Donna Brazile: Yes, I said Sarah Palin for President

Why Palin Can Win

Long Lost Sarah Palin Emerges From Released Emails Victoriously

Yes, I Said Sarah Palin for President

In my last column, I presented reasons why Sarah Palin should not be dismissed as a presidential hopeful. Because one column alone couldn't cover everything, I offer another cluster of reasons below, starting with an important one: She has time.

Palin can wait until the last possible moment to officially file her intent to run. Others who have already filed or are looking to file need to start developing traction-generating strategies now. However, Palin has both name recognition and the ability to quickly raise the funds needed to pull together a massive organization in the key early states. This media-savvy political professional can decide when it is the right time for her to file.

She voluntarily kept a low profile after her response to the Arizona shootings earlier this year brought her so much negative publicity. Prior to the tragedy, Palin on her website had politically targeted Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' (a victim of the shootings) district and others, using the crosshairs of a rifle sight. She, somewhat gracefully, retired from the public scene for a respectable time before re-emerging at the Rolling Thunder rally in Washington, D.C.

Another reason Palin may get the GOP nod: She can get away with stunts that would sink any other politician. Can you imagine former Gov. Mitt Romney crashing a non-political event for our veterans (Rolling Thunder) for obvious political gain?

When Palin emerged from her self-imposed media blackout, the press folks behaved as if they were starved for her. No other Republican contender can generate her kind of excitement, positive or negative.

A just-released Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll found that almost 4-in-10 Republicans are unhappy with their party's current choices for nominee. Results like these lead to a perceived vacuum that candidates such as Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann feel positioned to fill. Donald Trump felt poised to fill it. He floated his trial balloon only to see it popped in short order.

The Republican Party has taken a significant shift to the political right. I can remember the days when the party was an inclusive organization. But, Republican legends like former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Sen. Jacob Javits of New York and Clifford Case of New Jersey are gone with history.

Palin certainly doesn't fill that void, but she may be served by it. Of all the people set to cash in if the tea party retains its strength, Palin may be first among them.

Why? Let me explain: Moderate Republicans are in danger of extinction. After the 2008 election, some polls showed the GOP barely had the public's support. So, the party decided to work with this faction. It concentrated on issues that brought them storming to town hall meetings and into the election booth.

Unfortunately for the pragmatists who run the party, they birthed the tea party Republicans. Tea partiers ran in the primaries and won. Now they are strong enough to tell Speaker John Boehner what his limits are. And they do.

They aren't done. Tea party Republicans are fielding candidates against the handful of moderates who remain in the party such as Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana and Olympia Snowe of Maine.

Tea party Republicans tolerate no dissent from their political orthodoxy. They are out -- successfully, I believe -- to purge the party of all to their left, and even some to their right. Meanwhile, at the heart of the Republican Party, are leaders like Bachmann who are eager to fill the void and who see Palin as a real threat. Ed Rollins, Bachmann's campaign manager (a veteran strategist), took a swipe at Palin this week (then retreated).

Whether we agree with them, when Bachmann and Palin preach -- oops, I mean "campaign" -- you know they believe what they are saying. Both are pretty brunettes who can't help but cut into each other's support because they appeal to the same base. It is from that fractured base that I imagine Palin ascending.

Palin is the candidate with the most crossover appeal between groups. She can talk to the tea partiers, the radicals -- even the nearly extinct moderates.

When scripted, she can be rather convincing, especially compared to other candidates. The others are too drab -- in policy, in convictions, in media smarts. They just can't compete with her star power. From here, 2012 looks like a slam-dunk for Sarah Palin.

Donna Brazile is a political commentator on CNN, ABC and NPR, and a contributing columnist to Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.

Source: mlive.com

 

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Sarah from Alaska

You've Come a Long Way, Maybe

In Praise of Sarah

Intense hatred the left has for Sarah Palin

By Bob Beers Thursday, October 22, 2009

For the life of me I cannot see any logical reason for the intense hatred the left has for Sarah Palin. As I wrote yesterday, not one of the members of the mushy-brained sect has seen her in person, much less had enough time with her to form a reasonable opinion of her character, but still they manage to place her into the same category as a Simon Legree or worse.

