDT by meadsjn (Sarah 2012, or sooner)
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To: DaveTesla

I think you mean that Delaware only has one representative in the House: ALL states have two senators.


57 posted on 09/16/2010 11:14:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I don't need a newspaper to know the world's been shaved by a drunken barber.)
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To: ansel12

Isn’t that pretty much what she did in Alaska? We great success there too.


58 posted on 09/16/2010 11:20:22 PM PDT by Nipfan (The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it - H L Mencken)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Correct.
Delaware only has one Congressman.


59 posted on 09/16/2010 11:20:32 PM PDT by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Policy over personality.

Palin has both.


60 posted on 09/16/2010 11:20:41 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg (("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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