“Is it Palin’s fault for Rossi not winning his Senate bid? Or Raese, Fiorina, McMahon, Buck, & Angle (who she didn’t endorse in the primary)?” SarahPAC’s Rebecca Mansour asked, adding, “Sarah Palin didn’t cost the GOP the Senate. We were nowhere near winning control of the Senate. Deal with it Beltway GOP.” – TRENDING: GOP Rep: ‘Palin cost us control of the Senate’
What to do about Sarah? That’s what the Republican boys’ club seems to be asking. Their tactics so far are obvious and heavy handed. Meanwhile, Sarah just keeps on building on.
Ronnie came from Hollywood, which made him accessible to Americans across the country. It looks like with Sarah Palin’s TLC/Discover show this coming Sunday she hopes a little of that will wear off. Her negatives are so high that she has to try something.
Bundled with the news of Palin’s upcoming show, which débuts November 14th, was the eyebrow-raising fact that it would be produced by Mark Burnett, who created “Survivor” and “The Apprentice.” Burnett’s mastery of the reality-TV formula would keep the show from being a certain kind of disaster but would also keep it from being truly revealing. And what could Palin’s agenda possibly be? Supposedly, it was to show us the wonders of Alaska (the show is called “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” after all), to acquaint us with the state’s resources and its people, and, to some extent, with her own family. Why she thought that was a good idea, considering that she complained regularly about the media’s intrusion into her family life when she was John McCain’s running mate in 2008 (while, at the same time, frequently putting her children on display), is a mystery. Moreover, you might ask, how seriously will people take her as a political candidate—a Presidential candidate—once she has participated in a reality show? Karl Rove, the executive producer of the Republican Party, wondered the same thing. A couple of weeks ago, he said to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, “With all due candor, appearing on your own reality show . . . I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of ‘That helps me see you in the Oval Office.’ ” Of course, Rove has reasons to want to undermine Palin, and this was an obvious opportunity to do so, but if Palin fails to win elective office in the future it probably won’t be because she did a reality show; it will be because of real-world reality—a shift in the political climate or a strong opponent.
Karl Rove is powerless to stop Sarah Palin, and all the whining about Sarah losing the Senate for the GOP, which was never in play, is painfully obvious.
The only thing that will stop Palin is another person from the Right who resonates more strongly than Sarah. It’s obvious the GOP boys’ club don’t think they’ve got anyone. Acting out won’t change that fact.
What’s really ironic is that with Obama’s brand crashing, women tilting to the GOP, and the general disaffection of voters with Democrats, nothing can make Republicans try to craft a bridge to Sarah Palin. Part of it is because of her experience in ’08, with her own stubbornness against the establishment dug in. While the GOP simply doesn’t respect her. Considering the power of her grass roots supporters it’s a bigger problem for the Right than anything Obama can construct. Because if the establishment and Sarah Palin could make peace, with Sarah willing to do some rehabilitation of her own, especially on foreign policy and economics, there is a marketing plan not unlike how George W. Bush won that would carry Palin an awfully long way. Could she beat Pres. Obama?
It wasn’t the Republican establishment that came up with “death panels,” a phrase that ignited a backlash against what became known as “Obamacare,” which inspired seniors, among other voters, to tilt Republicans in states across the country in the 2010 midterms. That most of the Left and Obama loyalists scoffed at the effectiveness of such a squeal just further illustrated the tone deaf nature of Democrats towards the Tea Party, who kicked Pres. Obama’s ass in a historic midterm election that changed the power in enough states to now make 2012 a nightmare for Democrats. That the Senate will be in play in 2012, with Republicans having a very good chance to take a majority, is another subject all together.
Nobody in the White House believed Obama could be humiliated so thoroughly as he was last Tuesday, two years after he won a historic victory and people pronounced conservatism dead. If George W. Bush can beat Democrats twice, with the establishment behind her there is no reason Sarah Palin can’t at the very least make a good run of it, though without a lot of help and some rebranding it’s never going to happen.
