The Division Among Conservatives Over Sarah Palin (Repost)

(Left: Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and GOP vice presidential candidate of John McCain in 2008.)

Sarah Palin was the first female vice presidential candidate to run as a Republican. She served what essentially was the conservative wing of the McCain presidential ticket. Almost immediately, McCain's presidential prospects skyrocketed, albeit temporarily. The Arizona senator's reputation was one historically associated with that of a moderate. The non-partisan National Journal rates a Senator's votes by what percentage of the Senate voted more liberally, and what percentage more conservatively, in three policy areas: economic, social, and foreign. For 2005–2006 (as reported in the 2008 Almanac of American Politics), McCain's average ratings were as follows: economic policy: 59 percent conservative and 41 percent liberal; social policy: 54 percent conservative and 38 percent liberal; and foreign policy: 56 percent conservative and 43 percent liberal. Columnists such as Robert Robb and Matthew Continetti have used a formulation devised by William F. Buckley, Jr. to describe McCain as "conservative" but not "a conservative," meaning that while McCain usually tends towards conservative positions, he is not "anchored by the philosophical tenets of modern American conservatism." As both a daredevil and self-proclaimed "maverick," McCain named Palin, then the governor of Alaska and a relative unknown in the national political scene, as the vice presidential candidate in 2008. The rest, as they say, is history.

Perhaps my fondest memory of Palin was her Vice Presidential Debate with Sen. Joe Biden. Of course, a monkey can beat Biden with half his or her brain tied behind his back just to make it fair, but give Palin credit in how she scored big points against Biden's incompetence in the following video:

Gov. Palin is perhaps the most important figure along with Ron Paul in the history of the Tea Party movement. She is also a source of great division with the Republican Party. Her recent dissatisfaction with the 14 GOP senators who voted to pass the immigration bill so disgusted her that she threatened to leave the party and a form new political party, the Freedom Party. This, of course, has caused a major uproar within the conservative community. It is Sarah Palin who has been chiefly responsible for achieving the vast majority of congressmen and senators elected to office (Sen. Rand Paul and Sem. Ted Cruz, anyone?) through her activism as de facto head of the Tea Party movement in recent years. By doing this, she would damage the GOP's abilities to get leaders elected because the party has undertaken a policy of discouraging and dissolving grassroots efforts by people such as you and me in working campaigns for the party's candidates. She is a brilliant politician, and indeed I would not mind betting that if she were to run for president and win, she would be America's version of "The Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher. 

Through two articles posted on one of my favorite websites, Commentary Magazine, I am going to provide you with two diametrically opposing perspectives on her recent rhetoric based on such intentions as leaving the party as well as her interest in running for the U.S. Senate from the State of Alaska.

The first two are the most recent. This is slam on her political lackadaisical nature, or his perception of such a manifestation, by Peter Wehner, from July 8, 2013:

The GOP Is More Serious Than Sarah Palin

 Peter Wehner | @Peter_Wehner

07.08.2013 - 10:25 AM

In a recent interview, former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin indicated she was open to leaving the GOP and starting a third party. After expressing her enthusiasm for the name “The Freedom Party,” Palin went on to say this: 

"If the GOP continues to back away from the planks in our platform, from the principles that built this party of Lincoln and of Reagan, then yeah, more and more of us are gonna start saying, “You know, what’s wrong with being an independent?” Kind of, with that libertarian streak that much of us have. In other words, we want government to back off and not infringe upon our rights. I think there will be a lot of us who start saying, “GOP, if you abandon us, what–we have nowhere else to go except to become more independent and not enlisted in a, one or the other of the private majority parties that rule in our nation — either a Democrat or a Republican.” Remember these are private parties. And no one forces us to be enlisted in either party."

Let’s begin with this observation: Ms. Palin is a fierce opponent of immigration reform, and any openness by the Republican leadership in the House would move her a good deal closer to abandoning the GOP. Which of course makes her reference to both Lincoln and Reagan odd, since Reagan was an advocate of amnesty and as president granted it to millions of illegal immigrants (“I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally,” Reagan said in his 1984 debate with Walter Mondale). 

As for Lincoln, in a new biography on him, Rich Lowry points out that “Lincoln was broadly pro-immigration… Clearly, Lincoln’s default position today would be generosity toward immigrants. The effectively permanent status as second-class citizens of millions of illegal immigrants would be anathema to him.” In their tone and substantive approach to legal and illegal immigration, then, people like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are far closer to Reagan and Lincoln than Ms. Palin is.

