If Palin's true intentions is not to run. This cartoon will be the official illustration of Palin's image among the American General Public.
Posted on 06/01/2011 5:04:39 AM PDT by SJackson
Seventeen months from the 2012 election, the Republican presidential field is unsettled in the extreme. Mitt Romney, the supposed conservative, was considered a liberal four years ago before his miraculous transformation – but he still has Romneycare on his resume. Ron Paul’s vision is a bit problematic, to say the least — as Michael Medved has documented; he thinks the president shouldn’t have authorized the killing of Bin Laden, that heroin and cocaine should be legal, and that prostitution is constitutionally protected. Newt Gingrich has spent the last two weeks destroying his conservative following, running desperately for the center in an attempt to claim that empty middle ground as a McCain wannabe. Tim Pawlenty is now being outpolled by Herman Cain. Even Thad McCotter, a wonderful Congressman but an unfeasible presidential candidate in his current position, is considering a run.
The candidate sucking all the air out of the room, of course, is Sarah Palin. Palin has made no secret of the fact that she is considering a 2012 run – she would “crash through” any of “open doors” that would lead her to the White House, she said back in 2008. Next month, Palin’s campaign will likely kick off with the release of Steve Bannon’s The Undefeated, a documentary reviewing Palin’s accomplishments in Alaska. “The film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976,” Bannon said to RealClearPolitics. “Let’s have a good old-fashioned brouhaha.”
This week, she’s beginning a bus tour across the country. Tim Crawford, treasurer of Palin’s PAC, explained that Palin was embarking on the tour “Because she wants to see how this nation was built and get fired up about that.” Or, more realistically, Palin’s embarking on the tour because she’s softening the ground for her big announcement, which will likely come on July 4. Palin’s not one for subtlety – that’s her drawback, and that’s her charm.
Will it prevent her from winning?
Current polls have her trailing President Obama badly, by 17 percent according to Public Policy Polling. That same poll shows Obama beating Gingrich by 14 and Romney by just 7. Even more disturbing, the poll shows Palin’s favorability ratings dramatically underwater, at 30 percent. PPP is a Democratic-stacked poll, but these are bad numbers nonetheless.
Oddly enough, Palin is polarizing even within the Republican Party. Seven percent of Republicans who know her strongly dislike her, compared with just 5 percent for Gingrich. The only Republican who ranks lower among Republicans overall is Gingrich, at 29 percent to her 27 percent. By the same token, she blows away the rest of the field in terms of name recognition and favorability (71 percent). In urban areas, Republicans fear that she’s not sophisticated enough (false), that she’s prone to gaffes (true), and that she’ll be blown off the stage by Barack Obama (unclear). In rural areas, Republicans love her because they’re not put off by her accent or her corny tics.
The question is whether in this election, Americans will be put off by Palin’s winking more than they’re attracted to her clarity. Palin’s strength is her glibness – she’s able to boil down issues to their bare essence. She knows how she’s seen, and she embraces it. She’s purely authentic – when she says she wants Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” as her cellphone ringtone, she’s telling the truth. In this way, she’s the polar opposite of President Obama, who loves to obscure issues in a cloud of rhetoric and faux complexity, and who is purely inauthentic. He runs from the fact that he is an ivory tower elitist, alienating Americans with his upturned chin and “into-the-future stare.”
For all the criticisms of her supposedly rough political abilities, she’s navigated the Republican field far more ably than seasoned politicians like Gingrich and Romney. She hasn’t declared, and she’s already running second. She didn’t shoot herself in the foot by embracing liberal politics, and she allowed Donald Trump to play stalking horse on the birth certificate and school records issues. She has never thrown a fellow Republican under the bus (she has praised Romney, Herman Cain, Gingrich, and virtually everyone else who has declared), and she has never promoted a non-conservative candidate for higher office.
She knows her base, and she knows her principles. She smacked Obama on Israel last week with brevity and simplicity: “Anyone who studies history, studies the Old Testament, studies geography understands that Israel now is surrounded by enemies at all times. It should be now that America takes a stand in defending our friends in Israel …. More than ever, we should be standing strong with Israel and saying, ‘No, you don’t have to divide Jerusalem, you don’t have to divide your capital city.” Then she went even further: “I’m going to call him our temporary leader because my goal is to make sure that President Obama is not reelected in 2012.”
It’s that kind of absolute willingness to go after Obama that endears Palin to Republicans. And with Obama’s unpopularity on the rise, the economy in a double-dip, and our foreign policy in shambles, more and more Americans want truth spoken to power. That’s why, counterintuitive though it may seem, Palin may be perfectly positioned for 2012.
Ben Shapiro is an attorney and writer, and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, and author of the upcoming book “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV” from Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. He is also a board member of Declaration Entertainment, an organization dedicated to the creation of conservative film and television content.
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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/01/can-sarah-win/
However their biggest gains where the old southern states and Obama can't win there.
The economic realities do not favor Obama as they continue to get worse and never did recover.
This is 1980 redux.
Everyone, including the GOP establishment, was convinced that Reagan couldn’t win because he was just a B movie actor who was too conservative for most Americans.
Look who it was who refused to prosecute Clinton and allowed his dogs Ben Veniste and Jamie Gorelick to screw up Fred Thompson's committee hearings into Chinagate? George W. Bush.
