The Republican Party has been doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing since the presidential election. Half the conservative columnists and bloggers say the GOP lost because it overemphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The other half says the party didn’t emphasize them enough. And everyone denounces Project ORCA, the campaign’s attempt to turn out voters via technology.
But I’ve got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.
You think I’m joking? Think again.
In 2008, Palin, running as my party’s vice presidential candidate, was widely supposed to have cost John McCain the election. But that wasn’t so. A national exit poll conducted by CNN asked voters whether Palin was a factor in their voting. Of those who said yes, 56 percent voted for McCain versus 43 percent for Barack Obama.
Furthermore, Mitt Romney, the GOP’s anointed contender this year, got almost a million fewer votes than McCain did in 2008. (Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, although winning re-election, lost far more voters than the Republicans, with nearly 7 million fewer voters checking his name on their ballots than did in 2008).
Millions of Americans didn’t much care for Obama and his Obamacare spending blowout, but they didn’t feel like voting for Romney either. Some said that Romney didn’t resonate with recession-hit blue-collar folks in swing states because he “looked like the boss who outsourced their jobs,” as one blog commenter quipped.
Gabriel Malor, writing for the New York Daily News’ blog, pinpointed another reason: By focusing his campaign mostly on serious economic and political issues such as the national debt and tax incentives, Romney failed to take into account the fact that large segments of the electorate neither know nor care much about serious economic and political issues. What they — a group sometimes euphemistically called “uninformed voters” — do know and care about are the tugs on their emotions, fears, revulsions and heart strings provided by hours and hours of uninterrupted television watching.
The Democrats understood how to reach that constituency. When a barrage of Obama campaign TV ads told them that the GOP wanted to take away their contraceptives or that Bain Capital killed someone’s wife, they took notice. When Obama strolled the hurricane-stricken beaches of New Jersey in his bomber jacket, they were snowed. As Malor put it, Obama won on “binders, Big Bird, birth control and blame Bush.”
Palin can more than keep up with the Democrats in appealing to voters’ emotions. Hardly anyone could be more blue collar than Palin, out on the fishing boat with her hunky blue-collar husband, Todd. Palin is “View”-ready, she’s “Ellen”-ready, she’s Kelly-and-Michael-ready.
A Palin “war against women”? Hah! Not only is she a woman, she’s got a single-mom daughter, Bristol, to help with the swelling single-mom demographic. On social issues, Palin, unlike Romney, has been absolutely consistent. And let’s remember that most Americans, whatever their view of choice, disapprove of most abortions.
Gay marriage? Palin opposes it. But she is also a strong advocate of states’ rights, and I’m betting she’d be fine with letting states and their voters grapple with the issue on their own. Remember that all of America didn’t swing toward approval of gay marriage on Nov. 6. Three reliably blue states and their voters did. If she were smart, Palin would recruit a member of her impressive gay fanboy base — yes, she has one — to help run her campaign. I nominate Kevin DuJan of the widely read gay conservative blog HillBuzz, a Palin stalwart since 2008.
Palin’s son Track is an Iraq war veteran, so she can be proudly patriotic without being labeled another George W. Bush, looking to do aggressive nation-building. She seems aware there is only one nation in need of building right now: America.
Furthermore, looks count in politics, and Palin at age 48, has it all over her possible competition, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will be 69 by Election Day 2016 and who let someone talk her into adopting the flowing blond locks of a college student, making her look like Brunnhilde in a small-town Wagner production. Men love Sarah Palin, and she loves men.
She’s tough as nails too. After Election 2008, she was supposed to have been through. This year eight of the 14 GOP candidates Palin endorsed for Congress won election or re-election, including tea party favorite Ted Cruz for a Senate seat in Texas.
Sure, there is going to be never-ending nastiness from the left, but she’s already lived through that once. Katie Couric? A has-been. Tina Fey? Her shtick was already wearing thin in 2008.
There are also the snooty East Coast Republican intellectual types, such as Peggy Noonan, who look down their noses at a woman who doesn’t shop at Neiman Marcus and didn’t attend an Ivy League university. But Peggy made a fool of herself calling the election for Romney on Nov. 5. Who’s going to care what she and her ilk have to say next time?
Some Republicans will say Palin has too much baggage from 2008, and we need to look for a new Sarah Palin. But I don’t see what’s wrong with the one we’ve got. Ever since the 1990s, Republicans have been looking for the next Ronald Reagan. Reagan is now revered in bipartisan circles, but during his presidency he was, like Palin, ridiculed by liberals. They cited “Bedtime for Bonzo” and sneered at his no-name college degree.