And what about the broader indictment by Palin, which is that the GOP is moving away from its principles and becoming a less conservative party? That charge–shared by some others on the right–strikes me as rather wide of the mark. After all, in many respects the GOP is becoming more amenable to her brand of Tea Party conservatism than it was in and prior to 2008–when Palin was a proud Republican and the party’s vice presidential pick.

For example, a smaller percentage of GOP senators voted for immigration reform last month than was the case in 2006. Representative Paul Ryan has on several occasions now presented a very serious plan to re-limit government and reform entitlements, especially Medicare–and in doing so he has gone far beyond anything that Ronald Reagan ever proposed. And to the astonishment of many, Ryan secured the support of virtually the entire Republican House. In addition, the GOP has uniformly opposed higher taxes. (Compare this once again to Reagan, who in 1982 signed what at the time was the largest tax increase in American history.) In fact, congressional Republicans have consistently been pushing for tax cuts. They accepted sequester cuts earlier this year, when many on the right predicted they would buckle. House and Senate Republicans have also opposed, almost to a person, the Affordable Care Act, and pushed for its repeal. Republicans voted en masse against the 2009 stimulus package. The GOP remains staunchly pro-life. It has opposed the president’s gun control and climate change agenda. And many Republicans have backed away from a larger federal role in education. Then there are Republican governors, current and recent, many of whom are conservative, successful and reform-oriented. 

Let’s stipulate that no party is perfect, that different currents exist within political parties, and that key figures within them will act in ways with which we disagree. The GOP certainly isn’t fully abiding by my recommendations. That said, where precisely is this great abandonment of principle we’re supposedly seeing? The GOP is in many ways a more conservative party today than it was during the Reagan years.

Several things are happening, I think. One is that some elements within the GOP base are in an agitated mood, spoiling for a fight, eager to make themselves look principled by constantly asserting the GOP is unprincipled. It’s similar to a quarrelsome marriage; every word one spouse says is interpreted in the worst possible light by the other. Sarah Palin and those like her are now disposed to attack the GOP, and perhaps even looking for reasons to break from it. But let’s be clear: It’s being driven by her/their frame of mind, not the heresies of the Republican Party. 

The other thing that is occurring is that Palin and those like her have undergone a fairly dramatic shift in the last few years. One telling example is her reaction to Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency leaks. Palin has gone out of her way to defend Snowden  and asserted that America is “becoming a totalitarian surveillance state.” This is a silly charge–and evidence that Palin has lurched in a much more libertarian direction since she enthusiastically agreed to be John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

It may also be that Palin, having quit after serving less than one term as governor, is simply not very serious about, or even all that interested in, governing. She does seem better suited to compose tweets and star in reality shows than to carry out the duties of governing.

But Ms. Palin is right about this: No one forces us to be enlisted in either party. She is free to leave the GOP at any time, for any reason. And there may be more than a few Republicans who hope she will, if only so that they do not have to spend any more time explaining to the rest of the world why the GOP, for all its shortcomings, is far more serious than Sarah Palin. 

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The GOP is notorious for its dubious record with women voters, and there are still far fewer conservative Republican politicians throughout the nation than there are liberal ones. To suggest that the GOP would be willing to see her leave is ludicrous. She would serve the party well to draw the attention of not only more conservative and libertarian voters, but those of the female population as well. However, I will have to acknowledge a correct statement by Wehner regarding Palin's grasp of history. Reagan did, indeed, declare that he was in favor of amnesty in the 1984 Presidential Debate with Walter Mondale on foreign policy. It also is one of the few parts of the Reagan platform that I find highly undesirable. While it is crucial that every politician know his or her history in order to properly base his or her decisions, it is quite common for them to fail this key test, and it is met with disastrous results. Still, history is a massive subject, perhaps the deepest in its breadth of detail in all the academies, and though Palin is a politician, a highly-influential politician I might add, her degree from the University of Idaho is in Communications with an emphasis in Journalism, not History. One cannot be an expert at everything, and yet we, the American people, expect our elected officials to be more than simply "a jack of all trades and a master of none." We expect them to be God-like. That is the quality the Democrats want you to believe they possess, and they portray it so well that the party has dominated the electoral process for more than 80 years. Thus, humanity is refreshing, but we must still strive for our best "selves" we can be.