I think the real story is that Clinton had stuff on Poppy, and to protect Poppy, Dubya had to play ball. I've also seen a photo of Dubya, taken in his wastrel days, walking around the Mena, Arkansas, airport with one of his brothers (either Jeb or Neal). What was up with that? What is it about Mena?
Sarah is heir to, and shackled to, none of that. Watch and see if she nominates a real former prosecutor like Bill McCollum as AG -- if so, then you will see the fur fly as she starts taking apart the Old Boy Network, and then we'll see if in fact there has been a Clinton-Bush condominium in force since 1988 or 1992.
Look for a takedown of the TARP banksters, access capitalists like the maggots running GE, and phony foundations that abuse their tax status while funneling megabucks to the hard-line left-wing Cause People and their nasty little NGO's.
And Clinton may just surprise everybody by suddenly moving to China, and taking his lovely wife with him (who has campaign finance felony liabilities from 2000, 2006, and 2008 to deal with). Maybe Slick, Beastie, and Charlie Trie can all have a nice reunion with John Huang and Johnny Chung at a pleasant Peking restaurant, and chow down on Peking duck, People's Liberation Army medals, and Slick and Beast's ill-gotten gains.
While Sarah and her AG take what's left of the Clintons' reputations apart back home in open court, and the big gates of Leavenworth gape wide to receive fraudster and impostor Barry Soetoro, his Wookie, and co-fraudster Shirley Sherrod, among other people.
And who knows? Maybe a murder charge, sauced with Patriot Act prosecutorial tools, will finally catch up with the abominate Bill Ayers and his unlovely gun moll.
The elites in the Republican party know if even Romney or any other candidate but Palin managed to beat Barky, nothing would change. All the regulations being put into effect by this admin to stifle the USA would not get rolled back. The climbing debt would continue, etc., etc. They make speech after speech, talk, talk, talk, nuance, nuance. Nothing would happen. That’s why Palin scares them, and millions of others. The Gravy Train might get slowed down.
Considering stories like this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2728038/posts
You Betcha!
“26% of the republican voters say they will never vote for her, so I guess that means she will need 40% of the black vote.?????”
Wonder what the percentage is that say they would never vote for Romney?
Rasmussen Poll: Palin favorability highest with 2012 GOP voters
Are you a wet blanket, somebody who’s trolling against Palin, or both?
26% of rinos would never vote for her. That leaves 74% that either would or might.
She'll have to go after some very difficult voter blocks - and I'll be very careful to not "double count" here....
1. Blacks - I believe she'll do well with educated, working lower middle class to the very upper rich class in this group. She'll never appeal or gain traction with the inner-city, poor, hand-out receiving blacks.
2. Other minorities - principally spanish. I don't know enough about this one to comment on it...except to say, she'll need at least 25% of this entire block.
3. Illegal immigrants who vote (illegally to be sure, but vote nonetheless). She'll draw nothing from this group - hopefully it is small
4. The biggie....INDEPENDENT voters. This is the critical block. She's got to attract and hold at least 75% (better 80%) of this group (yes, I know there are independent blacks and other minorities...but I'm assuming small numbers). It would appear no one professional national polling organization is asking this question. But from all appearances, she's got a lot of hard work to do with this group.
5. Rino/repub/conservatives (yes, I know there are blacks and other minorities in here, but damn few, I'm thinking). If she wins the nomination (assuming she runs), she'll have to have at least 80% of this group. The others - avowed Palin haters - will either stay home, or jump to the stain's side. So she'll have to sway at least 4% to 6% more to her side than she currently accounts for.
6. The left. Unless they are "closet conservatives", she'll get less than 0.005% of this group.
So...do a headcount. There's your 2012 election in a nutshell.
If Palin's true intentions is not to run. This cartoon will be the official illustration of Palin's image among the American General Public.
I do believe that is what is happening.
Sarah Palin lives in your heads rent free.
Man, the truth is the truth, she has nearly 100%; name id, but she has the. Highest negatives. That puts her in a no win position. The facts are the facts, buy a voodoo doll maybe that will help.
Probably higher than that, Willard did not win the last time either.
If Sarah Palin can win the GOP Primary, she will beat Obama. Obama is running against the US economy and his socialist actions have done everything to harm the economy.
What the hell does that even mean?
Reminds me of "speaking truth to power", "hit the streets" and the other crap on Dummie Funnies.
I can tell you that using Paultard tactics isn't going to get Palin elected.
I hate Ron Paul,and I can assure you that I late liberals even more.
late = hate.
And DU sucks.
It means that Sarah occupies so much of the Left's, and a large number of folks who claim to be Republicans, mental energy that she's just about living in their heads. And Sarah doesn't have to pay a nickel of her own money for it.
Personally I like it. It's a nice turn of a phrase. Say it to someone who's spouting off about how stupid and unelectable she is and watch the reaction.
Shrub and Slick may have gotten their nose candy from the batches at Mena.
The thought of that Palin purge made my day.
The issue to be solved is that if the GOP nominates an establishment RINO, how do we convince all of the “lesser of two evils” voting republitards to support Palin in a third party?
Seeing that pic of her shaking hands with Allen West made my Memorial Day as well.
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