For you lefties, Mr. Legree was the brutal slave owner and taskmaster in Harriet Beecher’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Try reading something other than eastern philosophy sometime; you’ll open up your mind.

What did Mrs. Palin do that made her number one on the liberals’ enemies list? Let’s see, she does outshine lefty women like Mrs. Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Maureen Dowd by a huge margin. Not one of them can hold a candle to her in the looks department. So I can see how the liberals can be upset there. They do not take to being upstaged at all well. What about decorum, the ability to present oneself in debate?

No contest again. She wiped the stage with Biden. The good senior senator thought he had himself an easy target and instead found himself on the wrong end of a knowledgeable verbal pit bull with a sense of humor.

Again, for you liberals that means being able to see the funny side of things.

Yes, I can see where being able to mop the floor with a Biden would set some liberals on edge. People like a Sarah Palin, especially one on the junior portion of the ticket are supposed to lie down and take whatever drubbing is dealt them without complaint, especially if that drubbing comes from an old liberal hand that has been gorging at the public trough as long as Biden has.

What about accomplishments? What has Sarah done to generate such enmity? From the level of vitriol the left throws out whenever just her name is mentioned she must have committed some pretty heinous crimes.

The following is taken from a blog entitled “Unbalanced Libra”. Here’s the link, It is comprehensive enough to be pasted in without comment:

“Firstly, there is no government closer to the people than at the municipal level. Palin spent eight years in city government, winning a seat on the Wasilla City Council in 1992 mostly thanks to her opposition to tax increases. She went on to serve two council terms from 1992 to 1996. She was elected mayor of the fast-growing Anchorage suburb in 1996 and again in 1999. Mayor Palin had a record of reducing property tax levels, increasing municipal services and attracting new industry to her town. During her tenure in Wasilla, she was elected chair of Alaska’s conference of mayors.

Next for Sarah Palin was service as chair of the Alaska Conservation Committee, a board which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. In this appointive position she began to gain what would become extensive and valuable knowledge and experience in the area of one of America’s most pressing issues - energy. It was in this job where Palin first really demonstrated the toughness, political courage and maverick spirit that would years later so impress presidential candidate John McCain.

She resigned in January 2004 as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after complaining to the office of Governor Frank Murkowski and to state Attorney General Gregg Renkes about ethical violations by another commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, who was also Republican state chairman.

State law barred Palin from speaking out publicly about ethical violations and corruption. However, she was vindicated later in 2004 when Ruedrich, who’d been reconfirmed as state chairman, agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws. She became a hero in the eyes of the public and the press, and the bane of Republican leaders.

In 2005, she continued to take on the Republican establishment by joining Eric Croft, a Democrat, in lodging an ethics complaint against Renkes, who was not only attorney general but also a long-time adviser and campaign manager for Murkowski. The governor reprimanded Renkes and said the case was closed. It wasn’t. Renkes resigned a few weeks later, and Palin was again hailed as a hero.

In 2006, Palin ran for governor and was elected in a landslide. According to Fred Barnes: With her emphasis on ethics and openness in government, “it turned out Palin caught the temper of the times perfectly,” wrote Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News. She was also lucky. News broke of an FBI investigation of corruption by legislators between the primary and general elections. So far, three legislators have been indicted.

In the roughly three years since she quit as the state’s chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the “body count” of Palin’s rivals.

“The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah,” says pollster Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign. It includes Ruedrich, Renkes, Murkowski, gubernatorial contenders John Binkley and Andrew Halcro, the three big oil companies in Alaska, and a section of the Daily News called “Voice of the Times,” which was highly critical of Palin and is now defunct.

As governor, Sarah Palin’s list of accomplishments lengthened rapidly. She used her line-item veto to cut $268 million from Alaska’s state budget.

