Posted on 07/08/2010 3:37:04 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
To understand why Democrats ever picked Mondale, you have to understand where the party — and where the country — was in 1982 and 1983, when the nation’s verdict on Reagan and his policies was far less positive. In those days, with unemployment surging over 10 percent and the president’s popularity slipping to sub-Carter levels, Democrats mistakenly assumed that the ‘80 election had been a mirage. The electorate, they figured, had acted in haste and was rapidly returning to its senses. The results of the 1982 midterms, when Republicans (who had begun the cycle with claims that they’d win back the House) lost 26 House seats, only encouraged this thinking. To these Democrats, putting up Mondale made all the sense in the world. —Steve Kornacki
I appreciated Kornacki’s argument. He makes several good points explaining how a party recovering from a presidential election defeat could so badly misread the political landscape and choose such a poor nominee. It could be that I am underestimating the effect that most Republicans’ sheer contempt for Obama will have on the next nomination contest. When it comes to channeling and expressing this contempt there are quite a few willing to do it, but there aren’t any prominent Republicans that take more delight in it than Palin. If Republicans choose to believe that 2008 was just a fluke and that a re-match of sorts would have a different outcome, Palin would become a very appealing candidate for them. Kornacki is right when he says:
In nominating her, Republicans would be saying to the country, “We have learned nothing these last four years. We have changed nothing.”
Indeed, they have learned nothing during the last four years, and they haven’t really changed much of anything, so Palin would be a good fit with the party’s leaders and activists for that reason, but I remain skeptical that they are really prepared to go down in flames out of little more than pride and spite. I won’t rehearse all of the reasons I have given before why I doubt the GOP would be so self-destructive as to nominate Palin, but there still seem to be too many structural reasons why someone occupying Palin’s political space cannot succeed in a Republican primary contest. The comparison with Mondale is instructive. Palin and Mondale are alike in that they represent the face of the party as it was when it was defeated, but they are quite different in their sources of support. Mondale was the candidate of the party establishment and important interest groups, and Palin has made a point of aligning herself with every possible anti-establishment, insurgent campaign she can find.
While there are some Washington pundits and journalists on the right that continue to take her seriously, she isn’t likely to have the insider support or backing from party leaders. That space is already being filled by Romney, who also enjoys the status of default frontrunner. Despite her positioning as a “populist” insurgent, she seems uninterested in building an organization to challenge better-funded, better-organized rivals, and she is quite unsuited to running as a party reformer brimming with innovative policy ideas. Her positioning as an insurgent puts her at a particular disadvantage in Republican primaries, which tend to favor runners-up and establishment favorites. Because of their overconfidence and their extremely low opinion of Obama, Republicans may end up nominating a Mondale-like candidate in 2012, but I still have a hard time seeing how Palin gets there. In many ways, Romney has a much easier path to the nomination, and he has just reminded everyone why he would be a spectacularly unsuccessful general election candidate.
bullsh!t. The Democrat party lurches left and loses every time. They win when they run as moderates. The right is is the opposite. The GOP wins when they run as conservatives and get trounced when they run as Dem-lite.
LOL. I’ll ignore dissecting this garbage and just go to the next thread. You have an agenda against Governor Palin, that’s all.
Romneybot cr@p, pure and simple.
There’s also the other big reason: a former VP (often previously a major rival in a presidential nomination battle) is the default choice, especially when the other nominees aren’t all that great. Would Bush Sr. have won a reelection over a Mondale?
Total crap.
20% of US voters are Liberals, 40% say they are Conservatives. It’s simple math. Start by getting the 40% fired up and then pull enough of the independents to win.
... In nominating her, Republicans would be saying to the country, “We have learned nothing these last four years. We have changed nothing.” ...
Pure Poppycock from a Rommniebot!
There is not default runner. The only thing that Mitt has filled is empty air with more empty air.
Nope. McCain - THE TOP OF THE TICKET - lost the election.
