Posted on 11/24/2010 12:54:47 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Sarah Palin wasted little time firing back at Barbara Bush, who used an interview with Larry King early this week to express her hope that Palin will stay in Alaska.
"I think the majority of Americans don't want to put up with the blue bloods," Palin said on Laura Ingraham's radio show on Wednesday. "And I say it with all due respect because I love the Bushes. The blue bloods who want to pick and choose their winners instead of allowing competition to pick and choose the winners."
While it's true that Barbara Bush remains a well-liked figure, particularly within the Republican Party, there's really little risk for Palin in taking this shot. The GOP used to be driven by the old line, Mayflower-ish, country club-types that Barbara and George H.W. represent. Remember that George H.W. Bush essentially ran as a Rockefeller Republican in the 1980 presidential race, branding Ronald Reagan's tax cut program "voodoo economics" and indicating support for abortion rights. With the rise of Reagan conservatism, Bush's crowd was marginalized and, in many cases, driven out of the party altogether.
This is why it's noteworthy that George H.W. Bush, in the same Larry King interview with his wife, appeared to endorse Mitt Romney for the 2012 GOP nod:
He's a reasonable guy. He's a conservative fellow, that's good. But no, I think he'd be a good president, a very good president.
If you asked me, who will the nominee be, I couldn't tell you. We like Mitt Romney. We know him well and like him very much.
As I've written before, Romney is the closest thing there is in today's GOP politics to another George H.W. Bush. Like Bush, he was born into a family of status and privilege and entered politics as a moderate, establishment Republican; the Romney who ran for Senate in Massachusetts in 1994 sounded fairly similar to the the Bush who ran for president in 1980.
But also like Bush, Romney is ultimately an ambitious opportunist. When his '80 campaign fizzled, Bush quickly recognized that the GOP was rapidly turning into an ideologically cohesive right-wing party in Reagan's mold. He maneuvered his way onto the GOP ticket with Reagan, renounced his primary campaign rhetoric, and spent the next eight years laboring to convince members of the GOP's New Right base that he was one of them. Romney has pursued the same course. In the run-up to his 2008 campaign, he walked back one position after another that he'd staked out in Massachusetts, desperately trying to align himself with the sensibilities of the party's right-wing national base.
Even Romney's famous late-2007 defense of his Mormon faith (delivered at George H.W. Bush's presidential library!), widely portrayed by the press as a passionate defense of religious liberty, can be viewed as more of a cynical campaign ploy -- an effort to convince fundamentalist Christians that they should consider him one of them. If anything, the speech called to mind Bush's ridiculous attempt in 1987 to win over Evangelical leaders by claiming to be a born-again Episcopalian.
In 1988, Bush was able to pull off his chameleon act, mainly because of the leg-up he got from running as Reagan's loyal No. 2. Reagan refused to formally endorse Bush during the GOP primaries, but it was clear that Bush was running with the White House's blessing. Essentially, Bush used his two terms as vice president to cajole the New Right into giving him the benefit of the doubt -- which they did, with plenty of reluctance. (And that reluctance proved well-placed when Bush went back on his "no new taxes" pledge as president.)
This is why it can be hard to see Romney capturing the GOP nod in '12. The GOP base is even more conservative now than it was in 1988, and it's mood is far more restive. The Tea Party crowd isn't nearly as willing to give a suspected RINO the benefit of the doubt as the New Right forces were in '88 -- and Romney doesn't enjoy the political benefits of the vice presidency either. In this sense, Palin's back-and-forth with Barbara Bush could be a sign of trouble to come for Mitt. In a one-on-one fight with Palin (or Mike Huckabee, or maybe someone else) in 2012, he'll be the one playing the blueblood role -- which isn't a position any ambitious Republican wants to be in these days.
The problem with the bush family is they have way too many liberals in it.
Isnt Salon a liberal website ???
I can understand why they would like the liberal Romney...
Romney hasnt a hope of beating the DEemocrat nominee...
even if its Barry again...
A ballot like that wouldnt have a choice...
Barry Soetoro V Barry Soetoro 15 years older...
That pretty much sums it up better than anything I've seen written on the topic.
Much to the chagrin of one extreme that sees Mitt as the second coming of Ronald Reagan and the other extreme that sees him as the devil himself.
Or Mormon Barry vs. Islamic Barry.
“I think the majority of Americans don’t want to put up with the blue bloods,”
I just love the way Sarah cuts to the chase and kneecaps little old harmless ladies like Babs Bush. I hope she runs.
ROFLMBO
You mean a little old harmless lady who had just yielded a switchblade? Babs hasn't said anything intelligent since she correctly described Hillary.
Michael Medved seemed to have kicked off his official Mitt Romney in 2012 campaign today, which naturally involved a selling of the Mormon religion at the same time, his anti-Palin campaign has been running for a long time.
Romney support will necessarily, often involve the selling of Mormonism to Christian Republicans it seems, so this primary effort by Romney will be harmful, in way that no other candidate’s campaign has ever been.
I think it’s funny that SP trashes the blue bloods considering: “Sarah Palin is upper echelon when it comes to descent from the nation’s colonial era founding families in New England.”
Read more at Suite101: Sarah Palin’s Ancestry: Solid New England: Vice Presidential Candidate Has Multiple Mayflower Lineages http://www.suite101.com/content/sarah-palins-ancestry-solid-new-england-a67281#ixzz16Egx6OIg
Barbara should know all about *blue-bloods*
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=BushBook&Entity=BushPS
Wow. A decent realistic piece of analysis from Salon.
Myth will give you red..unless you want blue...then he’ll give you red/blue until he figures out what you really want. Purple? Can do. Orange? Comin’ right up. I love Crist. Green? Let me check...got it. Black? Sure, I love the night. White? Yeah, but don’t be too racist. Pink? Oh, yeah, baby.
That comment by Palin was a touch of genius, putting a shot over the bows of not only the Bush family but the Pubbie establishment.
They can be marginalized as the ‘blue blood’ elites against the average guy Republicans from now on. I don’t know if Palin is the ONe, but she put her finger on a political sore spot with aplomb. That shows guts and political acumen from someone.
In the past conservatives have often given “moderates” the benefit of the doubt.
Those days are done for two reasons. First, we’ve been burnt. And second, there is a lot less room for error now; we are too close to the buzz saw. Compromise got us here and we don’t have that luxury anymore.
When you compromise with someone who is going the wrong direction, you don’t wind up in “sort-of” the right place; you wind up in the wrong place at a slower pace. We are in the wrong place and our time is running out.
The Harvard/Yale boys who have been ruling America since Jan. 1989 have wrecked this country and gotten us $15 trillion in debt.
How could Palin do worse?
>Those days are done for two reasons. First, we’ve been burnt. And second, there is a lot less room for error now; we are too close to the buzz saw. Compromise got us here and we don’t have that luxury anymore.
I’ll add a 3rd reason. We’ve shown we can WIN with real, solid conservatives. We don’t have to settle for old establishment RINOs.
Good point!
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