We don't know what she's going to do, but we know what we can do.
Governor Palin told Judge Napolitano yesterday that she's keeping her cards close to her chest. No one, except Todd and possibly key people involved in the filing process, knows what cards she holds. Unless anyone high up in the Palin army outside of her most inner circle have been sworn to any secrecy, the army has no information. There are millions of us (if you count her Facebook followers) who are ready to stand in support of her should she run, yet we are faced with the prospect she may not.
So here's my suggestion. We don't know what she's planning, but we sure as heck know what we can do. While there are some among us who think she's not running, some who may be considering back up candidates and others who think she is, the various opinions within the Palin army may differ somewhat with the exception of one: we all want her to run.
Differences aside, there is one thing all of us can do. Capitalize on the mass sentiment among her followers that they want her to run. This blogger is proposing that we write loudly and in great numbers not to speculate on what she's going to do, but to encourage her with our support.
We know she knows how we feel. But if we speak up more and let her know loudly and clearly that we have her back and we are ready to swing into action for her immediately, it is this writer's hope that our support will encourage her even more to run.
This is her decision. She has family and career considerations that override what anyone else outside of her immediate circle can tell her. But if the calling is loud, and if she has already decided or is in the process of deciding to run, she will know that she count on millions of Americans to support her.
We are not a conglomeration of special interest groups looking to capitalize on her candidacy. We are not gadfly voters who just vote Republican in support of the candidate for whatever particular ballot is up for a vote on any election day. We are not a fan club. We are Americans who have lost their country and we want our country back.
The interest is this: we know that Sarah Palin can lead us back to a free enterprise system which relies on self reliance and the rule of law. We are not looking for handouts. We are looking for opportunity. Sarah Palin has the resume, the experience, the political philosophy and the recognition needed to run for president. The rest of us don't. If there was someone else among us who better fit the bill of what America needs, we'd be supporting them, not her.
This is not about putting her up on the pedestal. Without us, she can't win. Without a desire to renew and restore America, we are just the same electorate we were in 2006 when we paid no attention to the progressives burrowing underneath the surface ready to strike and snag our country out from under us in 2008.
We are the movement. We believe in small Constitutional common sense government. There are enough Americans out there that want to work hard to be successful, to own homes and raise families. There are enough Americans out there who want to run businesses or reap the rewards of hard work in industries that are right now too tightly regulated to expand into or to grow. We don't want to all end up on a social welfare program where we beg our government for hand outs and rely on our government for our health care.
We're scared.
We're scared that everything we have been taught growing up is going to go by the wayside. I'm unemployed. A friend is losing his house. Another is homeless, living out of a hotel. My former boss is keeping the company that laid me off afloat with Elmer's glue and bubble gum because the economy is so bad. He doesn't know if it will survive. We are paying over $3.00 a gallon at the pump. Food prices are subtly and slowly going up.
The rich are not getting richer. The number of million dollar income earners is dropping each year under Obama. The median household income has been falling since the mid 2000's. Businesses are being wiped out by regulations and the tax structure. I could go on and on.
THIS IS NOT AMERICA!
Some will say we have other candidates who are committed to repealing Obamacare, deregulation, energy production and lower taxes. In any other election at any other time in our history, most of these candidates would be fine. This writer is a lifelong Republican and I would have no problem supporting the eventual nominee. But do I believe if the nominee is someone other than Sarah Palin that I can be as confident and optimistic in the outcome? No.
If Sarah Palin doesn't run, ending the Obama regime and moving back toward what our country was before we were awakened by the socialist monster that stepped out of our political closet will be better than what we have now. But would it be the dream? No. It would be the end of the nightmare for sure. Life would go on.
I'm going to end up being able to get a job again if Palin doesn't run. I'll still have a business opportunity that my partner and I are working on that could result in my being able to work in the business full time at some point within the next year or so. But because there is no capital in the market, finding investors and business capital is going to require perseverance far beyond that required of aspiring entrepreneurs in the past.
If we're going to have a fertile environment in which to pursue the American dream, it will require all of us to work hard. Obama is the excuse why we can't be successful. Remove that excuse and we can move forward. But why not move forward, struggling, working hard, recovering from the damage of the last two presidential election cycles with hope and optimism like we did when Ronald Reagan brought us out of the last political disaster?
Sarah Palin is that hope and optimism which we need to keep us going when the snow pushes back the foot that slows from exhaustion. She is not the "messiah." She is not going to put gas in our car or pay our mortgages for us. But, she is going to be that feeling we have everyday that things are getting better. It will be up to us to make it happen. But having a competent president beholden to no one but the American people is the only way for it to work. So write loudly and let Governor Palin know how we feel.
If the sound of "Run, Sarah, Run" keeps getting louder and louder every day; if the anchors who interview her on television keep asking her if she's running; and if she hears us crying out for her to help us, just maybe she will help us save our country and go down in history as not only the first female president, but as the greatest president we've had since Ronald Reagan.
Sarah, the next time you're at a rally and you hear people desperately calling out your name, listen to the tone in their voices.
To understand why Palin must run and win, you must understand how our two party system really works.
Many have faulted the two party system for not giving voters more choices in elections. They see our parties as strictly left and right with both pulling toward the center to attract the moderate voter. It's cynical to think that our parties will lie about who they are in order to court votes, but until we stop accepting this false premise, we are doomed to recycle it. Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and the forthcoming 2012 GOP primaries will give us a great opportunity that rarely comes along in American electoral politics.
The Republican Party has always been known as the center-right party. But, many question whether it tries to be too center and not enough right. This writer often talks about the weaknesses of leftism, but ever since Sarah Palin talked about "crony capitalism" in Iowa, it began a discussion about the weaknesses of centrism that is long overdue. If leftism is rhetorically equated with socialism, centrism has to be rhetorically equated with crony capitalism.
Picture the political spectrum as a box divided by a line down the center. This creates two boxes, liberal and conservative. We have always traditionally thought of our political divide this way. But, think again. Draw a dotted line and split the liberal and conservative boxes in half. Between those two dotted lines is centrism. It is there where crony capitalism breeds and lives. Just as much as socialists believe we need to redistribute the wealth, crony capitalist statists believes we simply need to control the wealth. Socialists take money from those who earn it and give it to those who don't. Crony capitalists decide who gets to earn it and they take their political power cut for tapping the best pay for players with their sepulchre. Pure capitalists don't care who gets the money as long as it's earned.
Socialism and crony capitalism have failed. Capitalism has succeeded in the past (see Ronald Reagan, the industrial revolution and the colonial days). Only in politics do we fail to recognize what works.
Automobiles are always fitted with four tires. Doors always open after you turn the knob in one direction. Fire and heat cooks food. Capitalism always results in the best distribution of goods and services. But, political thinkers continue to try to tell us that we don't need four tires on our political car, we can turn the knob the other direction to open the door and there is probably an alternative way to cook food. Therefore, they will tell us that capitalism either needs to be destroyed or controlled by the government. Try leaving your parking break on, pull out of your driveway and drive down the street. You'll understand what I'm trying to say here.
We are at a unique moment in our political timeline. In the past, elections have been decided by who could best convince the people that they were most qualified to take care of them. This time around, we don't want people "taking care of us." We have finally discovered what was festering in our system for over a century now. Yeah, we know about the communists in the 1950's. Yeah, we know about the European socialist style progressives of today. But we never stopped to realize that capitalism is not the problem, it's the people who are trying to control capitalism that are the problem.
When neither political party chooses to address this fact, the people become cynical. The people know they are frustrated by a system where merit is replaced with a "it's not what you know, but who you know" or a "you can't beat city hall" attitude. This kills creativity. This kills entrepreneurship. It tells people to ask themselves the wrong question: "why bother."
Governor Palin's crusading speech against crony capitalism in Iowa tells us we can change this. Should she run, she would be uniquely situated to move the Republican Party in a direction that would give voters hope and optimism again. Voters would be able to finally have a choice between voting for a meritocracy or an aristocracy. This is a choice they have never had before in their lifetimes.
There is a key line in the movie Rango. "Control the water and you control everything." Think how the regulatory environment works. Think our oil and gas development industry. Think ANWAR. Think shale. Think off shore drilling here folks.
If you know the movie, the snake is the snake of crony capitalism. The snake controlled the mayor who controlled the town of Dirt.