That’s the reason Sarah went reality show on TLC/Discovery. She’s taking a page out of Ronnie’s playbook hoping it might help. It’s going to take a lot more than roaming Alaska. The Republican establishment knows this all too well and they have no intention of helping.
This post has been update.
This response is ONLY in response to the “death panels” remark (and not the rest of your post; it’s simply that this leapt out at me, because of what I read yesterday).
My own opinion is that the “death panels” resonated — even though Palin had quote marks both real and imaginary around the term, because people instantly understood what she meant and what “reform” could mean: with limited assets hard decisions might mean things now covered would not be.
Well, voila!
From yesterday’s Washington Post, suddenly the US is considering now covering an expensive prostate cancer drug:
Review under way of costly prostate cancer vaccine
Provenge treatment can extend life for months for $93,000
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
By Rob Stein, The Washington Post
Federal officials are conducting an unusual review to determine whether the government should pay for an expensive new vaccine for treating prostate cancer, rekindling debate over whether some therapies are too costly.
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, which dictates what treatments the massive federal health insurance program for the elderly will cover, is running a “national coverage analysis” of Provenge, the first vaccine approved for treating any cancer. The treatment costs $93,000 a patient and has been shown to extend patients’ lives by about four months.
Although Medicare is not supposed to consider cost when making such rulings, the decision to launch a formal examination has raised concerns among cancer experts, drug companies, lawmakers, prostate cancer patients and advocacy groups.
Provenge, which was approved for advanced prostate cancer in April, is the latest in a series of new high-priced cancer treatments that appear to eke out only a few more months of life, prompting alarm about their cost.
“This absolutely is the opening salvo in the drive to save money in the health care system,” said Skip Lockwood, who heads Zero — the Project to End Prostate Cancer, a Washington-based lobbying group.
Those concerns have been heightened because the review comes after the bitter health care overhaul debate, which was marked by accusations about rationing and “death panels.” The appointment of Donald Berwick to head Medicare only intensified anxieties. President Barack Obama sidestepped a Senate battle by naming Dr. Berwick, who has advocated for scrutinizing costs, when Congress was in recess in July.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10313/1101831-114.stm#ixzz14nQGzAea
I’ve been writing about the effectiveness of Palin’s “death panel” squeal since she made it, though virtually everyone ignored the warning.
I have to add that I foresee no vote for Sarah Palin for anything in my future…
It’s to soon after the election, so everyone is playing the blame game. But, the GOP elite might not realize this yet (but they soon will) that NOT winning the Senate; in addition to Harry Reid keeping his seat and his position is probably one of the best things that could have happened to the Republicans for 2012. And sometime in 2012 (most likely in retrospect) the Democrats would be wishing the opposite.
As for Sarah Palin; once again, people should not be so dismissive of her. Whether its from the Republicans, the Democrats, pundits, talking heads, or whoever. This reality show will do her no harm, it might actually help.
For a lot of people she is only a caricature.
If George W. Bush can beat Dems *twice*…
The difference with Palin is class, Bush came from it, she doesn’t. That’s one of Rove’s big rubs. Sarah doesn’t have the right GOP pedigree.
Sorry, but her reality show will do nothing to help her. People *might* find it somewhat entertaining but it really won’t do anything to disprove the notion that Palin is just an attention whore (and I will NOT apologize or edit that word). She might have some pull but there’s just no way that the public will accept her as a genuinely viable Presidential candidate. (I almost think Palin’s going to sit out the 2012 primaries and spend her time hoping for such a GOP fight that she’ll go to the convention and “grudgingly” accept the nomination to end the party’s infighting for a candidate.)
Throughout the past two years the Republicans have had much higher negatives than the Democrats yet they prevailed because democratic voters were so fed up most stayed away from the polls. The very same dynamic may operate during 2012 and throw the election to the Republican candidate, no matter who it is. I am no longer prepared to rule Sarah Palin out in a one on one match up with Obama.
