If you'd like to hear KTUU-TV in Achorage highlight the Draft Sarah Palin effort (and hear the mellifluous tones of Adam Brickley, who started the whole thing), visit http://palintology.com/ to see the YouTube segment. It's great!
Someone at BlogCritics responded to SJ'swonderful article (below ) by saying Sarah "lacked foreign policy experience" and her nomination as VP "would be an act of desperation" by Republicans. The following is my response:
I suggest people read The Economist piece on "Is America Heading to the Left?" and the recent articles by important conservative activists Patrick Hynes and Patrick Ruffini, as well as the Poll Data (by Stanley Greenberg, Pew Research, and others) cited in all those articles.
The Republican situation is beyond desperate, my friends. Democrats win "generic" presidential surveys (are you inclined to vote for a Democrat or Republican?) by 52-39 and win congressional races overall by about the same margin. The election of 2008 is now shaping up as a worse blow-out than 2006.
No, the American people don't like the Democrats. Sadly, however, they like Republicans (and conservatives) a lot less.
The same polls show the Republicans rapidly losing young people, Catholics (!!), and Hispanics. The evangelical vote for Republicans declined in 2006, and young evangelicals are increasingly concerned about issues (poverty, peace), where we're perceived as weak. Independents have been deserting the GOP in droves.
The number of people who identify themselves as Republicans/Democrats was 43-43 in 2004. Now, it's 50% Democrats, 35% Republican. In other words, millions of voters have been moving from the more conservative Party to the more liberal one.
Female professionals increasingly see the GOP as a Party mainly consisting of angry, old white men. (Sarah Palin is none of the above, except for the professional part.)
Desperate? That word doesn't convey how terrible the situation is. Currently, 44% of voters identifying with Republicans are 55 or over, a sign of a Party headed for the graveyard. Of voters under 30, a heavy majority identify with Democrats, the reverse of 15 years ago. That doesn't portend well at all.
A week or so I irritated some Huckabee supporters by saying Mike could not win. I also noted that, as things currently stand, NO Republican candidate could win the presidency in 2008. Hillary Clinton is now polling AHEAD of Rudy Giuliani (the Republican highest in the polls) on the issue of national security! Go figure.
We need to shake things up dramatically in order to have a chance. The thousands of hours devoted so far by men and women concerned about America and committed to Sarah's candidacy is our effort to turn the situation around.
Nationwide, there are only TWO (yikes) qualified, credible female Republican candidates, Heather Wilson of NM and Sarah Palin of Alaska. Sarah is the most appealing overall, has executive experience (unlike most of the Democrats) and has an approval rating of 84%, with only 5% disapproval. Gee, how did she get such a tremendous rating?
If we throw the same tired old faces at the voters, they will show their revulsion by voting for the Democrats, any Democrats. When they get to know Sarah, as we have, they will give the Republican Party another careful look.
The Economist article you can find in summary on http://theeconomist.com/ or in full at the local library.
The Patrick Hynes article is: http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/content/index.php?p=2496
The Ruffini article is: http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/content/index.php?p=2496
In terms of Sarah's foreign policy experience, how much does Hillary Clinton (who was somebody's wife and hosted lots of dinners) have? Or Obama? Or Giuliani? Or Romney? Or John Edwards? Or Huckabee? The answer is: close to none.
Sarah has extensive experience on two of the great issues of our time: energy and the environment. She doesn't rely on rhetoric about the "traditional family." In fact, she's a dynamic presence in just such a family. She's a living role model.
In a state that's become synonymous with political corruption, she's been a beacon of honesty and morality.
If "experience" means the kind of lousy record and issue baggage that got our nation into the current mess, then Sarah pleads innocent to carrying such an odious load. She's a person of great character and decency, which would be refreshing for a change, wouldn't it?
Stephen R. Maloney
Ambridge, PA
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2 comments:
About Huckabee..I like him also. Medved thinks he is the only one that has a chance because the rest have too much baggage and the extremes will back a 3rd party candidate in protest...
Huckabee has managed to get more Black votes than any Republican, including Bush.
He will keep the pro-life vote which crosses party lines and 2nd ammendment rights advocates will love his "this isn't about hunting rights".
The Independents and Libertarians will back his flat tax stand and most border control extremes will forgive his neither pro or con guest worker stand.
Unfortunately, Huckabee's real challenge will be fighting the public's idea of what a GOP is...that is White (in a COMBINED non-White America) and Male (in a majority voting female population).
AND the public's perception of a racist and sanctimonious GOP party.
I often wonder if those who don't get what a Palin addition will do to a GOP ticket really believe that McDonalds make the best hamburgers in America?
Sanity, you never fail to impress me. My piece, like a few others, expresses my exasperation with the conservative "base," which seems to regard electoral defeat (as in 2006) as a badge of honor, or some sign of principled behavior. The immgration was mainly about fear and hostility toward those from south of the border and very little about principle. Our country has many laws, some of them very bad (such as those that don't put child molesters away for good) and many that are good. The rule-of-law concept is a type of secular worship of a false god. The original Constituion said that a Black individual counted as three-fifths of a person and the Dred Scott decision was even worse. That were evil laws and the kind that decent people disobey. I don't want a pro-life policy that ignores children (including children of "illegals") and children generally, which is frankly what we have now. As for the Republican Party coming across white, male, angry, and blissfully unconcerned about impoverished Americans, my support of Sarah (and the few others like her) is designed to turn that situation around. Patrick Hynes defines that as the movement "that doesn't give a sxxx about ordinary people." What a legacy! Let's see how Mike does. As you've determined, he is a very fine man. I don't know what to say about Fred Thompson. Read the Wikipedia article him (including the point about him serving as a lobbyist for the Haitian dictator). Then think about him going to work on a TV program that's venomously anti-Bush and vaguely hostile to the military. As a candidate, he might as well have a huge bulls-eye on his back. In my view, he would have no chance to beat Hillary. He would be competitive with her in TN but not in many other states, including PA. Right now, Sarah Palin (along with her family) means everything to me because of her humanity. I hope she becomes an active candidate (probably sometime in late November or early December). Whether she does or not, she has some lifetime supporters, including you and me.
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