Sarah Palin is amazing. She’s amazing because so often her comments cut through all the noise and hammer down to the truth of the matter. Remember “death panels?” You know Obama does.
This is one of the reasons I’m nervous about Palin running for President. She just speaks truth. And more than anything I’d worry that we’d lose her voice if she ran for President.
Look at what happens to presidential candidates, they often have so many consultants whispering in their ears. They’re overcoached, overpolled, and underwhelming. And you can’t just say that Sarah shouldn’t listen to consultants because while consultants do tend to overmanage they are there for one reason -and that’s to win. Often in a campaign, there’s truth that just takes too long to explain so you have talking points. And in order to win elections, candidates opt not to speak truth but to speak in talking points. They do this because they think it’s important that they win. And it is important.
But this is Sarah Palin speaking truth:
During a speech in Dallas on Wednesday night Sarah Palin attacked President Obama for being the “most pro-abortion president to occupy the White House” and warned that health care reform would lead to more abortions in America.
“It is even worse than what we had thought. The ramifications of this legislation are horrendous,” Palin said at an event hosted by Heroic Media, a faith-based, non-profit group that is working to bring down the rate of abortions in the Dallas area.
The 2008 vice presidential nominee urged the newly elected Congress to repeal health care reform, which she called the “mother of all unfunded mandates.”
“The biggest advance of the abortion industry in America has been the passage of Obamacare,” Palin said.
Although President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortions, the former Alaska governor said it was nonbinding. Palin also noted that the administration later allowed federal funding for some “high risk” insurance pools in states that allow elective abortions.
I saw a new poll that has Palin leading in some key states in primary polls.
So like I said, I’m nervous about Palin running but I’m not at all excited about someone like Mitt Romney having a clear lane to the nomination. In fact Romney kinda’ scares the heck out of me and I’d rather pretty much anyone other than Romney. I think Romney would be a disastrous candidacy for conservatism.
November 12, 2010 at 6:09 am
If Romney wins the nomination, I will vote 3rd party and encourage others to do so as well. Even if that means Obama is reelected.
Romney is bad news.
November 12, 2010 at 6:33 am
Isn't it a terrible reflection upon what our country has become that being truthful disqualifies one from the presidency? It's her natural, unaffacted manner, in addition to her integrity, that makes Palin so attractive.
Romaney was a RINO in MA – a real disaster.
November 12, 2010 at 6:33 am
What is so hard about finding someone who at least TALKS conservative in both flavors?
November 12, 2010 at 2:02 pm
I lobbied against sex ed and abortion legislation for years in Massachusetts. Romney not only was dismissive and rude, he helped the other side.
Look, we have plenty of legislators in Massachusetts that help us under the radar. We are not insensitive to knowing when somebody is on our side in a conversation and tries to help. Romney was not on our side on any of the issues.
The extreme makeover was all fraud.
The GOP could not be so out of touch that they didn't see that advancing Romney split the grassroots prolifers, Catholics, Christians and other religious conservatives from the fiscal conservatives?
We all scattered and it caused McCain to pull out in front.
Is it possible they are going to let it happen again?
November 12, 2010 at 2:18 pm
The person we need is Rick Santorum. Period. Santorum 2012. He's the real deal.
November 12, 2010 at 2:20 pm
It's no coincidence that many of the more high-profile Palin bashers in the GOP have ties to Romney. I first noted the trend over 2 years ago:
A Theory
Just in case I haven't already made it abundantly clear: I will NEVER under ANY circumstances EVER vote for that fraud Mitt Romney.
November 12, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Its so simple. If people just stopped having sex there wouldn't be an issue. Of course if they weren't taught about how babies are made and ways to prevent unwanted ones how would they know? I know there could be some sort of educational course in school… Well and let's not forget medical reasons for abortion.
Oh never mind, lets just have them pray to god and I'm sure everything will work out.
November 12, 2010 at 3:17 pm
It might help if folks jumped but hard when the main argument offered against Romney is his religion. Looking back and removing the "Romneycare!" part, the only arguments I heard were that he was really lying about being pro-life (straight assertion, not even any background, let alone evidence) and the overwhelming "but he's Mormon."
If he's all that bad, put the information out. It wasn't enough to stop Obama, but it will probably be enough to stop him.
Huck will probably be the annoying one– as far as I can tell, he's a pro-life Dem, which would be great if he wasn't an option for Republican nomination. >.<
November 12, 2010 at 3:35 pm
"It might help if folks jumped but hard when the main argument offered against Romney is his religion."
Nice of you to imply that opposition to Romney is primarily based on religious bigotry. Whatever.
"… the only arguments I heard were that he was really lying about being pro-life (straight assertion, not even any background, let alone evidence)…"
There were PLENTY of arguments put forth to back up assertions regarding the Romney's lack of pro-life bona fides (in fact, Carol, writing above, offers her personal experience in dealing with Romney on such matters). Plus, Romney has a record. His record is one of hostility to the interests of social conservatives. He spent a political career proclaiming himself "pro-choice", and then suddenly and conveniently became "pro-life" on the eve of running for the Republican nomination for President. His conversion to the cause may be genuine, but you will excuse me for being skeptical given his actual governing record. The burden of proof is on HIM to show that he is now truly pro-life before I am willing to make him President. The way for him to earn some bona fides is to once again seek some lower office, govern as a pro-life conservative rather than the "pro-choice moderate" he actually governed as before, and THEN run for President.
I owe no one my vote simply because they suddenly proclaim themselves "pro-life" on the eve of running for President when their entire political career says otherwise.