She may not be as book smart or as articulate as he is, but she has all the qualities that Americans admire — aggression, guts, conviction, courage, — which he lacks. She radiates confidence & passion; while he seems detached and passive.
This is a man that refuses to learn from his mistakes. He is weak. He caves at the first sign of pushback. He is no leader as he does not seem to have any direction unless he’s pressured or he consults with someone. He worships at the alter of compromise. Indeed, he compromises before he begins to negotiate. Everything is a transaction. He campaigned as a transformational leader but has governed as a transactional one. Transformational leaders inspire and excite their followers, and bring a moral dimension to their vision using moral language. A transactional leader merely promises jobs or to be a fierce advocate, in return for a vote. He has thrown himself into making deals with Congress and insurance companies and banks rather than uplifting or rallying the nation.
Because Obama and the people around him no longer seem to understand the psyche of the American people and their need for strong, mentally tenacious & cunning leadership I believe he’s doomed to be a one term President.
I am no longer prepared to rule Sarah Palin out in a one on one match up with Obama.
Palin will keep on working, with this reality show a stab at muting her negatives.
That Rove & the establishment have started working against her early reveals the real power they know she could amass early in the primary season in Iowa and South Carolina with a nomination bid very real for Palin.
It’s the general election that is difficult, which Palin & her people know all too well.
CNN polled the day after the midterms:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/04/cnn-poll-obama-vs-palin-in-2012/
In a possible general election showdown, Obama leads Palin 52-44 percent among all registered voters. … In a hypothetical 2012 matchup, Huckabee leads Obama 52 – 44 percent, while Romney has a 50-45 point advantage, which is within the poll’s sampling error. Obama hold a 49-47 percent margin over Gingrich.
Polls don’t matter this far out, but the results today are a warning that 2012 will be a lot harder than 2008. When you add in the loss of secretaries of state, plus the GOP power in FL, Ohio, PA and beyond, the challenge gets serious. Sarah’s only 8 points away from Obama today, with a lot of time left. Other Republicans run better or even with Obama. That he only polls 2 points higher than Newt Gingrich is just how far Pres. Obama’s fallen.
“This is a man that refuses to learn from his mistakes.” -Ramsgate
This is a man who doesn’t appear to think he makes mistakes, at least not substantively.
Well, the same could be said of Dubya. And based on the excerpts from his new book, it appears that he still doesn’t think he makes mistakes. (And the ones he appears to admit are just as quickly turned around as having not been his fault.)
I get a huge kick out of Karl’s problems with Sarah.He has zero control over her. In this I gotta admire Palin.
I think her show will not hurt her at all it might in fact cause more people to fall in love with the image she is so carefully crafting.It fits right into american mythology,Alaska being it’s last frontier.
First, Taylor, a mea culpa. I actually expected Angle and Rossi to run better in both of their races than they did. Rossi especially. The notion that Palin was never willing to play ball with the Establishment was always a lie, but Karl has to get his talking points where he can get them, preferably at Wal-Mart.
Palin scored well by backing Toomey, which will stand her in good stead going forward. I know you liked Sestak, and he was a good guy as liberals go, but we Republicans really needed to bury the Arlen Specter crowd.
What was really disappointing for us was Cali. Carly ran a decent race, and the I have made the point on other blogs that the Bush/Romney people blew $165 million dollars of Meg Whitman’s money against a Zombie candidate who last held office when “Mork and Mindy” was in its first run. One of the big issues coming up that will affect Democrats and Republicans will be what to do about California, as that state’s toxic fiscal policies will finally come a cropper.
Palin, for her part, has been able to weather the attacks from the right because they come from inauthentic sources. Noonan was an apologist for Obama, so her attacks don’t carry the currency with conservatives that they used to. Karl and the Establishment represent the Bush wing of the Party. You have no idea how much in disrepute these people are with us. The only reason why Limbaugh doesn’t go after them is that he is too polite to do so and because he is friends with the Old Man.