The next article is from July 10, 2013, and was authored by Jonathan S. Tobin. Unlike the previous article, this one is supports Palin, encouraging her to run for the U.S. Senate: 

Contentions

Run, Sarah, Run and Keep Running

Jonathan S. Tobin

07.10.2013 - 12:10 PM

Was Sarah Palin just teasing us last night when she let drop on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show that she was considering running for the U.S. Senate next year? Maybe. Palin, as Politico notes today, will generally do or say anything in order to create some buzz in the media. It’s hard to find too many serious political observers who think that four years after she abruptly resigned her post as governor of Alaska, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate is willing to do the hard work of running for office rather than just running her mouth on television. Nor would it seem likely that she would put her celebrity status in jeopardy by running the risk of being defeated, either in a primary or in a general election.

But, at least for the sake of argument, let’s take her at her word and say that she really is considering challenging incumbent Democrat Mark Begich in 2014. If so, my advice to her is that she should do it.

Doing so might not be the safest play for preserving her “brand” as a pundit at least in the short term since it would take her off of television and the lecture circuit and possibly bring her career as a bankable personality to a premature end. Nor would it necessarily be what Senate Republicans want to happen since they would probably prefer a less controversial mainstream conservative to be the GOP nominee in a race for what ought to be a winnable seat for the party. But if Palin really wants to have an impact on the future of her party and her country and to revive her flagging popularity and chances for a future presidential run, trying for the Senate in 2014 is the only choice.

After four years as the queen of conservative snark, it’s hard to remember that once upon a time, Palin was one of the bright, young stars of the Republican Party with a hard-won reputation as a fresh, independent voice that was willing to challenge a corrupt state party establishment. That Sarah Palin was not so much an ideologue as she was a doer. Perhaps if John McCain had not listened to those conservative pundits who swooned over Palin’s obvious political talent and good looks and made her his personal Hail Mary play to transform a 2008 presidential election that he was bound to lose anyway, she might now be in the middle of a second successful term as Alaska governor and be one of the GOP’s favorites for 2016. A few more years in Juneau being a good governor and a careful rollout of her national profile in which she could portray herself as conversant on national issues would probably have been the best thing for her career, as well as for her family.

But that was not to be. Palin made a powerful first impression on the country with as brilliant a convention speech as could have been imagined, but soon crashed and burned in national interviews and, unfortunately, became the scapegoat for a poorly run McCain campaign as well as the primary focus for left-wing hate and liberal media bias. In the next year, she ditched her governorship and then proceeded to make a spectacle of herself on reality TV. The worst of it wasn’t so much her poor career choices and the way her family became a tabloid staple. The most dispiriting thing about Palin’s career arc is the way her bitterness at the media and other Republicans became the primary focus of her rhetoric. Rather than going to school on the issues and making herself ready for the next political challenge, she seemed content to become a sideshow for the grass roots, pandering to the worst instincts of her party and often appeared foolish rather than being a thoughtful contributor.

To note this unfortunate descent is not to ignore her still potent ability to generate publicity and draw crowds. Her interventions in some Republican primaries helped conservatives like Ted Cruz and Kelly Ayotte win Senate seats. Her raw political talent and speaking ability is still there even if it is most often used to rail at her enemies rather than to demonstrate thoughtful stands on the issues.

Doing so has kept her admirers happy and preserved her niche as a flame-throwing snark machine of the right. But she has to know that this routine has a limited shelf life. With the GOP now possessed of a deep bench of stars who are potential 2016 candidates, Palin is very much yesterday’s news and has already been eclipsed by people like Cruz and Rand Paul even among her own fan base. As the years go by, her appeal and her celebrity are bound to wane. Sooner or later, if she is to go on being treated–at least by people like Hannity, if few others even in the conservative media–as a big deal, she’s going to have to do something more than talk shows. The 2014 Alaska Senate race may be the best opportunity to do so that she will ever get.

That said, Palin would have to do more than merely throw her hat in the ring to beat Begich. As one poll taken earlier this year made clear, even in Alaska her negative poll ratings are through the roof as much as they are nationally. The fact that a staggering 59 percent of Alaskans view her negatively with only 35 percent seeing her in a positive light might be enough to deter her—or any rational politician—from running. But it’s not as if any of the other likely Republican senatorial candidates look to be doing much better. In particular, the prospect of Tea Party favorite Joe Miller taking another try at the Senate isn’t scaring Begich. Miller beat Lisa Murkowski in a 2010 GOP primary but then lost the general election to her when she ran as an independent, and he isn’t likely to do much better this year. And while Begich has decent poll numbers, he is still a Democrat running in an overwhelmingly Republican state. Moreover, everyone knows that prosecutorial misconduct that helped convict the late Ted Stevens on corruption charges is the only reason Begich is currently sitting in the Senate.