We need a bold leader right now. We don't need to play it safe. This is our opportunity, as Obama plummets like a stone, to put someone who can be effective in there. It's more than just anybody but Obama.
Rush Limbaugh explains why centrism is not the way to go:
We've already gone the centrist route. The Republican establishment tries that every cycle. They try to give us a Bob Dole, God bless him, I know him, he's a nice guy, but McCain, same thing. Nothing's changed. The Republican establishment, which is now trying to deny that they exist, by the way. There is no Republican establishment. This is a little Inside Baseball. They're trying to co-opt the word conservative. The Republican establishment wants you to think that they are conservatism today, and of course they're not. The reason these people tout Romney and they follow it up, "Yeah, Romney can win." Why? "Well, you know, centrist, he's not extreme and this sort of thing." And I'm telling you, folks, those are the people that have the greatest likelihood of losing.
I'm telling you, this country does not want from the Republican Party a centrist or a moderate or anybody that is looked upon favorably by that group of people. This is a time and a place that calls for unabashed, unapologetic conservatism. And if such a candidate wins the nomination, this candidate could win the general election in a landslide. The Tea Party is portrayed by both the Republican and Democrat establishments in Washington as kind of fringe right wing. If you wanted to say that there is a centrist position in American politics today, and by that I mean a majority position, the Tea Party is it. Tea Party conservatism is the majority position in America in terms of reflecting not only the way people live their lives, but the way they think.
It's hard for people to believe this if their primary exposure to media is with the three networks, either news or their primetime entertainment offerings. The pop culture and the news culture is dominated by liberals and it makes it look like that's what the whole country is, but it isn't. And we talk about this a lot. It's an effort to stay confident, even in circumstances like this. But if there was ever a time to be confident, this is it. The challenge remains, though, nevertheless, nothing in the Republican Party is different today than it was in '76 or 1980. A conservative nominee is considered a threat to the Republican establishment, must be done away with.
I saw, what was it, the days run together, might have been Friday, the day that I was out.
Ken Langone, one of the cofounders of Home Depot with Arthur Blank, who is the owner of the Atlanta Falcons. Ken Langone is lining up donors to do everything he can to influence Chris Christie to get in the race. Now, Langone is a great guy, you'd like him, he's a take no prisoners Republican. But he's not a conservative Republican, although he probably thinks he is. I ran into him when I was not endorsing anybody back in '08, I ran into him at a golf club clubhouse. And he came up, "Look, you are gonna get on the McCain bandwagon, I mean we're gonna need you. You are gonna be there, aren't you?" I said, "I don't know, certainly not in the primaries."
I remember I had gone out to Palm Springs and I was asked to address a group out there. One of McCain's chief money guys was in the audience, and I launched. I said this is not how we're gonna beat Barack Obama, trying to make excuses for ourselves and go moderate, go centrist, go tippy toe, like we have something to excuse ourselves for or to apologize for. The Tea Party now represents the majority of thought. But it's like every other similar circumstance in the Republican Party. Reagan, just for the simplicity here of explanation, Reagan was the equivalent of the Tea Party in '76 and '80. And the Republican establishment was as lined up against him then as they are against the Tea Party today.
The Republican establishment, which they hate being called that, by the way. I'm since learning this. They hate being called the Republican establishment. That's why they're trying to co-opt the term conservative. But regardless, there is an effort underway here to get Christie in this. I don't know where his thinking is, I don't know if he's changed his mind from what he's said all along, that he's not ready, he doesn't think he's quite qualified yet and all that. He might be looking at the Perry situation. Perry got in late compared to others, and he might be saying, "Yeah, it's getting a little late. Maybe I'll wait." I think there are other reasons if Christie doesn't get in, there are other reasons why he won't. But even within the establishment side the fact that there is now an effort being made to get Christie in this means there's some nervousness about Romney in terms of his being able to win. And it's I think justifiable.
We've done the centrist route. We've gone the moderate way. We've gone with the guy who could cross the aisle and work with the other side. It is never gonna win, particularly now. Boldness, fearlessness, while at the same time being filled with optimism and good cheer, that's what's called for right now.
More Americans... See, the one thing the Republican establishment does not get, and I don't even think they think it: I don't think they think the country's threatened. They don't think they look at it nearly the way you and I do in terms of the future for your children or grandchildren. The fact is you know, for example, that your grandchildren's lifetime income has been spent -- not just what they would be taxed. Your grandchildren's lifetime income has been spent the last two and a half years with the debt that this country is in; and you know that it's going to get almost insurmountably worse if Obamacare is fully implemented.
The Republican establishment is not of that mind. It's, "Meh, government's always there, it's always going to be big, and we want our turn to run it. We're not interested in making it smaller. We'll talk about it getting smaller on the margins but we're not really interested in making it smaller. We're interested in running it. We're interested in having control of it, power over it, being in charge of it. We want to be the ones that can buy votes! We want to be the ones that can buy elections," and they trade off with the Democrats -- and that's every four years, sometimes every eight years -- whereas we are not interested in the seesaw of politics.
Sarah Palin is the solution to this problem. We are not looking to elect another Republican just so we can get rid of the socialism. We need to elect someone who can renew and restore our country. Going back to the way it was before Obama is like cutting the lawn without putting weed killer down. It may start out looking good again, but the cycle continues. We must end that cycle and put this country back into the hands of the people.
One who lives by the rhetorical sword of hatred dies by the rhetorical sword of hatred.
The moment GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin stepped off the stage in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after speaking at the Republican National Convention, there was this horrifying fear and panic that immediately shot up the spines of those in the progressive movement and the media establishment. They flew into a frenzy of lies, smears and innuendo against her, fully knowing that there was little time to get this genie back into the bottle before election day rolled around. Mark that day as the beginning of the smear campaign against Sarah Palin. Mark today as the end of it.
Don't mistake this as the end of opposition to Sarah Palin. That still exists in the mainstream media and is rearing its head more and more in the Republican establishment. But opposition requires legitimate tactics and intellectually honest debate to succeed. The smear campaign is over. Stopping Sarah Palin means having to take her head on now rather than slithering through the weeds and hiding behind unsubstantiated "anonymous sources" to spread gossip and toss out rhetorical garbage that the ignorant and uninformed will feed into.
That's right. The Palin haters in the media think you're stupid. They thought you'd actually believe their nonsense. For those who have bought into their nonsense, you have been had. Those who work hard and don't have the time to do all the research relied on the mainstream media for their information and they were given misleading information intentionally.
This writer commends Team Sarah, Conservatives4Palin, Ron Devito, Gary P. Jackson, Stacy Drake, William Jacobsen, Adrienne Ross, Josh Painter, William Collier, Pamela Geller, Dr. Gina Loudon, Tammy Bruce, Jedediah Bila, Andrew Breitbart, Dan Riehl, Robert Stacy McCain, Whitney Pitcher, Rachelle Friberg, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh and the thousands of others who collectively stood up for Sarah Palin and ended the smear campaign that was started up in the Mudflats of Alaska, a Celtic Diva's garden, a girl from Homer's microphone and an Immoral Minority's own personal hell.
The Immoral Minority website is now defunct. Patrick has been kicked off Palingates.com. Shannyn Moore struggles to further her career now that Keith Olbermann is no longer on MSNBC (a Google search on her name shows August of 2010 as her last first page accomplishment). Jeanne Devon earns blood money by collaborating on hit books about Sarah Palin.
The journalistic and pop culture worlds are littered with boats that have wrecked on the rocks of their own Palin hatred. Well known people like Kathy Griffin, David Letterman, Bill Maher, Martha Stewart, Peggy Noonan, Joe Klein, Norah O'Donnell, Mike Tyson, Madonna and others like them have all lost varying shades of respect from the public at large. Their hatred consumed them and it hurt their brands in one way or another.
If negativity is like a cancer that eats away at one's soul, it also eats away at one's reputation. Those who responded to the most existential threat to the progressive movement to ever walk the planet since Ronald Reagan have learned one universal truth: hate damages the hater more than the hated.
We can trace the smear campaign against Sarah Palin from the 2008 presidential campaign, through the frivolous ethics complaints that resulted in her strategically brilliant resignation, through her book tours and speaking engagements all the way up to today where the final last gasp is symbolized by a book by Joe McGinniss which is being torn to pieces by both the left and the right for its lack of substance and documentation.