What the Democrats never counted on was a populist movement catching on in the Republican Party. Yes, it’s a problem for Rove, but what’s more, it’s a toxic problem for Progressives. But it’s great for us.
Now, once Palin figures out that she has to go after the Banksters to win, it’s game over for the Left. I actually believe that she’s there, but she simply hasn’t rolled it out yet (her criticism of QE and Bernanke, her dalliance with the Ronulans, and her sometimes references back to Bill Black of RTC fame lead me to this). As long as the Left and the Establishment continue to think that she’s stupid and continue to set the bar “limbo-low” for her, she’ll do just fine.
Taylor should remember this: the Left is doing to her what the Right did to Clinton in 1991-attacking so much and with so much toxic stuff that by the time Bubba won New Hampshire, all the Republican attacks against him had made him a bulletproof candidate. The White House and their allies in the News Media are doing the same thing to Palin. And she knows this. You’d think Democrats would learn from History. But fortunately for us Palin people, they never do, and they never will.
I have two friends who just saw the documentary out now about the economic situation in this country. Then yesterday they saw Palin’s speech about Bernanke and monetizing our debt. They may not be complete converts to Palin, but they are looking at her seriously for the first time.
Write this down:
A centerpiece of the Palin Campaign will be an attack on Wall Street and the Banksters. Go ahead, don’t believe me. But she will do this.
This will leave both the Establishment Republicans AND the Obama Administration caught defending the status quo.
This is almost too easy for her. It’s a layup. It distinguishes her from the Romneybots and Obama and allows her to campaign on behalf of “the Forgotten Man”.
She hasn’t been saying “the Little Guy” in her campaign speeches over and over again for nothing.
OK this is very strange but, um, er, yes, that is very plausible. Sister Sara could easily run on economic populism. It has happened before and it can happen again. There is a history of Populist Conservatives running against Crony Capitalism and even kinda meaning it.
The idiot elites that now are in charge of the Donkey Party have abandoned all types of populism and left the field to someone in the Palin mold.
Palin could do more than challenge Obama in the general, she could beat him with that message. She could gut-punch him with the economic message and then let Obama’s own arrogance and contempt defeat him. Obama is very vulnerable to a haymaker delivered by a scrappy pugilist like Palin. A continued weak and sputtering economy could give him a political glass jaw.
Weird, but sometimes people from totally different political prospectives can reach the same conclusion Section 9. Yes, do no underestimate the political chops of Sister Sara. In two short years she has migrated from the outer reaches of U.S. politics, the single “A” league that is Alaska, to the very center of the political scrum. You underestimate this woman at your peril. SaraCuda indeed.
Section 9
” What was really disappointing for us was Cali. Carly ran a decent race, and the I have made the point on other blogs that the Bush/Romney people blew $165 million dollars of Meg Whitman’s money against a Zombie candidate who last held office when “Mork and Mindy” was in its first run. One of the big issues coming up that will affect Democrats and Republicans will be what to do about California, as that state’s toxic fiscal policies will finally come a cropper.”
Sorry to burst your bubble but Carly ran an awful campaign. Boxer was very vulnerable and could have been picked off if the Elephants had ran local. The GOP had the blue-print in front of them , right in the state: AH-Nuld. Fiscally conservative and socially moderate-to-conservative the Governator is the only Republican type that can survive in the deep blue sea that is California.
But the Republican Primary gauntlet almost guarantees that the type of Elephant needed to win in a California general will not pass go. I don’t have the polling data in front of me but I could almost guarantee that Carly got killed by the female and latino vote. Her anti-abortion stand and her anti-immigrant stand were pure poison in the land of fruits and nuts.
Also your estimation of the once and future Governor Moonbeam sells the man way short. The man has more political lives than Dracula had in the movies. Remember this was a man who ran nationally and was very credible. Brown used all thirty-six years of his electoral experience to perform a very nasty bit of political jiu-jitsu on the neophyte Whitman. He used Whitman’s strength against her.