A Senate campaign would put her to the test and even her sternest critics should not assume she would fail this time. It may be that Palin has become too polarizing a political personality to win any election, even in deep red Alaska. But she owes to herself and to her supporters to try. She almost certainly will never be president, but a Senate seat is not beyond her grasp. While I’m far from sure that her contribution to the national debate would be enlightening, it would be entertaining. 

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The division within the GOP, even in supporting her run for the U.S. Senate, is startling. She is considered unenlightened, lacking in intellectual depth; qualities the party seeks to extricate from their persona in accordance to what the Left through the mass media attempts to stamp upon every party member in general. There have been very few politicians in the history of the United States who were philosophical giants: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan are to name a few. Sarah Palin may not be one like the majority of the others, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. She is an excellent speaker and a brilliant politician, "the queen of conservative snark," and furthermore depicts herself as the typical Middle American hockey mom who puts her children first and who would no doubt in my mind serve to coalesce the various factions of the party. 

Unfortunately, there is also the issue plaguing Gov. Palin regarding her public perception. As I state that her good qualities would no doubt serve her well as a source of party unity, her poll figures reflect otherwise. Even in heavily-conservative Alaska, 59% of the state's 600,000 +/- population view her negatively, while only 35% see her in a positive light. I am reminded, though, that Thatcher only averaged an approval rating of 40% in Britain, but she was a highly-successful prime minister because she won the general elections three times. Palin could be our "Iron Lady," but the only way she will achieve this will be to toss the die and run for the U.S. Senate. 

Commentary Magazine is probably the most brutally honest of all the conservative-libertarian online publications I have read, and they pull no punches. There are literally dozens, maybe over 100, articles about her of varying opinions. One characteristic that even her staunchest allies among the site's commentators have noted is her lack of intelligence, albeit they will rarely state it in that fashion. This is a characteristic with which Democrats are endowed, but as I have said before, they always coalesce when it involves implementing public policy whereas the GOP splinters.

My sincere hope is to draw as many intelligent, energetic women into the GOP as possible. We already know the party will never receive a majority of the women's votes in elections because the majority of them want to be allowed to have promiscuous sex without fear of being legally coerced in acting responsibly upon becoming pregnant. These women not only desire this, they want the taxpayers to fund their abortions. With my having stated this, it is a shame the party is running off two of its most energetic female political figures in Palin and Michele Bachmann, though I am fully aware that Bachmann is being investigated for campaign finance improprieties from her presidential campaign last year. There will always be upstanding citizens willing to serve the American people within the GOP, but they were perhaps the most vocal of those we have ever had in modern times who were women, at least since the first female congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, the pacifist who served as the representative from Montana during World War I on two different occasions and later ran for the U.S. Senate during her early 90's in order to voice her opposition to the Vietnam War. Too often, women receive the short-end of the stick within the party, whether it is because the consensus within the GOP is that these women are not intelligent enough ideologically to represent the party's interests, or in the case of Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was the U.S. Senator from Texas that Ted Cruz replaced, they are too far to the left in their beliefs and therefore do not fall in line with what the party wishes out of its leadership.At some point, the party needs to awaken and "smell the roses." No one politician has ever been perfect, not even Ronald Reagan, who supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. I do wish for Palin to run for the U.S. Senate seat out of Alaska because I believe she would win as Alaska is overwhelmingly a conservative Republican stronghold in the nation. Whether Palin is an intellectual or not is pointless; being a politician does not require one to hold a Ph.D., in Political Science, History, or Philosophy. I do believe that the party needs to cease this folly of eliminating all grassroot efforts within its establishment because this is where the Democrats are growing stronger by the day and with each election year. When the Democrats around the nation and liberal political commentators on the major cable news networks claim that the GOP is out of touch with the average American, I cannot argue with them because they are absolutely correct in this assertion. The party is in major trouble, and even those whom have long been members of the establishment are bitterly complaining how it has taken a turn for the worse. I would not be surprised is Rush Limbaugh is correct about the Republicans losing the House in the 2014 elections because the party is totally and utterly incompetent politically. The GOP is on the precipice of an abysmal fall into obscurity much like it experienced for more than 60 years other than three presidents winning election and another replacing his corrupt predecessor. Rather than the party biting off its nose just to spite its face, why not implement better methods of reaching as many people as possible? Surely it cannot hurt.