Conservatives4Palin and Andrew Breitbart reports that it's even worse than the Palin haters thought. The McGinnis Book is a fraud and a hoax. "Now that there is evidence available to the public that shows there isn’t an ounce of proof to back up the claims made by McGinniss in his book, [Random House Publishing] should move to do the right thing and pull it from shelves," Stacy Drake writes in the Conservatives4Palin piece.
If the smear campaign against Sarah Palin was a fireworks show, the closing displays would be duds. Those trying to destroy Sarah Palin thought the McGinniss book was the final nail in Palin's coffin. Instead, it became the final nail in the coffin of the smear movement against Governor Palin.
The death of the smear campaign against Palin parallels the death of the media's ability to keep us from paying attention to "that man behind the curtain." The "One," who would stop the rising of the seas and whose voice boomed hypnotically from the speakers at campaign rallies where people fainted and cried for being in his presence, has had the shroud of mythology pulled away from him by the hard working people in the new media who have taken to the blogosphere and Twitter to present a truth the mainstream media desperately tried to hide for the last three years.
The media's agenda to protect and promote Barack Obama was the motivating force behind their smear campaign against Sarah Palin. They saw her as so viable and electable in 2012 that, even after she lost in 2008, they continued the campaign to destroy her knowing that she'd be back to possibly take down their beloved Barack. To this day, there are still people, even on Fox News and in the Republican Party, who have unknowingly allowed these media tricksters and subliminal manipulators to succeed in getting them to believe that Palin can't win in 2012. They underestimate Palin at their own peril.
Despite this mind crime, Palin's numbers remain strong. Her army continues to grow. Just look at how Organize4Palin continues to expand its scope throughout the country. She is polling in the top tier of Republican candidates even though she has not yet announced if she's running for president. SarahPac is saying she is on the verge of announcing. She was supposed to be living in a trailer park with curlers in her hair if you believed what was being written about her two years ago.
Had the smear campaign succeeded, Palin would have been destroyed by now. Had the trembling tigers - the weak minded amongst the more conservative punditry and within the Republican ranks - stood up for her and took on the media lies, Palin would probably be the front runner right now. These weaklings don't have the guts to articulate that it was the media that was damaging Palin and not her reality show, not "blood libel," not her supporters (Ann!) and not her book tours.
Yet, here she stands viable and electable. And, she hasn't even shown her stuff yet on the campaign trail.
It's becoming obvious to many that the media has lied to us. The failing Obama presidency was easily foreseeable had those in the media just done their jobs and reported accurately on his ideology, his associations, his false assumptions and his lack of experience. At the same time, they tried to destroy the one among us who had the real abilities to be president (vice president at that time) by lying about her.
The media may itself be no longer able to stomach the lies as talk begins to circulate that they may be ready to turn on Obama.
Barack Obama won the Democrat nomination because the mainstream media adopted him and went out of their way to ensure that he, rather than Hillary Clinton, won. As expressed by the Rex Murphy:
American journalism will have to look back at the period starting with Barrack Obama's rise, his assumption of the presidency and his conduct in it to the present, and ask itself how it came to cast aside so many of its vital functions. In the main, the establishment American media abandoned its critical faculties during the Obama campaign and it hasn't reclaimed them since.
As a result, the press gave the great American republic an untried, unknown, and, it is becoming more and more frighteningly clear, incompetent figure as president. Under Obama, America's foreign policies are a mixture of confusion and costly impotence. They are increasingly bypassed or derided; the great approach to the Muslim world, symbolized by the Cairo speech, is in tatters. America's debt and deficits are a weight on the entire global economy. And the office of presidency is less and less a symbol of strength.
To the degree the press neglected its function as watchdog and turned cupbearer to a styrofoam demigod, it is a partner in the flaws and failures of what is turning out to be one of the most miserable performances in the modern history of the American presidency.
A tipping point appears to have been reached in the last month or so. The myth of Obama has ended. There is now open talk from the media that Obama cannot win in 2012.
Just as Democrats don't want a pariah at the top of the ticket, many in the media do not want to continue plugging what is obviously a failed candidate. The protective shield that existed is being dismantled. The press is more interested in saving what credibility they have left, rather than justifying an increasingly indefensible and broken presidency.
The media malpractice that got Obama elected and Palin targeted is a failure. The slobbering love affair is over.
The American people are busy, prone to bad information when they expect truth from an institution that failed them. But, they are not stupid. "Snake oil is never purchased a second time," Pelerin writes. "Instead of the brilliant problem-solving uniter much of the nation believed they were buying, they got an incompetent, small, and not likeable mountebank."
Conversely, if the media was completely out of its mind for running cover for Obama, then it makes sense that the media was completely out of its mind for participating in the smearing of Sarah Palin. Obviously, if they were wrong about Obama, they were wrong about Palin. The haters relied on the established media to push their memes. The gravy train is no more. Turn out the lights. The party's over.
The Palin haters have emptied their arsenals. Their relentless attacks for three years made her stronger. It challenged her to think outside the box about her resignation strategy. It gave her the opportunity to extricate herself from a potentially bankrupting experience at the hands of miserable sacks with miserable lives who's only answer to their own unhappiness was to spend their time and efforts trying to destroy her. She became more successful because of it, not less.
They have fed the beast they so wrongfully tried to destroy. Because of their efforts, Governor Palin is the most vetted candidate ever. Should she run, the "October surprise" will be impossible to conjure. Should she run, impaling her on her record, her character and her work ethic will be a futile attempt. Yes, the Democrats will come after her. They will smear any candidate who wins the GOP nomination. But with Palin, you get a tried and tested product. There will be no surprises. We have the failed smear campaign against her to thank for that.
Though this smear campaign is over, it doesn't mean they will stop trying to stop her. A new door is about to open. New challenges lie ahead for Governor Palin if she runs and gets the nomination. For the Palin army, the fight goes on. For her detractors, trying to defeat her now is going to be even more difficult. The Caribou Barbie days are over. It doesn't stick anymore.
President Obama’s poll numbers continue to drop like an elevator with a snapped cable. For the last three years the argument amongst conservatives and Republicans was “is he beatable?” and “is she electable?” Suddenly this has all changed. A total twist of events is occurring before our eyes. Obama is on the skids and Sarah Palin is on the rise.
Honestly, this writer doesn’t want to get to get too excited just yet. Palin has not officially announced. Polls have always been flaky. Mike Huckabee explained that polls are just a snapshot in time and are not predictors of an outcome that is still far out. Sarah Palin has said that polls are for strippers and cross country skiers. In an effort to remain intellectually honest, this blogger remains committed to his theory that while polls can give you a general feel for how the electorate is feeling at a given moment, the only poll that counts is the one where people go into voting booths and push buttons or levers.
The latest polls, however, give justification to arguments that Palin supporters and open minded conservatives have been saying for the last three years. She is totally electable. She always has been and she always will be – barring some strange twist of fate involving her health, a Howard Dean moment or if by some statistical aberration that with all the attempts to destroy her (the dumpster diving, the email reading, the interviewing of almost every resident in Alaska), her enemies missed a paper trail that showed embezzlement or a surveillance video of her robbing a bank. But even then, if they found something like that now, they’ve cried wolf so many times, many people wouldn’t believe them.
The American people are having a Laity Lodge moment when, like in the radio commercial, they are getting to see first hand that the rumors about Sarah Palin are flat wrong. At the same time, they are finally seeing through the smoke screen that the media has thrown around Obama since he was a candidate for president in 2008.
Ronald Reagan was 25 points behind Carter 8 months out from the election. His electability at this point in 1979 was way more in doubt than Palin’s is. Reagan didn’t have the advantage of the electronic era with a 24 hour news cycle, Facebook and other new media ways of expressing himself. The new era of news is a double edged sword, It was a weapon to be used against Palin to smear her by having every negative meme perpetrated on fly up the media flagpole because of the complicity of the mainstream media. This did not stop Palin and her supporters from turning it into a weapon for them to compress time frames and deal with the smears almost instantaneously.
Because Reagan didn’t have today’s media at his avail, it took him right up to merely weeks before the election to overcome the public’s concerns. But, the methodology was the same. He showed them in the final debate with Jimmy Carter that he was not only competent but affable by being himself in front of the American people. There was no print or video medium then that could stop him from busting through the myths then just as there is no print or video medium today that can alter the speech that Palin gave in Indianola, IA.