Brown let Whitman blast the airwaves all summer while he mustered and marshaled his resources. And when the voting public was throughly exhausted with Meg’s mug plastered on every T.V. and billboard, Brown unleashed the torpedo that was Gloria Allard. In the last month of the campaign you could just see battleship Meg slowly sink under the waves. The maid affair caused both catastrophic and unrepairable damage to Whitman. In this case I do have the polling data to prove the Meg lost because she got creamed in the female and latino vote.
As for the desolate and desperate state of the Golden State. The election of 2010 actually brought a small ray of sunshine there. The voters are slowly adjusting to fiscal realities. The first chunk has been torn out of the edifice that is Prop 13. That fact is small comfort and the economy here is still horrendous. Far too many houses are underwater and unemployment is still high. The economic fundamentals still stink in the Golden State.
Truth be told, the very desperate conditions California is in helped Brown. After eight years of the preening and incompetent AH-Nuld Californians were in no mood to try another political amateur. Many voters found themselves liking Whitman’s idea and her business savvy, but ( and there was always a but) they instinctively knew that would not cut any mustard in the massive monument to dysfunction that is Sacramento. Fundamentally, Brown won because of his history, not despite it.
I actually knew someone who did not vote for her because of her catty remark about Boxer’s hair…even though he agreed with Carly more than Boxer.
I’m sure that Carly’s brittle and B**chy personality did her no favors getty 1206. I’m also sure more than few people remember how she nearly killed HP and said ” Carly?! You must be kidding!”
I have to say I agree with Karl Rove on this one. Going on a reality tv show may raise your profile but it won’t do much to get you elected or get the public to take you seriously as a candidate. Sarah Palin is a celebrity, but not presidential material and she is certainly no Reagan.
The Republicans will have a good chance if they run a substantive candidate and campaign on cutting the deficit. Palin does not have the substance (policy, knowledge of foreign affairs etc). That’s not to say she never will but she is not ready to be president yet.
That’s not me having a dig at her, the top job is not for everyone and some people are more effective in other ways. Howard Dean for example was far more effective as DNC chairman than as a presidential candidate.
Too true that Palin’s no Reagan. Didn’t Reagan actually serve two full terms as Governor of California while Palin quit without even serving two full years as Governor of Alaska?
And to all of you people who hawk Palin’s “economic populism”, you seem to forget that Palin lives in a state that gets so much money from the Federal government, and in a manner that virtually defines “socialism” (you know–that word that the RepubliCONs have been charging Obama with). Why do ALL Alaskans get money for the oil that the vast majority of Alaskans had NOTHING to do with, either in the development of the fields or living on the land where the oil is? There’s no oil in Anchorage or Wasilla but the residents of those towns get to “share the wealth” (that they didn’t earn).
The way Palin’s going right now, the public is going to suffer “Palin burnout.” And it’s going to be really difficult to run a Presidential campaign when you won’t answer questions from anyone but FoxNews. (To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo, “Sarah, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.”)
I would not rule anything out when it comes to Sarah Palin. I don’t no what shes going to do, but since 2008 she has kept her name out there and has become a household name. Look at all the republican candidates that won races in the midterm election. South Carolina governor Nikki Haley first Indian American woman and first woman gov of that state, also in New Mexico, they elected the first hispanic woman governor who is republican, in Oklahoma first woman governor. Sarah Palin had alot of influence because if it wasn’t for her and especially Hillary Clinton, I don’t think we would be seeing so many women especially republican women running and winning. Sarah can run for another office also, there always congress and the senate. Or maybe she just wants to be a famous celebrity, but rest to sure she will be around for awhile, and the good old boys can like it or lump it. Even her kids are following in her footsteps look at Bristol on Dancing with the stars. I don’t agree with all of Sarah’s views but she seems fun and seems to understand the working class more than Obama ever could.