Old-Style Politics and New-Style Sarah

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One thing Adam Brickley (also called "The New Karl Rove") often talks about is "old-fashioned politics" -- also called "old-style politics." It refers to people swearing by political truisms that are no longer true, if in fact they ever were.

One criticism the Draft Palin Effort sometimes gets is that Alaska is not a traditional source for vice-presidential nominees. Also, the state has only three electoral votes. The idea is that naming Sarah as the nominee would not significantly influence the outcome of the national election.

That is classic "old-fashioned politics."

The sitting vice-president, Dick Cheney, is from Wyoming. That state has . . . three electoral votes. Also, like Alaska, it's a strong red state. In fact, either state would turn "Blue" only if all the residents held their breath for several hours.

Here's a question: who was the last vice-presidential nominee that clearly helped a presidential running mate carry an important state? The presidential candidate was John F. Kennedy, the vice-presidential candidate was Lyndon B. Johnson, the state was Texas, and the year was 1960!

In a strange way, however presidential candidates (aside from Al Gore) do seem to have a tendency to carry the states where they reside. In 1972, George McGovern carried South Dakota, and nothing else. In 1984, Walter Mondale won in Minnesota -- and lost the other 49 states.

The notion that a vice-presidential candidate brings along with him (or her?) the state of residence? It's just old-style political thinking, and it should have no influence on a choice of a superb candidate: Sarah Heath Palin.

We see Sarah as a major factor in helping the Republican nominee carry states like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida, all of which have a lot more than three electoral votes.

The big news this week has consisted of the following (all of them included in the blog material below):

• A major endorsement of Sarah for V-P by Pulitzer Prize nominee Les Kinsolving;
• An extremely positive character study of Sarah by the "Queen of the Blogosphere," SJ Reidhead;
• A story in the Anchorage Daily News featuring (and quoting members of) the Draft Palin Movement;
• A KTUU-TV (Anchorage) feature on Adam Brickley's "DraftPalinforVP" web page, along with phone comments by Adam; and,
• A story in the Fairbanks News-Miner newspaper about the Draft Palin effort and its effect (positive) on Sarah and Alaska.

In short, this has been a big week for those who believe that Gov. Sarah Palin is exactly what America needs. As a group, we have accomplished a few "minor miracles," but the best is yet to come for Sarah, her family, and the nation.