When you see Palin drawing this close to Obama in the polls, it’s a testimony to the fact that we have new media and a 24 hour news cycle that can be used both ways. It’s highly unlikely that Palin would have been able to make this kind of a comeback given the intense and continuous smears hurled at her hourly and daily for the last three years had she been trying to run for president during the late 1970’s. Today, those smears are accellerated, but so are the responses to them.
While left wing bloggers, liberal cable news channels and progressive websites were spending all their energy using the modern media to smear Sarah Palin, she and her supporters were not daunted by the onslaught. They saw the same media as their opportunity to pour out onto the cyber battlefield and go head to head with established writers, journalists and news organizations that were once thought of as too powerful to take on.
For the first time, ordinary Americans were able to come out en masse and draw swords on a flat rhetorical playing field. Liberals, who once swayed the playing field in their direction by infiltrating established media organizations were finding that they were no longer able to rig the game. The Joe Kleins and Keith Olbermanns of the world found that average conservative Americans had honed their skills to the level where they could not only take them on in the arena but force them to retreat.
Just look at the Palin army. This highly organized and highly motivated operation was born out of a need to defend a bloodied, bruised and nearly beaten Sarah Palin after the 2008 election. The Palin operation was once a few members of Team Sarah who’d go to smear article after hit article about her and defend her in the comment sections. Today, there are hundreds of Pro Palin websites, including Conservatives4Palin, a website that could shoot down a Joe McGinniss missile before it even left the silo.
Just look at the Tea Party, too. It’s millions strong and growing. It was born out of fear of a big government Obama presidency and a rant on CNBC by Rick Santelli. It became the gathering and breeding ground for conservative and libertarian activists. After the 2008 election, the conservative movement was on its last legs. The only way the Republican Party could survive would be to form a coalition of libertarians and conservatives and take on an Obama agenda that began falling flat day one. Millions who were electrified by Sarah Palin or horrified by Barack Obama rushed to the Tea Party almost immediately. The coalition occurred naturally, with no prodding from the GOP leadership. It was a bottom up movement, not a top down one.
On 9/12/2009, over a million strong marched on Washington. From that day forward, the movement has pushed aside the lies of the mainstream media and proven once and for all what a fraud and what a phony Barack Obama really is.
Braveheart’s William Wallace would be proud of the Tea Party movement and Palin’s Ordinary Barbarians who have stormed the rhetorical battlefield in staggering numbers to take on the Obama army of thugs. The One once spoke to hundreds of thousands gathered in Chicago on the night of his victory while the battered and defeated McCain army moped off hoping to some day return again. The tears in Sarah Palin’s eyes that night became the elixir in an image that would drive Palinistas to near political death to avenge the wrong that was done to their leader. The loss also drove the rest of the Tea Party movement to work that much harder to make sure it never happened again.
Today, the army is vibrant. It’s energized. It’s enthusiastic. This is happening at a time when many are jumping off the Obama bandwagon. Millions of independents, even some liberal journalists are beginning to see the Obama ship listing and they want off now before it sinks.
The movement is confident that they are onward to victory. The army grows. More and more people are pledging to not vote for Obama. More and more people are seeing the truth about Sarah Palin. They are beginning to believe that she can do it.
There is still much work to do. We’ve come a long way. We have an even longer way to go. But we will get there.
Listen to me talk about this and Organize4Palin with Marth Cano of Palin Promotions here:
Politicos online and in the mainstream media are focusing on two related conversations right now: who will win the Republican presidential primary and can Barack Obama be reelected? Another discussion is being missed completely by the punditry. The 2012 election is a little over 13 months away. How much further in decline will our nation be by then?
All the signs are there for further decay in our economic conditions and the morale of the American people. We continue to go further in debt. Unemployment continues to rise (although the government keeps telling us it's 9.1%). Gas prices are outlandishly high with no signs of coming down within the next year. Home foreclosures are continuing at a record rate. If we could save the country right now, it would be a monumental task. Can we afford to wait another 13 months?
Simply put, we will end up $14 trillion short and a year late. Many in the Tea Party and the Republican Party are gearing up for what is going to be a "must win" in November 2012. If Obama is reelected, the game is over. His policies will collapse our system and destroy our country. We will not be able to undo the damage after that.
Many tried to warn us in 2008 that electing Obama would be a mistake. A college friend of Obama's, John Drew, tried to warn us. He wrote:
The Obama I knew was nothing like the lifelong pragmatic centrist that he was pretending to be in the 2008 presidential campaign. When I talked politics with the young Obama, he expressed a profound commitment to bringing about a socialist economic system in the U.S. -- completely divorced from the profit motive -- which would occur, in his lifetime, through a potentially violent, Communist-style revolution. In this context, I saw my report on young Obama as a key piece of evidence suggesting a profound continuity in his belief system.
Others like Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Glenn Beck tried to warn us. As Drew so eloquently pointed out in his piece for American Thinker, it was the media that ran cover for the Manchurian candidacy of Obama. This is precisely why pounding it home relentlessly and repeatedly that the media lies will be a key component to any GOP strategy in 2012.
Getting the hard facts out to the electorate will require circumventing the big three nightly news shows and their networks. It will require circumventing the written media like the New York Times and the Washington Post. It will require telling people to not trust what they see on MSNBC or CNN. Some may not yet believe us, but the American people are quick to anger if it can be proven to them that they have been lied to by the news sources they have trusted for so long. It's hard to break viewing and reading habits, but break them we must.
One must understand Obama's radical associations to understand fully where Crowley is coming from. For more on his radical associations, read here and here.
So, the LA Times has video of Obama attending a Jew bash and toasting a radical former PLO operative, and they are not sharing it with the public. I think we all know they would immediately release the tape if it were Sarah Palin making the toast.
Where were the members of the media then? They were busy bashing Sarah Palin. They saw the writing on the wall. They saw that if they didn't politically kill her before she wrote "death panel" or talked about crony capitalism, that they would eventually be exposed for the socialist/progressive supporting lackeys that they really are.
The American people have been flooded with information about the progressive movement, Saul Alinsky and how the permanent political class has taken the control of our system away from the people in a way that softly and quietly undermines the U.S. Constitution. With all the safeguards our Founders put into the document, the key safeguard of it all is an educated citizenry. What we have become is a brainwashed citizenry. Nearly a century of progressive infiltration into the economic, political, social and academic culture could not be undone with 56 days of Sarah Palin on the 2008 campaign trail.
But, over the past three years, much has been said and much has been written about this. Many more Americans are understanding how this works now. Defeating the media myths means changing how one views their sources of information, not by simply making them feel bad or deflating their egos. Millions of Obama voters and Sarah Palin skeptics can be brought into the fold if we can just get them to understand that they are not stupid; but rather that they based a well rationalized belief in hope and change based on some seriously flawed information. Once they realize they can no longer trust the source of that information, these people will resume normal intelligent lives.
Sarah Palin continues to be a threat to the progressive movement as well as the inside the beltway establishment. When she talks about crony capitalism, she talks about a system that has been growing like weeds around our Constitutional government. Liberal cronyism favors environmental and socialistic redistribution of wealth by rewarding the companies of donors who have earned their millions in a capitalist system for the sole purpose of destroying that system. Republican cronyism favors control over the establishment so that it can pick and choose which capitalists succeed and which capitalists fail.
Republican cronyism unintentionally gave us what we ended up with today: a radical President hell bent on fundamentally transforming the system. Republican cronies aren't socialists. They want Obama ousted, too. But, they don't like Gadsden flag waving Americans who want to open up businesses in a regulatory environment that's not weighted in favor of the friends of the establishment. Allowing banks and mortgage companies to be bailed out because they are too big to fail tells the little guy that, conversely, he's too small to succeed. And, it is because of this constant psychological programming that people don't go into business.
We claim to be a capitalist country, but we have nothing that resembles true capitalism anymore. Eliminating socialism by not reelecting Obama is a noble cause, but we must go far beyond that. Taking the system out of the hands of crony socialists and giving it back to crony capitalists will not change the breeding ground for future Obamas. Our system needs a complete repeal of many of the regulations and burdensome laws (including many tort laws) before true grassroots capitalism can emerge again.
