Sarah Palin illustrates what is wrong with the Republican party

November 13, 4:46 AMProgressive Politics ExaminerKaren Harper

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How does one describe the Republican party today?

Traditionally the GOP ideology has included smaller government, free market economy and fiscal conservatism.  But as the leader of the Republican party for the last 8 years, president George W Bush has proven, those ideals have been relegated to the abstract and not the reality.  Since Bush took office, citizens of the U.S. have fewer rights than they did before, the Republican administration has chosen to bail out Wall Street banks, essentially nationalizing the banking industry, and has accrued more debt in the last 8 years than at any time in the nation's history.  

The greatest challenge that faces the U.S. today is the economic disaster that has been building for several years.  George W Bush is a figurehead for today's Republican party.  The free market so many of today's Republicans believe in so strongly has failed as the current financial crisis we are in today shows.  George W Bush pushed for the $700 billion (and growing)  bailout of the Wall Street banks that were deregulated in true free market style, and by doing so has admitted through his actions that he is cognizant of the fact that free market economics simply don't work.  

Fiscal conservatism used to mean reduced government spending.  Lowering taxes for the wealthy is a remnant idea of supply side economics, or Reaganomics.  The idea is that if the wealthy have more money, they will provide jobs and spend that money, bolstering the economy for all.  But the result of tax cuts to the wealthy merely helped grow the burgeoning deficit and any idea that those tax cuts would somehow miraculously "trickle down" to help the middle and working classes has been shown to be a pipe dream.  Bush lead us into a war with Iraq on false premises and that war is costing America some $10 billion a month, not to mention the ten thousand casualties.  Republicans have apparently given up on fiscal responsibility.  Instead the few who bother, focus on "pork barrel" spending, a tiny tiny fraction of government expense, and meant to shift our attention away from the ever growing cost of the war in Iraq and free market economics.

Republicans in congressional and senatorial seats have tried to distance themselves from the current president but haven't had much success.  Senator John McCain and his vice-presidential running mate, Sarah Palin tried very hard to distance themselves from George W  Bush but found it impossible.  McCain had no clear way to remove Bush and the last 8 years from his platform because his ideology was very similar if not exactly the same as Bush's ideology, at least in his campaign platform.  Instead of talking about positive steps he could take to deal with the economic woes that average Americans are dealing with every day as they buy gasoline, shop for groceries and try to pay for their homes, McCain opted to campaign in the Karl Rovean style; attack your opponent to deflect attention from your own inadequacies.  The only clear vision McCain spoke of with any confidence or planning involved the war in Iraq.  He promised that he would stay in Iraq for 100 years if that is what it took to "win."  

President Bush seems to have left office prematurely.  You can see it in the bounce in his step and his unfurrowed brow.  He is ready to leave and one only has to watch him talking to the press to realize that the only road he sees in front of him lies down a stretch of Texas highway.

John McCain might be seen as the leader of the GOP today, but it appears that few see him as the leader or representative of the Republican party.  He is 72 years old and it's highly unlikely that he will seek the Presidency in 2012.  

As the Republican party flails about trying to figure out what went wrong, one Republican stands out, and she is Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and one time vice-presidential running mate to John McCain.  As is obvious to anyone who has managed to see 10 minutes of news in the past week, Palin is giving public interviews daily, making it clear that she wants to run for President in 2012.  

It is very likely that choosing Sarah Palin as his VP cost John McCain the election.  Ostensibly she was chosen by McCain to appease the "base" of the Republican party. 

The Republican Party, the mainstream media, the right-wing neocon media and the liberal media all agree on one thing.  The base of today's GOP is the extreme conservative evangelical right wing.  This is the group that McCain pandered to in his campaign, the one segment of the GOP that would never have voted for a Democrat.

Sarah Palin illustrates what is wrong with the GOP today.  The Republican base voted for McCain/Palin and they didn't win.  The Republican base, the evangelical right wing extremists are, in real world reality, a fringe group.  This group includes people like Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.  These are the people who have no actual vision for the future of the party, much less the country but instead cling to what has caused the majority of the nation to vote more Democrat this year than in 2004. 

John McCain made a fatal mistake in going along with the idea that his campaign should appeal to the base of the Republican party.  Choosing Sarah Palin was intended to placate the base,  the fringe of the Republican party.  Had he chosen someone of more substance and knowledge and less passion, he might not have gotten the "Palin bump" that occurred in polls just after the RNC, but the Palin bump was fleeting as soon as it became apparent that Governor Palin was clearly not qualified to be a vice-president, much less president of a country in crisis.  But she is a true Republican base conservative, appealing to the fringe.  They loved her.  And they still love her.

Rush Limbaugh is back to raking John McCain over the coals (as he did in 2000), this time for not speaking out against the anonymous McCain campaign workers who have leaked various Sarah Palin ineptitudes and gaffes.  Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and the numerous others like them are the voice of the Republican base and their voices are loud and clear, and what they are saying, and have been saying for the last 8 years appeals to the Republican base, that fringe segment  of  what used to be the Grand Old Party.  Quieter, more centrist and reasonable Republicans seem to have no voice.

Bush staffers and cabinet members love Sarah Palin too.  After all, she is just like them.  After the post-election meltdown, it seemed that some Republicans talked about change, and seemed to be reflective, trying to understand what had happened and what to do to change.  Some even spoke what Americans in touch with reality already knew intuitively, that the Republican party base, made up of evangelical extremist right wing neocons have become a liability.  

It is common knowledge that it is independents and moderates who elect presidents.  But the Republican party seemed to ignore that knowledge in the last few years and most certainly during the past two years of presidential campaigning.  The GOP showed that it didn't care about average Americans, didn't care about moderate Republicans as it continued with its campaign of terrifying  supporters by thrashing the opponent with innuendo, half-truths and crass lies.  The campaign worked.  Let me amend that, the campaign worked for the Republican base, the base that would never have voted for the Democrat.  It is the Republican Party's albatross-like base that loves Sarah Palin.

Palin talks a lot these days, every day in fact.  And the more she says, the more it is clear that she has no real vision, but hopes to charm the complacent Republican base into supporting her obvious bid for the 2012 White House.  Ari Flescher, former Press Secretary under GW Bush told Larry King of CNN that all Sarah Palin needs is to spend time with a Washington think tank in the intervening four years to learn about foreign policy and then to travel around the world a little and she will be ready to run for the office of President in 2012. 

Though Palin denies it, McCain campaign staffers have said that she didn't know the countries that make up North America and that she didn't know that Africa was a continent.  Unfortunately for Palin, the accusations are very plausible.  In her interviews before the election and after, it is clear that she likes to talk but there is no substance in anything she says.  She rarely answers a question an interviewer asks her and instead parrots her usual rambling soliloquy on the general issue.  The Republican base Palin defenders think that makes her articulate.   But then,  the same true defenders of the Republican base also think that Bush is articulate.  

That many in the base of the Republican party see Sarah Palin as a viable candidate for president in 2012 (some have even voiced the opinion that had she been on the top of the ticket, she would have won against Obama) illustrates that they have learned nothing from last weeks' election.   While Republican spinners sit in back rooms arguing over why they lost the election, it is obvious to the even nominally intelligent that the Republican party has to find a new base.  The GOP has disenfranchised its moderate population in favor of the right wing extreme.  Until they really understand that, Sarah Palin will continue to be a rising star among their ranks.  And that is what is wrong with the Republican party today.

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