Palin's politics are to McCain's politics like chocolate is to mud. Palin was no, nor is not a moderate sell-out to liberal positions.
... In nominating her, Republicans would be saying to the country, “We have learned nothing these last four years. We have changed nothing.” ...
Pure Poppycock from a Rommniebot!
There is no default runner. Palin did lose, Juan did, by saying things like “I don’t understand the economy” or something equally stupid whenever he surge in the polls.
The only thing that Mitt has filled is empty air with more empty air.
Where he goes wrong is his assumption that Palin won't challenge on policy ideas. That's the assumption everyone makes about Palin, and I suspect that that's where she will surprise everyone.
Best,
Chris
Sarah Palin is no Walter Mondale. She is our Barack Obama.
By that I mean, the troops, the base, the grassroots, whatever you call them, identify with her on a deep symbolic and emotional level. They will never turn from her (if she is a candidate), and they will turn on and attack any "normal" candidate.
This intensity is very unusual in Presidential politics, and it may very well be enough to get her elected (I presume, if she wants the nomination, she will get it).
There are two questions about Our Lady of Wasilla that I don't know the answers to: First, can she overcome the enormous and unprecedented media/Hollywood/university attack machine, and, second, if she is elected, what then?
The Leftist core behind Obama was very confident they'd be getting the wrecking ball that Obama has become.
I do get a tingle up my leg every time Sarah speaks, but I don't yet have the security that her Administration will have as many radical patriots as Obama's has communist traitors.
We shall see.
“A poll of GOP insiders suggests that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has little support among the party’s professional class — and maybe that’s just how she wants it.
In a survey of 109 party leaders, political professionals and pundits, Palin finished 5th on the list of candidates most likely to win the party’s ‘12 WH nomination. Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) was the overwhelming choice of the [GOP insiders]
Voters were asked to rank 5 candidates in the order of likeliness to capture the GOP nod. The results:
Likely To Win WH’12 Nomination (First place votes)
Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney 81 points (62%)
MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty 46 (9%)
Sen. John Thune 38 (12%)
MS Gov. Haley Barbour 28 (6%)
IN Gov. Mitch Daniels 25
Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin 25
Rounding out the top 10: Ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee, ex-FL Gov. Jeb Bush, LA Gov. Bobby Jindal. Candidates other than Romney, Pawlenty, Thune and Barbour split the remaining 11% of first-place votes.
Meanwhile, Dem insiders too think Romney is the most likely candidate to run against Pres. Obama next year. The results, from interviews with 111 Dem insiders:
Likely To Win WH’12 Nomination
Romney 29%
Thune 15
Pawlenty 13
Daniels 11
Gingrich 6”
How's the Ron Paul for president bandwagon going? More than 1% yet?
Total BS.
McCain is is the face of moderate Republicans. He ran away from the conservatives. His record of compromise with the liberals running the Senate is why he was so unpopular.
Palin is probably unpopular with the country-club Republicans in Washington. She resonates with the working man around the country.
The Democrats problem (and this is where this guy got his history wrong) was that they committed to Mondale way too early. By late 1983, the economy was quickly turning around. All then indicators were pointing up by late 83.
By the time the primaries were held in the spring of 84, the economy was roaring back. It was OBVIOUS that Reagan’s policies were working. The Dems were committed to Big GOvernment and as Reagan so aptly put it, “Government IS the problem.”
Yep.....moving on here too...next.
That helps to explain why someone to the left of Carter is now our president. As for Palin, maybe can win some more people over. I think the way to do it is cultivate the image of a serious candidate, someone who could mop the floor in any debate with GOP and dem candidates... and not by batting her eyelashes or (as her old mentor McCain often does) by conceding practically everything to the opposing side. You can argue all you want about everything she’s done up to now, but it isn’t enough to make her president.
Palin is probably unpopular with the country-club Republicans in Washington. She resonates with the working man around the country.
QFT.
I don’t know if Palin will be the nominee in 2012 or not. But I’m certain that Romney won’t be.
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