This will not happen until after 2012. And it probably won't happen ever if Sarah Palin isn't elected president. She is the only potential candidate who effectively and efficiently defines the real problem and offers real solutions to it. Some may come somewhat close. Others may feed us platitudes. But ultimately, it has to be the person who came up with the idea that implements that idea. To do that, she will need a title and she will need the American people to resist the temptation to buy into mainstream media lies or salacious and stupid books like the one written by Joe McGinniss.
There are many who are uncomfortable with the idea of a Palin presidency. This can be overcome by learning the lessons of Ronald Reagan. He, too, was seen skeptically by many until they were finally convinced that he was a competent and capable leader who was able to articulate his ideas and surround himself with smart people while earning the support of an army of followers who would go to the mat for him.
Palin's success will be directly related to the ability of those in the new media to effectively convince skeptics that the perception of her has been diabolically crafted by a mainstream media which would rather have acid poured all over them than to see Palin destroy their dream of seeing a socialist America.
When Sarah Palin talked about her journalism degree and set out to use Facebook as a primary means of communication, she wasn't doing it to show everyone how great she was. She was doing it to be an example for millions of Americans who felt they had no way of having their voices heard. This is leadership. Because of what Palin has done, thousands have taken to blogging and millions have taken to social networks to discuss Alinsky, radicalism, the Tea Party movement and the dangers of crony capitalism.
We have become our own media. In doing so, we have now become analysts of the facts. We are not brainwashed lemmings. We argue amongst ourselves, sometimes bitterly. But it is through this dialogue that real myths are debunked and real truths are exposed.
When Glenn Beck is ostracized because he talks about Van Jones and the progressive movement, there's a reason for it. When the Tea Party is falsely accused of being violent racists, there's a reason for it. When Sarah Palin is called unelectable or not intelligent, there's a reason for it. The only way liars can stop the truth from being told is to lie about it. That's why the mainstream media does what it does. That's why the Democrat Party is incapable of convincing the American people any longer to go with stimulus programs and tax hikes.
The question remains, what kind of country will the United States of America be by November 2012? Psychologically, until we can see light at the end of the tunnel and victory as a possibility, we will be, as Sarah Palin has called us, an "anxious nation." Solving our worries is going to require us to accept that it will still get darker before the dawn, but that there is at least a dawn coming.
We may be near economic death, both individually (I'm unemployed and I see it coming unless I find a job) and as a nation (our GDP is anemic and the deficit continues to rise). As people evaluate the GOP candidates, I hear support for different candidates. But, that support comes with addendums like "I like Perry but I have my reservations about Gardasil and cronyism" or " I like Romney but I have my reservations about RomneyCare." Each candidate comes with a caveat. Support is soft to mild at best.
But, with Palin, support is hardcore and entrenched. Her army is stout with informed activists who can help any doubter borrow their confidence. If Americans can believe that she is the dawn we are looking for, we can capture that same spirit that Ronald Reagan captured. It is with that spirit that a downtrodden and economically abused electorate can find its way back to the shining city on a hill.
We may not have much of a country left by November, 2012. But the enthusiasm and real hope America needs to reignite a revival of growth and a restoration of opportunity in this county will have to come long before we actually start to see the results of our labor. This psychological exercise will require that we have an inspirational leader who, like Reagan, is a lightning rod for those who would otherwise sit at home and wallow in their mire. It will also, unfortunately (as history has shown us), require a leader who is reviled by the true enemies of real capitalism and real free enterprise. Because of that, we will have to be strong.
Unbridled capitalism doesn't mean that we will be running roughshod over the marketplace or allowing companies to defraud Americans or exploit their workers. Unbridled capitalism can succeed when good people use the Constitutional system to prosecute fraud and use the power of the Internet to do consumer reviews of companies and products. Government can play its proper role of referee by getting out of the regulation business and back into the oversight business like it was originally intended to.
Using the legislative process to pick winners and losers and pass cushy laws for some at the expense of others must become a thing of the past. Just as Sarah Palin undid the influence of cronyism in big oil in Alaskan politics, so can she undo the influence of cronyism in American politics. Enforcing laws that protect the rights, property and persons of citizens is the appropriate role of government. Micro-managing businesses and regulating lemonade stands is not.
Don't let the Left convince you that capitalism is a heartless system or that being for small government means we hate the poor. Much of the new poor in America have gotten there because of big government, not in spite of it. The Federal Government can shave trillions of dollars by shutting down useless programs, bureaucracies and government agencies. In doing so, it can only then better focus on fixing Social Security and Medicare.
Medicaid and aid to the poor can eventually be responsibilities that can be returned to the states, churches, local communities and families. In fact, if done right, a market could be created for private unemployment insurance and catastrophic medical insurance so that the events which burden our government the most can have their costs more evenly distributed throughout the system.
We could continue to provide the traditional Social Security and Medicare programs for those who want those and for those who expect the promise of those to be kept. At the same time, we can offer options and opt out provisions for people who want to enter into different types of programs which may actually work more effectively. This writer would encourage those in government to consider bubble programs where ownership of Social Security and private insurance which acts like Medicare can be conferred upon the newest workers coming into the system today.
This could be done with existing mandated FICA withholding which could be circulated through the private sector by having individuals purchase non-governmental run pension plans, IRAs and annuities. Strict rules would have to apply to block individuals from accessing those funds until retirement age or an agreed tier of ages that would produce more or less benefits on a sliding scale. Strict oversight would be required so that these investments are not risky or that insurance programs that are set up will continue to exist for the life of the individual. But let's face it, anything can be better run than the way it is being run now by the government.
Don't let Liberals demagogue you by saying these programs won't work. They were in favor of a public option. We're in favor of a private option. Unlike Obamacare, private options will never threaten the public options the way the public option would have threatened the private option. Government will always provide a safety net no matter what happens with these programs. In fact, it will be easier for Government to provide the safety net when it's not as financially strapped as it is now.
In addition, we can see increased tax revenue flood the treasury coffers as the result of opening America up for business by eliminating the corporate income tax (which would encourage international investment in America and stop the outsourcing of American jobs overseas), unleashing our energy exploration and development programs en masse (which would create over a million new jobs and create real wealth based on energy commodities rather than paper), repatriating trillions of dollars now sitting off shore and reducing the burdensome regulatory costs that go with running businesses.
A richer nation means we can do more for the less fortunate and provide more efficient safety nets. In fact, the more Americans we put back to work and encourage to become wealthy through entrepreneurship, the less poor we will need to attend to.
Now, that's real hope and change. This is the basis upon which a renewed optimism for America can be built. Knowing that Sarah Palin can deliver on this should encourage the business community and all Americans that help is on the way. While we suffer over the next year or so, at least we can suffer knowing that someday the pain will be over and the light will shine brightly again on our blessed nation.
Ending the chokehold that both political parties have had on a system that regular people once felt helpless about changing or affecting requires a discussion of how the insider game hurts the regular guy regardless of which side of the aisle he or she sits. Sarah Palin effectively started that discussion and gave it a voice when she articulated clearly how lobbyists and good ole boys from both parties affect legislation in their favor by defining the difference between crony capitalism and true free market principles during her speech in Iowa over Labor Day weekend. Her ability to get the GOP candidates to start talking the talk may work from outside the arena, but expecting them to walk the walk is a bit more precarious.
Regardless of how effective Governor Palin is as a spokesperson for a brand of conservatism shared by the common man and the Tea Party, one has to wonder if any of the other candidates are actually able to implement that brand through executive action and use of the presidential bully pulpit.
The GOP candidates are fine people who are willing to serve their country in this time of dire economic straights. They share the goal of unseating a president who presides over the ever growing soft tyranny of an out of control government that expands continuously at a cost way beyond its ability to do so. With the exception of Herman Cain, all have cut their teeth and built on their experience playing by a set of political rules that were once thought of as written in stone. With the exception of Sarah Palin, none have actually succeeded in government by not playing by those rules.
One can't totally fault any of the candidates for having to "play the game." Prior to Palin, it was rare to see a candidate obtain political office by unseating the establishment (the lobbyists, the special interests and the people to whom favors were owed). Traditional political victory is defined as one party defeating another. The lobbyists, consultants and the establishment win either way (at worst, they take turns holding influence as the parties trade places through electoral wins and losses). Herein lies the heart of Palinism: that it no longer has to be this way and a new model for political victory can be crafted by candidates who decide to run against the establishment and the media with the same vigor that traditional politicians run against the opposing political party.