Sarah Palin is the new Ronald Reagan: charming and affable and unwilling to back down if she’s right. I can’t see what’s wrong with that.
• Allen writes frequently about feminism, politics and religion.
Comments (81)
Add commentLM: You call it as you see it. Don't mean that's how it is. :)
...
LM: The reason I did not vote for Romney stemmed from doing
business with the Mormon sect many years ago. I was sold a 'pig in a poke'. Never got over it.
The Mormon mindset is not inclusive. But I can say the same for many who distinguish themselves from others based on any number of faiths. They tend to feel 'cleansed' when signing off on 'business' transactions after the fact with 'infidels'. Anyone not drinking from the same kool-aid jar is just collateral damage.
Calypso - ROFLMAO - thanks!
thanks for the entertainment today!
so your post is, essentially:
"Believe my opinion on the President, because my source of information is a radical blogger from Russia, interpreted by an even more radical blog who's other top story of the day is 'Shock study: Female Porn Stars Have Higher Self-Esteem, Better Body Image & Are More Spiritual Than Other Women'."
can't......catch......breath......laughing....too...hard.....
Seriously, the blaze? Perusing the 'headlines' I honestly expected to see a story about BatBoy. Even if you agree with the slant of that kind of stuff - you don't have to even look past the headlines to recognize that it's not serious journalism.
Perhaps you should try Webster as a source and look up Communism.
So, 49er, because I get an i
So, 49er, because I get an i and an e out of place on occasion, all of a sudden I am reactionary (oh, and I passed the 5th grade. I already knew the definition of that word.) I also get the impression that you seem to think that you know my political leanings, which would be funny cause I bet you dont.
swimmergirl: I do not need need to look up the definition of
'Communism'. I recognize it as an arm of government to control the populace. So does the populace. But the populace does not control the military or police.
Communism was Lenin and Stalin after the revolution.
Communism was Castro after the people's revolution.
Communism was the result of almost every people's revolution around the globe.
Communism is control. We can rename it to fit the middle east or any number of disjointed bodies of government which benefitted from an insurgency of the disenfranchised.
Without a Constitution, and a populace to defend same, it is all for naught.
Alright!! It was great to
Alright!! It was great to see Calypso throwing in his two bits as soon as the library opened up so the local homeless population--of which Calypso is a member-- could use the computers.
His posts are always such a hoot and I really enjoy having him as a regular on this forum.
I hope the dumpster was warm enough this past weekend.
kpawsuh
I suggested you are a reactionary, because from my perspective, it's what you are.
You don't rationalize, you react. For instance, your "reaction" to Rich Moniak's piece.
How you conclude, "Rich's point is that guns are bad and should be outlawed" is beyond me. How many words did you read, before you reacted, and how many more words, before you started hammering at your keyboard?
As for your political leanings, that's your business. I suspect it has to do with wind direction, but truth be told, I could care less.
The thing is, Ken,
While I understand your wish to shape your children as much as possible(anybody with children, no matter what their political stripe, philosophical take, religious affiliation, or choice of controlled substance would feel that inclination to some degree), you can't actually hive off your "family dynamics" from outside influences at all(unless you raise your kids "Wilderness Family"-style, and even then your dynamics would be affected by, say, the mood of the bears in the area). Families, like any other group of people, are always interacting with reality and the outside world. Kids are always hearing things(even in, say, a Christian school playground, or a madrassa, or a West Bank settlement, or a Tibetan lamasary)that you probably won't agree with.
The best you can do, really, is to try to basically raise your kids to be nice to people and play fair in the great video game of life. I really doubt any intellectuals(especially the liberal ones)would want to interfere with that. If these "intellectuals" are concerned about anything, it's just about making sure that kids aren't taught to hate others or to inflict harm on others. Is it such a bad thing to want to prevent those outcomes?
2016
In 2016 there will be 2 million more latinos voting in the election and 1 million fewer old white guys. Whoever the Democrats choose will be the next President. The bigots who control the Republican Party are headed down a demographic deadend.
Surreal
This article and its comments were a truly entertaining read. It's like being in the back seat of a car that's headed over a cliff and listening to everyone argue which seat is better to sit in.
