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'Going Rogue': The case for Sarah Palin in 2012
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As Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, comes out this week (and subsequently sells more copies than anyone can imagine) we can expect more of the following chatter regarding her from the media:
She resigned. She’s a quitter. She ain’t bright. She’s white trash.
Yes, those are all of the media talking points on Sarah Palin. Taken together, they alone should serve as impeccable qualifications for the White House. Also “not bright” Ronald Reagan. Quitting? Well, it depends on how you look at it. From the conventional sense, yes Palin quit. From the “maverick” style with which she has blazed her political trail, however, her resignation is just par for the course.
Her book, Going Rogue, hasn’t even come out yet. And still if you are really honest about it, you have to acknowledge that Palin has done more to advance her political agenda (and thus her career) in the months since her July resignation than she ever possibly could have as the sitting governor of Alaska. Taken in full view of her commitment to conservative principles and a revived--and conservative--Republican party, one cannot help but see the merit in her bold political gamble.
Additionally, Palin will be able to stand as a private citizen concerned about the ruling elites. Her populist appeal will be massive. She will stand alone in the pack of folks seeking the office currently stained with the filth of Obama’s socialism, as the only person who left public office intentionally. She doesn’t represent the politics as usual brand, those who seek to preserve their political power at all costs.
To her, political power is merely a means to an end.
And that approach is exactly the approach that the conservatives will be looking for. Sure the media will make a lot of noise about the low polling for the Republican brand in recent polls. They will feign horror at the “imminent” demise of the GOP, while prescribing a steady dose of moderation in order to retain power. Of course, this ignores ongoing polling like the Battleground polling that shows upwards of 60% of folks identifying themselves as either “very conservative” or “somewhat conservative” while self-identifying liberals are in the mere 20s. So the story isn’t so much that the GOP is dying because of too much conservatism, as it is dying because of a leftward drift among the party leadership. Unapologetic conservatism as an election strategy works every time it is tried. Ronald Reagan’s landslides in 1980 and 1984, George H.W. Bush’s in 1988, the GOP takeover of congress in 1994 are proof positive of this. When conservatives try to “moderate” their message, apologize for vast portions of it, or blatantly attempt to become a slightly less socialist Democratic party, the GOP fails miserably. Just ask George W. Bush about his approval ratings post 2004. Just ask Gerald Ford, the George H. W. Bush of 1992, Bob Dole, John McCain and the “drunken sailor” class of the GOP congress in 2004 & 2006.
So, when one looks around at the possible GOP contenders, you have only one candidate that stands consistently and boldly as a passionate conservative advocate. That person is Sarah Palin. Mitt Romney ran for governor and largely governed as a moderate Republican before miraculously changing his tune to a more conservative melody in order to win the nomination in 2008. Conservatives have been down his tired road before. George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush all gave lip service during election cycles to their alleged conservative beliefs, only to check them at the door once in office. In short, like the reptilian aliens of “V” they hid their moderate scales beneath a nice and shiny outer coating of conservative skin.
Mike Huckabee is a darling of social conservatives, but his fiscal and foreign policy positions during 2008 left a lot of us wondering what the heck he was talking about. Speaking as one who was a big fan of the Huckster, it was disappointing to see him going “off the reservation” of conservatism when he could have stayed on message and claimed the nomination from the moderate duo of McCain and Romney.
Tim Pawlenty seems better than Romney as an establishment conservative, but his actions thus far have shown a lack of principle over party. When push comes to shove, Pawlenty will fall in line with the out-of-touch “big tent” obsessed moderate leadership of the GOP.
To be certain, there are other possible candidates, like Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal. None, however, generate the amount of attention and excitement that a Palin candidacy would offer. As good a guy as Jindal is, his half-dead zombie response to Obama’s state of the union signaled the type of candidate he would be. Can you really imagine that type of speaker drawing crowds of 60,000?
People will point to recent polling that shows Palin struggling with voters in a 2012 match-up. Any honest assessor of the situation, however, would acknowledge that this far out of an election those numbers mean nothing. Sure, Palin has some work to do. She hasn't declared a candidacy or even campaigned at all for the office. Polling numbers can change dramatically, particularly with an energetic and courageous underdog like Palin. (For more on polling reliability, see President Hillary Clinton.)
Sarah Palin’s career demonstrates a political courage unseen in decades. She took down local officials in Wasilla by pushing an unashamed conservative agenda. She courageously sought to clean up corruption in the state Oil & Gas Commission, and when the powerful elites chose to look the other way to the corruption she had found, she resigned and took them down piece by piece. She took down a corrupt Republican Attorney General. She took down a moderate incumbent governor and a popular former Democratic governor. She took on the oil companies and won. She was the first governor in Alaska’s recent memory to actually pursue private sector solutions to the oil and gas pipeline project that languished in the Alaska hope chest for decades. She was able to put the deal together in just two years.
One can see her resignation as governor as quitting. However, Palin has proven throughout her career that she is a tenacious proponent of her principles who will stop at nothing (even to the detriment of her own career) to advance her agenda. She didn’t quit the governorship and go away. She quit to write a book, tour the country, raise money for and promote conservative candidates nationwide and become a thorn in the side of the Obama administration. A thorn, it should be noted, that the GOP establishment just couldn’t produce.
Her career and education are also not unheard of in presidential history. She has more political experience than Abraham Lincoln prior to his election, and even her two year tenure as Alaska’s governor matched Teddy Roosevelt’s mere two year stint as governor of New York prior to his elevation to the national stage. She has more years of executive experience (12+) than Obama and Joe Biden will even by election day 2012. She has more education than Andrew Jackson and Harry Truman. One of her political heroes, Ronald Reagan also earned a degree at a sneer-worthy non-Ivy League school named Eureka College. Sure, Palin’s degree from the University of Idaho doesn’t carry the same weight as the completely sealed records of Obama’s Ivy League education, where not a single paper can be found and there is no record of him actually doing anything as the “President” of the Harvard Law Review, other than being president. Folks who sneer at Palin, however, sneer at the bulk of Americans who didn’t go to Ivy League schools, and yet can somehow still figure out how to tie our shoes.
Sarah Palin is a genuine public servant in an era of antipathy and outright hostility toward the governing ruling class. She represents accomplishment over career preservation. She represents a love of America and devotion to personal liberty lost on the governmental leviathan care-takers so prominent in both parties.
The election of 2009 showed that independents are turning in large numbers against the Obama agenda. It is not enough, however, to just have these folks against Obama, they need to be given an agenda to vote for. Sarah Palin is the only candidate on the GOP side with the courage and vision to promote and active and unabashedly conservative agenda to bring Republicans, independents, and even the long-missing Reagan Democrats together in a mandate to take back this country.
Sarah Palin’s public rehabilitation will begin on Monday with Oprah. America will finally get to meet the Arctic fox on her terms and with her fully in command of the message. She will not longer be peddling McCain’s moderate GOP worldview, but the passionate and courageous conservative worldview of a hockey mom from Alaska.
Ever fond of the underdog, America will find someone to root for. Someone who will in turn root for her and bring her out of the socialist malaise that Obama and the completely out-of-control congress have gotten us into.
Indeed, Obama and his merry band of socialists may find that 2012 is the year of the “rogue.”
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