November 12, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Learn to read what I actually said instead of lashing out, Jay. I said folks needed to smack down hard when someone did drag religion into it. Other than myself, I don't see that happening much. (Not like I'm all that or something, I just have a pet peeve about folks on my side using weak or bad reasoning.)
I do know places where it's the main argument offered. (Generally by Huck supporters and folks who don't care about social issues, oddly, and the places are light on evidence-based arguing anyways, but it's there.)
There were PLENTY of arguments put forth to back up assertions regarding the Romney's lack of pro-life bona fides (in fact, Carol, writing above, offers her personal experience in dealing with Romney on such matters).
See where I wrote "that I saw"? Which is EXACTLY why I mentioned it; I didn't go to any explicitly counter-Mitt sites, so I saw what was being offered in general arguments.
Where the blazes was testimony like hers, and more like it, during the last election? If we're going to be effective, we've got to get it out.
Alone, it's "one person says"– get a bunch of folks who are active in the pro-life community, offer their bonafides (I've been doing X in Y and we supported/proposed/got signatures for Z, A, and D) and record their impressions and that's a decent argument. Not quite as good as something hard like legislation taken from start to finish, or where he spends his own charity money, but it's something.
I owe no one my vote simply because they suddenly proclaim themselves "pro-life" on the eve of running for President when their entire political career says otherwise.
Nobody said you did, but if you want to have an effect, you've got to change folks' minds. That means getting information out there, countering the idiots who want to make it about religion, and swaying the folks who figure he's the least bad of the lot. A possible tactic may be pointing out that if he'll claim to support pro-life stuff, but not actually do it, he's just another pol trying to get ahead– not something you want in the oval office.
The folks who want to dump social issues are already thinking in terms like this, as are the folks who don't care about smaller gov't but do care about social issues. It's the folks who care about both that need to get our act together.
November 12, 2010 at 5:01 pm
I apologize if I misread your comments. It's a little bit of a touchy subject with me because those of us who consistently harped on Romney's shortcomings back in '08 were either told that he was the last "conservative" hope at derailing McCain or were accused of secretly harboring anti-Mormon bias.
The problem is that all the conservative media organs who should have known better either fell in love with Mitt (see, e.g., Kathryn Lopez and the rest of the crowd at National Review) or saw him as the lesser of two evils compared to McCain (see, e.g., Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, many Catholic bloggers, etc.).
For what it's worth, I was not and am not a fan of Huckabee either. I despise the anti-Catholic kneecapping number his team did on Brownback in Iowa. His team has also been out there competing with Romney's for who can trash Sarah Palin the most. Scumbags the lot of them.
I hate politics.
November 12, 2010 at 5:13 pm
*whew* I'm sorry I responded as sharply as I did, I get really tired of being attacked for pointing out weaknesses in arguments on our side.
Rather cruddy selection of choices at the end, there– McCain, with the anti-speech, Huck, with his soccon/fisklib, and Mitt with his gov't health care.
Really, really tired of making the best of really bad choices. Is it so much to ask that we get mildly bad choices?
November 12, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I previously wrote: "I apologize if I misread your comments"
Geez. And I also apologize for my non-apology apology. I certainly didn't meant to write it that way. I cringed when I re-read what I wrote.
November 12, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Honestly I fell in with Romney only when Thompson dropped out because I thought then – and I still think now – that he was the best of the woeful options of himself, McCain, and Huckaphoney. I pray we can do better in 2012.
Which brings us back to the original topic at hand – Sarah Palin. I admire her and would easily support her over most of the options. I do recognize that she's got a long way to go before she is a viable option. Like it or not there is an entrenched view of her as a dunce. This was brought home to me last week when my sister asked me about her. My sister is not very political, but she wanted my opinion of Palin, but remained skeptical of her. She's watched enough 60 Minutes and other MSM crap to be convinced of the media narrative about her. And of course when I pointed out that President Obama is not as sharp as he is portrayed, my sister responded with, "But he went to Harvard."
It's merely an anecdote, but I think my sister is fairly representative of the type of voter who is going to decide the 2012 election. Just something to consider.
November 12, 2010 at 5:39 pm
She also said she wasn't leaving her position to run for prez, but if she does it will look like that's what she did. That's even worse than looking dumb.
November 12, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Paul,
The reason I believe Romney was actually the WORST of the 3 options back in '08 is that the others at least had a record that they were running on as opposed to away from. The other two I held my nose and voted for – Huckabee in the primary (after learning at the polling station that I couldn't write in Brownback) and McCain in the general election (primarily because of Palin). But I would NEVER vote for Romney. With McCain and Huckabee, you pretty much knew what you were getting.
Not so with Willard.
November 13, 2010 at 5:55 am
Why would anyone vote for Sarah Palin? She wants fame and money, not a job in public service. If she wanted a job for which she was elected, she shouldn't have resigned as governor. She's a poor example of someone in public office, and electing her as president would be a poor reflection on the electorate. I've never seen her as anything but a fraud.
November 13, 2010 at 5:57 am
Fail troll is fail.
Or doesn't understand the notion of cost-cutting.
Either way, fail.
November 13, 2010 at 6:10 am
I think Palin would make a great president but I don't think she is electable because I have had many experiences like the one Paul Zummo relates, with the troll's remarks at 12:55 just proving the point. My hope is that Palin will be the next head of the Republican party. She'd shape things up there and then in 2012 maybe we'll have some real conservatives to vote for instead of just having to choose between the lesser of 2 evils.
November 14, 2010 at 4:03 am
Sarah Palin for President. Go Sarah!