This raises the question about whether Governor Palin is running or not. If she doesn't run, is she going to be able to continue affecting the debate without a title by radioing it in from the sideline? Can we really expect that President Romney, Perry or Bachmann will be clicking on Sarah Palin's Facebook page to get their daily briefings? Not to diminish the effect her Facebook notes have had on such key issues as Obamacare and the economy, it should be noted that as good as they are, they held more weight because of the perception that she was a potential candidate and that her ideas would garner her the support necessary to enact them.
If she doesn't run, she can continue to affect the debate as she suggested Monday night on Greta Van Susteren's show. However, conservatives are quietly discussing whether or not she will have the same level of clout as she has had over the past three years. One conservative blogger told me off the record that she is beginning to look at Rick Perry as a candidate since she is unsure of Palin's intentions.
This raises the question of how much influence Palin would have on the political process if a nominee other than herself moves forward. Would this nominee be as dedicated to Palin's ideas and their implementation as Palin herself would be? The best way to analogize this would be to ask Yankee fans if they would rather have Alex Rodriguez playing 3rd base or would they be okay with someone else who would try to hit as many homeruns as he does while he coached them from the dugout. And, would A-Rod's replacement draw as many fans and generate as much excitement as he does?
With all due respect to the Governor (and this writer will continue to emphasize the high degree of admiration and respect he has for her), she risks losing her captive audience by withdrawing her name from consideration. She also opens herself up to the criticism of those who have been crafting the meme that she has been doing all she's done in the last three years for the money.
Based upon informal discussions with fellow Palinistas, some would feel as if they would have spent their money and time in vain if she pulls the plug on them. Others would still continue to support her in a diehard fashion. This split would not bode well for her brand. Listening to Palin supporters turning on her and each other in the media will not be pleasant.
"I'm getting kind of a kick out of this," Palin said on Fox News Monday night when host Greta Van Susteren asked a speech, making some statements about things that must be discussed, and then the very next day watching some of the candidates get out there and discuss what it was that we just talked about, like the corruption, the crony capitalism, the waste, the fraud, some of the things that are going on right now."
This blogger can appreciate that she gets a kick out of seeing the other candidates running with her ideas. Yet, there are many who aren't getting a kick out of being unemployed or losing money because of the Obama economy. Nor are they getting much of a kick out of the other candidates. There are a lot of people also not getting a kick out of the fact that she's not in the race, on that debate stage, speaking for them and fighting for them in the arena.
For Palinism to work, she has to make it work. We can't expect someone else to implement her plan or motivate people the way only she can. I'm not trying to be rough on the Governor. If anything, it's this writer's perception of her greatness that drives the frustration which motivates me to to write this. Sarah Palin is a rare breed of leader. There has only been one other political leader in my lifetime that had what she has.
An army sits in their camps keeping their powder dry, cleaning their rhetorical weapons and preparing for a massive boots on the ground grass roots operation with air support from the more technologically savvy among us who can post youtube videos and blog posts that will get the message out to the American people. That army awaits their marching orders. To make this happen, they need Governor Palin to give them the go.
It's a big commitment. She has a family to consider. But, her country needs her. We are calling out to her.
Listening to those people yelling out her name, chasing her down for an autograph or a word with her after the Iowa speech is spine tingling. These are not people just looking for a keepsake. The tone in the cries of "Sarah!" has the intonation of that of people crying out for help. It's not a lazy cry for help. These are people who are willing to lift the car off the American body politic. But they need her to help. If she jumps in and helps, these people will pull muscles and rip tendons to help her move that car.
Contrary to what the media says, the Palin army is not a fan club. This is our lives. There are people who are suffering because of what the Obama administration is doing. This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around. The American dream is at stake. People's livelihoods are at stake. People's children's futures hang on the outcome of the 2012 elections.
For the diehard Palinista, removing Obama is not enough. Changing the way business is done in Washington is also a key component to that. We've spent decades frustrated by the inability to beat city hall. Now we have a shot to do it, and it can't be done without her.
There are many who believe that without Palin, ending crony capitalism and putting America back on a permanent track toward restoration and renewal can't happen. Anyone can beat Obama. Only one can implement the true vision needed to insure that something like Obama never happens again.
Governor Palin, there are still millions of us out here that want it to be that way; that want it to be a shining city on a hill. Candidate Palin, please step forward.
-cross posted from Unsheathed and updated with a quote from today's Sarah Palin's Facebook note.
We're drawing closer, folks. Yes, we are barbarians as Joe Biden calls us. We are the Ordinary Barbarians as Rebecca Mansour and the folks at Conservatives4Palin have dubbed us. Joe Biden tries to mock us as terrorists and the New York Times calls us hobbits because we, as true Americans, have come to take our country back from the socialist progressives who are floudering in their attempts at fundamentally transforming our country.
We're drawing so close that "say it ain't so, Joe" Biden has warned the Obama army that the barbarians are at the gates and that they are the only ones who can stop us. Jimmy Hoffa has called on Obama's army to take us "sons of bitches" out.
So sharpen the rhetorical swords and let's get ready to rumble.
You will be demonized. They’ll mock you. They’ll make things up. They’ll tell you to “go to hell.” But we’ll bite our tongue, we’ll keep it classy, and we won’t respond—as tempting as it is—to anyone who just has such disdain for our free market economy and for individual initiative and responsibility. We won’t say, “No, you go to hell.” No, we won’t say that. You know why we don’t have to say that? Because when we have time-tested truth and logic on our side, we win. And when we refuse to retreat because we know that our children’s future is at stake, we win.
In my speech on Saturday in Iowa, I said: “Between bailouts for Wall Street cronies and stimulus projects for union bosses’ security and ‘green energy’ giveaways, [Barack Obama] took care of his friends. And now they’re on course to raise a billion dollars for his re-election bid so that they can do it all over again.” This was shamefully on display yesterday at President Obama’s taxpayer-funded campaign rally in Detroit. In introducing the President, Teamsters President James Hoffa represented precisely what I was talking about as he declared war on concerned independent Americans and on the freshman members we sent to Congress last November by saying, “Let’s take these son-of-a-bitches out!”
Ask yourself if the folks you heard demonize concerned, independent Americans yesterday really speak for the working class when they’re all too happy to burden your families with the bill to bail out the President’s friends on Wall Street.
We should not forget that for all his lofty rhetoric, President Obama is a Chicago politician. Graft, cronyism, and quid pro quo are the well-known methods of an infamous Chicago political machine, of which Barack Obama emerged. This corruption isn’t just the result of a few bad apples. It’s the nature of a skewed system that’s typical of one not allowing a level playing field. If one desires opportunity for all, then the only solution is sudden and relentless reform. I know of what I speak. I too served in public office in a state that had a corruption problem. The difference is that I fought the corrupt political machine. Barack Obama used the machine in his state to advance. He never challenged it. And he’s evidently brought the same Chicago “pay-to-play” practices to the White House.
In the meantime, good union brothers and sisters, don’t let Hoffa tell you what to do. He doesn’t represent the real interests of working men and women. He’s not doing you any favors. He’s just living off your paychecks.
2012 can't come soon enough.
The liars of the left will soon feel our sting.
Onward to victory!
Game on!
Listen to Patrick's World USA on Blogtalk Radio Wednesday Night at 11pm ET 8pm PT. Sarah Palin rocked the Iowa Tea Party. Hear about it from my guests Stacy Drake of Conservatives4Palin and Camille Friend of The Design Conservative who were there.
If I could, I'd bring in a sign language person for the hearing impaired to deliver this blog post.
Wolf Blitzer tried to do an analysis of Palin's speech in New Hampshire today. His complaint was that she was very general and didn't give specifics. This was a Tea Party speech designed for a rally, not a white paper or in depth policy speech in front of a think tank. She did in fact give a substantive speech in Iowa just a couple of days ago. Apparently, Blitzer missed that along with the numerous Facebook notes that Sarah Palin has posted since 2008.
Twitter also lights up with the geniuses of the political science class - naysayers parroting the same old meme that she is not specific as well. It's evident that the brains of those who lazily believe what they hear from lamestream media pundits easily turn to mush.