She stood up to some of Alaska’s most entrenched interests, including three big oil companies (BP, ConocoPhilips, and ExxonMobil) who hold the lease rights to much of Alaska’s oil and gas wealth:

Once in office, Palin took an aggressive stance toward the oil companies. Her nickname from high-school basketball, “Sarah Barracuda,” was resurrected in the press. Early in her term, she shocked oil lobbyists when she was so bold as to not show up when Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson came to Juneau to meet with her. Palin, after scrapping Murkowski’s deal, would not give Big Oil the terms they wanted, yet insisted that the companies still had an obligation under their lease to deliver gas to whatever pipeline Alaska built. She invited the oil companies to place open bids to build a pipeline, but they refused. A bid by TransCanada, North America’s largest pipeline builder, was approved by the legislature in August.

Palin also raised taxes on oil companies after Murkowski’s previous tax regime produced falling revenues in 2007, despite skyrocketing oil prices. Alaska now has some of the highest resource taxes in the world. Alaska’s oil tax revenues are expected to be about $10 billion in 2008, twice those of previous year. BP says about half its oil revenues now go to taxes, when royalty payments to the state are included. Recently, Palin approved gas tax relief for Alaskans, and paid every resident $1,200 to help ease their fuel-price burden.

Some other Palin accomplishments include supporting and signing an ethics bill passed by the Alaska legislature and creating the Alaska Health Strategies Planning Council to find innovative solutions to effectively provide access to, and help reduce the costs of, healthcare.

As governor, Palin is commander of her state’s National Guard. Not content to merely sit on the title, she traveled to Kuwait to learn about her troops’ mission there. On the return trip to Alaska, she stopped in Germany to visit wounded soldiers in the hospital, an activity that Barack Obama did not see fit to engage in during his own overseas venture, blaming the Pentagon for his snubbing of the wounded.

More accomplishments: Gov. Palin signed a resolution in opposition to the FAA’s plan to increase taxes on aviation fuel, impose user fees and slash airport funding. Also, before Palin became governor, her predecessor Frank Murkowski had purchased a Westwind Two business jet for the governor’s use at a $2.5 million price tag, despite the objections from the state legislature and the public. Her first order of business after taking office was to put the jet up for sale.

Palin did keep the governor’s state-owned Chevy Suburban, but she got rid of the driver, saying it was wasteful for the state to pay someone to drive her around, since she was perfectly capable of driving herself. The governor’s gourmet chef also got changed from a full-time to a seasonal-only basis because Palin considered it a luxuryshe didn’t think Alaskans should be paying for. Her political enemies called all this “superficial pandering.”

Alaska is the only one of America’s states which borders on two foreign countries. Sarah Palin is chief executive of our most important energy state, one which lies only a few miles from Russian territory. She has negotiated sensitive agreements on fishing rights and other matters to keep the peace up there. She’s also worked on important trade deals with other countries. She has received foreign heads of state and had discussions with them.”

As you can see, accomplishment is the least of Mrs. Palin’s problems. Quite frankly she has a bigger wealth of accomplishment than Obama and his entire cabinet combined. There will probably be screams of outrage from the left on that one, but honestly, based on what this woman has done in the face of intense opposition from both sides of the aisle, Barack Hussein Obama is a rank amateur compared to her All Star performance.

So here is my estimation as to why she is so hated by the left. She is an accomplished, well-spoken housewife and mother; faithful to her God, husband, her children and to her constituents. She has a proven record of honesty and self sacrifice for the good of those who elected her. No wonder the left considers her such an incredible danger. She would be someone who could sit in the oval office with the complete confidence of the majority of Americans behind her. She had to be stopped at all costs because her record is truly unassailable outside of the realm of lies the liberals live in.

Sarah Palin’s character rests upon a rock-solid foundation of achievement.

Palin: 'Hottest Brand Name in Politics'

Rush: Media Fear Sarah Palin

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh is praising former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the conservative candidate liberals fear the most – and says he hopes her upcoming book sells 5 million copies.

The former Alaska governor finished her memoir just four months after the book deal was announced. Her publisher says the release date has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17.

“I have been pointing out that the Democrat Party and the media will tell us who they fear most -- and they're not afraid of Huckabee, and they're not afraid of Mitt Romney and they're not afraid of Rudy Giuliani,” Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday.