As far as the Republican Party goes, they still don't get it; and if Palin is chosen next time around, they will have reached the bottom of the insanity canyon at 1000 mph.
I mean, everyone knows the real problem in this country is people looking for handouts...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-05/republican-heavy-counties-eat-u...
What the GOP REALLY needs
Is a candidate who can articulate a positive, inclusive, hopeful conservative vision
It needs to be a vision that accepts that all U.S. citizens are "Real Americans"-whatever political views they hold, whatever economic views they hold, whatever ethnic and cultural traditions they preserve, whatever faith they hold or even if they believe solely in their compass on their own personal conscience.
It needs to encompass the kindest notions of tradition, home, and family, not the meanest and most spiteful ones.
If if is going to call on ordinary people to take up the work of social provision through voluntarism or charity, in order to make up for cuts in the social wage, a decent conservatism also needs to support higher wages for the vast majority of Americans. People cannot be expected to volunteer to help their fellow person if they are obliged to spend most of their waking hours just trying to earn enough money to survive. A voluntarist approach to social welfare requires a society in which people can support themselves and their family by working the standard pre-1980 work week of 40 hours, if at all possible.
If conservatism is going to demand that everyone spend most of their time in a conventional job, it needs to work to change the work culture so that workers are genuinely valued on all levels for their labor, have a real say in the direction of the work they do, and are treated with full human respect and dignity at all times. Referring to or treating anyone as "deadwood" is the best way to undermine the work ethic of a nation..
A decent conservatism needs to regulate spending and the size of government, while recognizing, at the same time, that there will always be social needs that can't be left at the mercy of "the invisible hand of the market".
It needs to recognize that, if it calls for the role of government to be limited at home, the role of our military should be limited abroad.
As it seeks to conserve what it sees as the best of American values, a renewed conservatism would also need to start supporting the environmental movement, because its not truly possible to conserve traditional values if the survivability of the world in which those values are to be conserved is not itself protected. Unregulated development is a radical choice, a disruptive choice, not a conservative choice at all.
It needs to accept the notion that, if power is to be devolved to state and local government, the size of those governmental bodies can't be cut WHILE the size of the federal government is also cut, because there needs to be the ability of those authorities, closer as they are to the needs and specifics of the jurisdictions they govern, to actually be ABLE to deal with the tasks they will have to take on as a federal role shrinks.
And it needs to accept, as true conservatives like Barry Goldwater did, that our personal lives(including the question of whom we are born to love and(if we wish, to marry and share our lives with) and what we choose to do with our bodies)are not meant to be controlled through legislation, as long as what we do in those lives harms no one else.
If this conservatism is to tie itself to a defense of life, it should also tie itself to a defense of a decent quality of life for all, to be preserved by voluntary means rather than governmental means.
That is the role a positive, constructive, modernized conservative party would take on...as opposed to the role the current GOP chooses to play, that of a spiteful, sanctimonious, judgmental tightwad that refuses to help those in need yet still feels free to judge those people on the choices they have to make to survive.
Sarah Palin can never be the candidate to articulate the positive, inclusive vision outlined above, because her form of politics is driven solely by the emotional siblings of anger and fear, and by an unwillingness to accept that anyone different than her has any right to exist, in this country to say the least, and in this world if at all possible.
Truly, Republicans, you can do better than that. And you deserve better than that as a standard-bearer.
Simpleton?
It's called sarcasm, humanbeing, and it was extremely obvious. Try and spot it next time before you call me the simpleton.
Sigh...
"Sarcasm FROM YOU is just another word used to describe the inability to articulate an intelligent concept."
Wow, you know me really well! I had no idea I was so stupid...
(That's sarcasm, by the way)
Did you read the article (from Bloomberg, no less) that followed that comment? The one titled "Republican heavy counties eat up most food-stamp growth"?
It was a sarcastic jab at the predominant Republican "we lost the election because of people who are looking for handouts" message, and followed my statement that the Republican Party still doesn't get it.
The point was very clear. Not sure how I could spell it out any clearer for you...
@Humanbeing
Forget him he'll never learn.
Do you ever run into Bob Ayak up there in Kake? last I heard he was working on a logging crew there but it's been a few years since I heard from him.
humanbeing
Are you serious? You didn't even understand what I was saying (and still don't, apparently). Then you personally insult me and continue to do so.
I'm not a Republican and it's not my party. Period.
Good day.
sarah palin = worst idea ever
sarah palin as president = worst idea ever.