Let's make this as simple as we can. I'll try to type slowly so none of you miss it.
Sarah Palin's specific plan for entitlement reform is made clear by her statements that we need to keep the promises we have made to existing benefit recipients and look at ways of enhancing the system so that it doesn't go broke for future recipients. "Governor Palin made a guest appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox News" March 4, 2011, according to Iowans4Palin (click here for link and video). "She discussed cutting the budget, reforming some entitlement programs, and once again endorsed Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future."
Sarah Palin has been speaking out on numerous occasions regarding national security. You can find her policy positions here and here. She believes in peace through strength and not using the military unless our interests are at stake and that the mission can be accomplished quickly.
Sarah Palin has the definitive economic plan. This plan is similar to Reagan's "reawakening the industrial giant" strategy. The staple of this plan is to reawaken energy exploration and development. Palin also calls for the elimination of the corporate income tax and the loopholes that come with them in the tax code. She calls for an end to bailouts and lobbyist influence of the entrenched political class in order to end crony capitalism.
My plan is about empowerment: empowerment of our states, empowerment of our entrepreneurs, most importantly empowerment of you – our hardworking individuals – because I have faith, I have trust, I have respect for you.
The way forward is no more politics as usual. We must stop expanding an out-of-control and out-of-touch federal government. This is first: All power not specifically delegated to the federal government by our Constitution is reserved for the states and for we the people. So, let’s enforce the 10th Amendment and devolve powers back locally where the Founders intended them to be.
Second, what happened to all those promises about staying committed to repealing the mother of all big government unfunded mandates? We must repeal Obamacare! And rein in burdensome regulations that are a boot on our neck. Get government out of the way. Let the private sector breathe and grow. This will allow the confidence that businesses need in order to expand and hire more people.
Third, no more run away debt. We must prioritize and cut. Cancel unused stimulus funds, and have that come to Jesus moment where we own up to the debt challenge that is entitlement reform. See, the reality is we will have entitlement reform; it’s just a matter of how we’re going to get there. We either do it ourselves or the world’s capital markets are going to shove it down our throats, and we’ll have no choice but to reform our entitlement programs. The status quo is no longer an option. Entitlement reform is our duty now, and it must be done in a way that honors our commitment to our esteemed elders today, while keeping faith with future generations. I don’t think anything has irked me more than this nonsense coming from the White House about maybe not sending our seniors their checks. It’s their money! They have paid into Social Security all of their working lives; and for the President to say, “ah, we may not be able to cut their checks,” ah, well, where did all their money go, politicians? It’s like the Commander-in-Chief being willing to throw our military under the bus by threatening that their paychecks may not arrive. But the politicians will still get their checks and their secure retirements, and he’ll still get his posh vacations. Aren’t you just sick to death of those skewed priorities? It’s all backwards. Our seniors and our brave men and women in uniform being used as pawns – I say it’s shameful, and enough is enough. No more.
Fourth, it is time for America to become the energy superpower. The real stimulus that we’ve been waiting for is robust and responsible domestic energy production. We have the resources. Affordable and secure energy is the key to any thriving economy, and it must be our foundation. So, I would do the opposite of Obama’s manipulation of U.S. supplies of energy. Drill here, drill now. Let the refineries and the pipelines be built. Stop kowtowing to foreign countries and dictators asking them to ramp up production and industry for us, promising them that we’ll be their greatest customer. No, not when we have the resources here. We need to move on tapping our own God-given natural resources. I promise you that this will bring real job growth, not the politicians’ phony “green jobs” fairy dust sprinkled with wishes and glitter… No, a hardcore all-of-the-above energy policy that builds this indestructible link between made-in-America energy and our prosperity and our security. You know, there are enough large conventional natural resource development projects waiting for government approval that could potentially create more than a million high-paying jobs all across the country. And this is true stimulus. It wouldn’t cost government a dime to allow the private sector to do these. In fact, these projects will generate billions of dollars in revenue. Can you imagine that: a stimulus project that actually helps dig us out of debt instead of digging us further into it! And these are good-paying jobs, and I know that from experience. For years my own family was supported (as Todd worked up on the North Slope) by a good energy sector job. America’s economic revival starts with America’s energy revival.
Fifth, we can and we will make America the most attractive country on earth to do business in. Here’s how we’re going to do this. Right now, we have the highest federal corporate income tax rate in the industrialized world. Did you know our rates are higher than China and communist Cuba? This doesn’t generate as much revenue as you would think, though, because many big corporations skirt federal taxes because they have the friends in D.C. who right the rules for the rest of us. This makes us less competitive and restrains our engine of prosperity. Heck, some businesses spend more time trying to figure out how to hide their profits than they do in generating more profits so that they can expand and hire more of us. So, to make America the most attractive and competitive place to do business, to set up shop here and hire people here, to attract capital from all over the globe that will lead to an explosion of growth, instead of chasing industry offshore, I propose to eliminate all federal corporate income tax. And hear me out on this. This is how we create millions of high-paying jobs. This is how we increase opportunity and prosperity for all.
But here’s the best part: To balance out any loss of federal revenue from this tax cut, we eliminate corporate welfare and all the loopholes and we eliminate bailouts. This is how we break the back of crony capitalism because it feeds off corporate welfare, which is just socialism for the very rich. We can change all of that. The message then to job-creating corporations is: We’ll unshackle you from the world’s highest federal corporate income tax rate, but you will stand or fall on your own, just like all the rest of us out on main street.
See, when we empower the job-creators, our economy will soar; Americans will get back to work.
We need to get this economy moving again, and the real stimulus we’ve been waiting for is domestic energy development. We must reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil by responsibly developing natural resources here. This will provide good paying jobs, reduce our trade deficit, increase federal and state revenue, ensure environmental standards, and actually stimulate our economy without incurring any debt. That’s real stimulus! Affordable, plentiful, and secure energy is the foundation of every thriving economy. Let’s make it the foundation of ours. Let’s do the opposite of President Obama’s manipulation of U.S. energy supplies. Let’s drill here, build refineries, and stop kowtowing to foreign countries in asking them to ramp up energy production which makes us even more beholden to them as we rely on their foreign product. Let’s move on tapping our massive domestic natural gas reserves. Natural gas is the perfect “bridge fuel” to a future when more renewable sources are available. It’s clean, it’s green, and we’ve got a lot of it. Let’s drill. Let’s build an infrastructure for natural gas cars and power plants. Energy development can help kick start our economic engine.
In addition to energy security, I embrace a pro-growth agenda that can make American corporations far more competitive on the global stage. (I will be writing more about this in the coming days.) We need to tell the world, “America is open for business again!” And let’s welcome industry by reducing burdensome regulations. The Obama administration keeps strangling businesses in red tape. From the EPA’s rulings to that nightmare known as Obamacare, the Obama administration is hanging one regulatory albatross after another around the private sector’s neck. Let’s get government out of the way and give the private sector room to breathe, grow, and thrive. We can provide businesses confidence to expand and hire Americans in a stable environment.
Be wary of the efforts President Obama makes to “fix” the debt problem. The more he tries to “fix” things, the worse they get because his “solutions” always involve spending more, taxing more, growing government, and increasing debt. This debt problem is the greatest challenge facing our country today. Obviously, President Obama doesn’t have a plan or even a notion of how to deal with it.
Those who say Palin is not specific in her positions are either lazy (and don't want to do the research), have a liberal media agenda or they simply don't want to hear it. It is the vapidity of her detractors that is without substance. They cannot, with logic and reason, back up their position that Palin is too general and that she's not specific on the issues.
Learning about "Palin's specifics" is not something the lazy will want to undertake. It will require hours of research. That's why I wrote this post to give you the cliff notes version. For those are interested in learning more about Palin's policy positions, I recommend reading all 330 of her Facebook notes, these articles at Conservatives4Palin, Issues at Organize4Palin or simply do some Google searches (but beware of liberal media bias).
If I come across too harsh in this post, it's because I don't like intellectual dishonesty. If you are saying Palin is short on specifics or too general, it's code for you don't like Sarah Palin. If you disagree with Palin on any issues, then debate it. I understand it will be difficult to debate her positions on the issues because they are defensible with fact, historical analysis and logic. I understand it's easier to say she's too general than it is to take her on directly. But if liberalism or your disagreement with Palin is so much so that it causes you to foam at the mouth at the mere mention of her name, please tell us why and what it is specifically that you disagree with.