“But they have gone out of their way to destroy Sarah Palin,” he continued. “They have gone out of their way to destroy me... I hope Sarah Palin sells five million copies of her book. It's going to be interesting to see just what connection she does have with the voting base, conservatives and Republicans. I hope she sells five million copies. I hope it does great. It will be interesting to see because that will just send them into an even greater tizzy on the left. “

© 2009 Newsmax

'Hottest Brand Name in Politics'

Palin Finishes Her Memoir - Will You Read It?

NEW YORK – That was fast.

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, has finished her memoir just four months after the book deal was announced, and the release date has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17, her publisher said.

"Governor Palin has been unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage, investing herself deeply and passionately in this project," said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper. "It's her words, her life, and it's all there in full and fascinating detail."
Palin's book, her first, will be 400 pages, said Burnham, who called the fall "the best possible time for a major book of this kind."

The book now has a title, one fitting for a public figure known for the unexpected — "Going Rogue: An American Life." (Read The Full Article)

Republican base still wild about Sarah Palin

POLITICO's Sarah Palin Survey spoke with nearly 50 prominent Republican Party officials and politicians, representing every region of the country.Photo: POLITICO Staff

Despite a torrent of criticism from the media, Democratsand even some in her own party, Sarah Palin remains the hottest brand name in politics.

Her recent resignation was perplexing. It’s raised doubts about her viability as a potential presidential candidate. Still, she remains extremely popular with the GOP grass roots, and most Republican Party leaders would jump at the chance to have her headline one of their events.

That’s the picture that emerges from interviews with dozens of GOP state and local leaders from across the country.

As part of an effort to gauge Palin’s popularity with the rank and file beyond the Beltway, where the GOP establishment is lukewarm toward the charismatic former governor, POLITICO surveyed nearly 50 prominent Republican Party officials and politicians, representing every region of the country and ranging from statewide-elected officeholders to state legislators to state and county party chairs.

Some refused to talk about her at all. Others, mostly her critics, would do so only off the record. But taken as a whole, the body of interviews revealed that despite Palin’s high negative ratings in recent national polls, Republicans at the grass-roots level and their leaders still hold a very favorable impression of the former Alaska governor.

Westerners have a particular affinity for Palin, with many noting that she embodied the values of freedom and self-reliance.

Scott Sales, the minority leader of the Montana House, referred to her “curb appeal” among the party’s rank and file.

In Colorado, a state where Palin campaigned hard last year on behalf of the Republican ticket but which Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) eventually lost to Barack Obama, Arapahoe County Republican Party Chairman David Kerber said that Palin was a good fit with Western sensibilities.

“She comes across as someone who’s going to say what she says and if you don’t like it, that’s just too bad,” Kerber said. “She’s not going to lie, she’s not going to sugarcoat it — she’s just going to let it rip. I think that’s what Westerners want.”

“People saw her as one of them — someone who could relate to an everyday person. She’s not one of the political class,” said Heidi Gansert, the Nevada House minority leader. “I also believe that women appreciated her message and what she’d accomplished in her political career and family life. A woman who has a young family, who is able to become the governor of Alaska — a lot of people, women who worked the everyday jobs with their families — they know that she’s experiencing the same things they are.”

Evangelical Christians and rural and small-town Republicans also hold Palin in high esteem.

“The ones who are most supportive of her are what I would term the very conservative, libertarian-leaning voters of southern Nevada — of which there is a very large contingent,” said Bernie Zadrowski, the chairman of Las Vegas’s Clark County Republican Party. “You might also classify them as the constitutional wing of the party.”

Charles M. Webster, the state GOP chairman in Maine, said Republicans there are very enthusiastic about Palin largely because they can see themselves in her.

“I see her as being somebody who the average, what I call ‘working class guy,’ relates to,” Webster said. “Somebody who’s plain-spoken, somebody who hunts and fishes. And this is Maine — we’re in the country up here.”

In Florida, Pasco County Republican Party Chairman Randy Maggard agreed that Palin’s down-to-earth style also connected with many Gulf Coast Republicans.

“The people I talk to that like her say she relates to them because they don’t really look at her as a politician in Washington,” Maggard said. “They look at her as a mom who was in business who happened to get into politics. They feel like they can relate to her.” (Full Article)

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