Rematch
Many are saying, assuming Obama wins, that Sarah Palin will be the Republican nominee in 2012. (Some are saying she will be even if McCain wins.)
I wouldn't be surprised. Right now, no one else excites the base like she does. But four years is a long time.
I guess it depends if you think she's closer to Ronald Reagan or Dan Quayle.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:26 AM
7 Comments:
Assuming the party tends toward the social conservative wing, Huckabee has some advantages over her. He's ideologically compatible with her views, is equally charismatic, and has a good record as a reformer as well. She'll have two advantages -- she may do a better job of pulling the fiscal conservative/socially indifferent wing, and she may have a strong pull on Republican and independent women. And there are surely a whole lot of republicans who are completely smitten with her who are dreaming of seeing her take on Obama mano a mano. It'll be interesting to see.
People talk about Palin electrifying the base - well, what exactly is the base? I find her the most exciting candidate since Reagan (and, as QG can point out, I'm old enough to know) and I am anything but the typical Republican "base", especially when it comes to social issues.
Her life is a prime example of the power of the individual in our society. She has quite literally "walked the walk" and her belief in the basic tenets of America (Freedom, Opportunity and Individualism) strikes a chord with a lot of people.
No, she's not Reagan, but in the eight weeks she's been on the public stage she's shown an alarmingly steep learning curve under very high pressure circumstances.
If the Republicans lose, two years out of the spotlight will only enhance her standing if she decides to pursue the nomination. In some respects, if McCain should win, it would make things more difficult for her. Like it or not, she would be judged by how his administration handles things and I'm not sure I want to wish the next four years on anyone.
Sorry- While obviously anything can happen in these tumultuus times, my guess is if Sarah Palin is a candidate for Pesident in 2012, it will not be forthe Republican party as it currently stands. (Maybe if breaks into splinters into a new "base" party). McCain I guess will disown and blame her and the base ("agents of intolerance") for his defeat by next February. (See the tape of today's Meet The Press, a mailing-it-in McCain ,while saying all the right things in support of her, preactically invited Tom Brokaw to list all of the reasons why her approval ratings plummetted down from Sept to Oct and was quiet for a long while while they were listed- Tom kept pausing, waiting to be interrupted, and wasn't). I think she is popular with the the folks who hate the idea the idea of Obama and the Dems in any scenario and were underwhelmed with the "reaching across the aisle" promise and bucking the ideology tendencies of the top of the ticket.
My guess is she cashes in in a big way and becomes a more substantive, less boney version of Anne Coulter on the talking head cable circuit.
I find her the most exciting candidate since Reagan
VG, I've got to admit, I'm never going to get it (at least for this election). She started off like a ball of fire, with the best speech of the season, in a season with some pretty damn good speechifying. Presumably she didn't write it -- and I've wondered ever since where that speechwriter was before and has gone since -- but it left me moderately inclined to both respect and like her. But the next I saw of her was this fiasco, and then she was secreted away for a month, presumably to be crash-course taught the basics of foreign policy, federal politics, etc. I also see no evidence of the steep learning curve you do; to the contrary I see someone who has learned to avoid questions and deliver talking points. I'm less impressed with her every time she opens her mouth in an unscripted way. It shouldn't surprise me that we can come to two diametrically opposed views of someone from the very same set of limited information, but it still kind of does.
That's interesting. I'm assuming then that you missed this speech and also this one. I'm also going to assume you didn't watch the V.P. debate. Or that you hadn't noticed how much attention Bill Ayers began receiving after she mentioned how "pally" he was with Obama. Or that, for the last month, she has been the most accessible candidate of the four, taking questions at most of her campaign stops and also doing interviews on CNN and MSNBC, just to name two.
It's clear to me that the McCain "people", once he picked her, had no clue how to make use of her. To my mind, McCain should have told her "here's what I believe and here's what I need you to do" and let her run with it. Instead, they turned her into someone afraid to say anything for fear of how it would be reported.
On the campaign trail, especially in the last month, she has played her part beautifully. She has been the attack dog and the lightning rod, bringing up topics such as Ayers and Wright, and hammering Obama on abortion.
Despite the rumor-mongering going on in the McCain camp (God, I hate those f**kers! They can't even wait til the election is over to start pointing fingers! If I ever ran for office and someone in my organization so much as hinted at a leak that I hadn't personally approved, that person would be tarred and feathered AND drawn and quartered. And then burned. And then I would publicly piss on their ashes.) if McCain loses this election, it will be despite Palin, not because of her.
Hmmm. When you win your party's nomination for president and then lose in November, you can never come back. (That's how it has worked for half a century. Of course, before that, the Democrats had a habit of re-nominating their losers -- in 1892, 1900, 1908, 1956. The Republicans have never done this.)
But what about those who are nominated for VP and then lose in November? They have a better record of coming back from the dead:
* 1920: Frankin Roosevelt gets VP nomination and loses. 1932: He gets prez nomination and wins.
* 1956: Estes Kefauver, who became famous persecuting organized crime and comic books, gets VP nomination and loses. He was considered the frontrunner heading into 1960 but then chose not to run.
* 1976: Bob Dole gets VP nomination and loses. 1996: He gets prez nomination and loses.
* 2004: John Edwards gets VP nomination and loses. 2008: He is a serious contender.
I think this is part of the overall elevation of the vice-presidency. Before 1960, even real vice-presidents were not considered as possible presidential material, and so why would anyone care about someone who lost the vice-presidency?
It also used to be that party insiders had a lot of say in who would make it. Now due to the lengthy primary season, and the end of conventions deciding anything, how well known you are and how successfully you can raise money become more important.
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