Listen to Patrick's World USA on Blogtalk Radio Wednesday Night at 11pm ET 8pm PT. Sarah Palin rocked the Iowa Tea Party. Hear about it from my guests Stacy Drake of Conservatives4Palin and Camille Friend of The Design Conservative who were there.
It's time for us to hand Sarah Palin the Excalibur sword and tell her that it is her destiny. A nation's survival is at stake. Governor Palin, if you accept our call to run, we will always have your back. All you have to do is snap your fingers and you will have an instant army at your finger tips. It would be like a scene out of Braveheart.
Ever since Ronald Reagan inspired me to study political science and follow politics, I've prided myself on being in tune with an American philosophy that is deeply rooted in our Founders's principles and in the philosophy of Reagan. He was the only one who inspired me until Sarah Palin came along to fill the political void after his death.
It was over 20 years that I was watching Reagan deliver a speech and it hit me. I had been arguing with liberals and family members about politics earlier that week. When I listened to what he was saying, I realized that the reason why I loved the guy so much was because he agreed with me. He was me with a microphone and platform.
I didn't have to explain Reagan's philosophy in a clinical way to my friends and family. All I had to do was explain my own political philosophy and it was the same. When people accuse me of getting my talking points from Rush Limbaugh, I explain it's not that I listen to Rush and use his talking points. It's that when I listen to Rush, he always validates the political positions that I have already taken.
Prior to the 2008 election (particularly between 2006 and 2008), I would watch videos of Ronald Reagan speeches with tears in my eyes because I felt as if it was over. All the things that Reagan spoke about were disappearing from the American political landscape and discourse. No candidate since Reagan until that time was ever able to get a 100% rating from me.
I've always prided myself on charting my own course and developing my own positions in my writing and in my verbal debates with friends and family. When Sarah Palin gave her RNC speech 3 years ago yesterday, I couldn't believe it. There was hope again. When Ronald Reagan was alive, I knew there was always someone out there who got the deal. I wasn't alone in my thinking. When he was gone, it was as if I had lost my political voice. Suddenly, I heard my voice again. It was a little more high pitched than I expected it to be and it came from mouth of a petite woman from Alaska this time. But it was my voice. It was Reagan's voice, too.
It's been a tough road trying to talk to people about this. The Sarah Palin arguments have sometimes gotten heated; and during these debates, I have been the most challenged. This required me to be intellectually honest and objective enough to step back and evaluate whether or not my staunch pro-Palinism was rooted more in political infatuation or more in political reality. Over the course of the last month, I've been giving my Palinism a lot of thought. I'm not going to say I've had doubts, but I can tell you there are fleeting moments when you break out in a cold sweat thinking that it might not happen.
I started evaluating whether or not she really was what I thought she was. There are so many psychological tactics the media have been using to break into the subconscious minds of good thinking Americans. Is she that creature that Frank Bailey describes in her book? Is she not up to speed on the issues the way the pundits are saying she isn't?
I examined everything and after giving it great thought, I wrote a piece for my Townhall blog on August 9, 2011 outlining the real reasons why I believed a Palin presidency was best for America. I wrote:
With Palin, you not only take down the radical socialist agenda of the American Left, you also take down the business as usual crony capitalism of the center.
In the past, winning elections for the Republicans was an exercise in defeating liberalism and socialism so that business as usual could continue in Washington where the political class could continue to enjoy the trappings of power while the rest of us were relatively unimpeded as we worked hard at our jobs and businesses. Without the serious threat like the one we have now from a Manchurian shadow party candidate that is dismantling our entire way of life, many of the eyes that are on this upcoming election would be looking at other things instead.
Since it was business as usual that got us into this mess in the first place, why not just clean house completely? Why not just completely renew and restore the thing to the way it was supposed to be when envisioned by our Founders?
Stopping the political games of earmarks and special interests used to be an exercise in futility for the average voter, particularly as long as their businesses or jobs weren’t be stifled by burdensome regulations or a choked off capital market the way they are now. In a normal year, RINOs and center right Republicans are able to win elections and stay in favor with their constituents because they are a better alternative to liberalism and socialism. Now that we have a Tea Party, we are finding that we can reject both options in favor of real free enterprise and a true adherence to Constitutional principles.
This is a rare opportunity for America to change its political system not by discarding it or fundamentally transforming it, but by changing the players themselves. By sending citizen politicians and people who will not be corrupted to Washington, the American people can send a message to establishment Democrats and Republicans alike that the golden age of the fat cats stuffing themselves at the taxpayer funded trough is over.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for those of us who have always hated crony capitalism to finally become part of a coalition to end it. We can truly kill both birds with one pull of the lever. We can defeat radical socialism and crony capitalism by electing Sarah Palin president.
We can defeat socialism with the pull of a lever next to any of the other candidates’ names (and if we have to, we will). But there will be no guarantee that we can kill crony capitalism or elitism if we do that. We can risk returning to business as usual after Obama is booted out or we can begin a new age in America where the opportunity for prosperity is truly open to all, not just those who get the wealth redistributed to them or who are affiliated with mismanaged businesses who just happen to be too big or too entrenched to fail.
I had no way of knowing what she was going to say yesterday when I wrote that. So when I heard what she said in the speech, it was like a symphony of beautiful music to my ears. But, right after I wrote this piece (amidst the poll numbers and the wondering about whether or not she was going to run), I decided that I would have to be more objective about her. Could she deliver a speech the way Reagan did? Could she be as substantive as he was? Could I agree with her as much as I agreed with him? For the past month, I have been challenging myself to be honest.
Prior to yesterday's speech, I watched Ronald Reagan's 1992 Republican National Convention speech to critique and focus on his mannerisms, his delivery style and the substance of his speech. I wanted to have a good picture of Reagan in my mind if I was going to evaluate Sarah Palin fairly and honestly.
I stepped back and did not go into yesterday's speech with glazed eyes and a glass of Palin kool aid in my hand. I went into it as a guy who saw the Fox News poll about how no one wants her to run and how maybe she was beginning to lose her star power and influence as the other GOP candidates were garnering more media attention. I have to confess. I have been becoming concerned about her unwillingness to give us her intentions on whether she was running or not, so I've been backing off a little.
Here's how that worked out. Make no mistake about it. Sarah Palin's speech yesterday was beyond incredible. I admit I yelled at her on the TV again yesterday when she said "you don't need a title." But, when she articulated her economic plan and talked about crony capitalism as clearly and concisely as she did yesterday, it was if I was reintroduced to the woman who electrified me in 2008. I am convinced more now than ever that this is our only shot. She has to run.
All of us together can take back our country. She will need all of us in the movement to help her. She told us how difficult it would be and that we'd be mocked. That doesn't bother me. The fruits of our labor are worth the price. I understand we can't just rely on her or some politician to do it for us. I understand it's a big decision for her and her family. But I also know one thing. We can't do it without her. Only Sarah Palin can be the point guard for the plan. Only she can deliver on what she said yesterday. In order to do so, she will need all of us; but one of us going to have to have a title to implement it.
Ronald Reagan stepped up for us and delivered on the message with the help of his army. He and his supporters together led our country into prosperity and ended the Cold War. Without Ronald Reagan, the conservative movement couldn't have done it. Without the conservative movement, Reagan couldn't have done it. But we needed him to take the pen and make it happen. He could have never done what he did without a title.
Call it political blasphemy if you want, but there were times that I swore it was Ronald Reagan speaking yesterday. Her mannerisms, delivery style and substance were every bit as equal to that of Ronald Reagan. I watched the Ronald Reagan videos like I said and she was dead on yesterday, man, dead on.
Some of the liberals and skeptics who read this piece are going to say I'm nuts. But I challenge anyone to sit down and watch a Reagan speech side by side with yesterday's Palin speech and tell me if she wasn't him yesterday.
It wasn't very hard for me to picture Reagan giving that speech. In fact, had he been alive and delivered that speech yesterday, it would have been one of his finest. It was Palin's best speech since her 2008 RNC vice presidential acceptance speech by far.
As for the substance, if anyone wants to know what my positions on Barack Obama, the GOP Establishment, crony capitalism and an economic plan to save our country are, see the speech.
