By your logic, if conservatives wanted Reagan, they would have voted for him the first few times.

Lets be realistic here, it wasn’t “conservatives” who were voting for McCain in the primaries. The conservatives were dividing their votes between Romney, Thompson, and for whatever strange reason, Huckabee. McCain got the moderates, kind of like Gerald Ford.

If American conservatives had wanted Romney, they would have picked him over McCain. They did not.

Romney had plenty of time to prove his conservative credentials to the conservatives and he did not. That is because his conservative credentials were thin at the very best.

Like Reagan, Sarah Palin will have plenty of time to grow. Reagan lost the party’s nomination in 1968 and 1976 before winning in 1980. In that time, Americans found out what a bad president really looked like in Jimmy Carter as Reagan persevered and grew more solid in his principles. Sarah has the time, Romney will have to continue to buy the conservatives respect. Now, Romney has a lot of money, but I am not sure he has enough to buy himself some solid conservative principles.

I don’t think you understand the allure. Sarah, after all, rhymes with bara!

Seriously though, I actually like Sarah, although her accent grates on me at times. Accents aren’t important to me, leadership is. However, her biggest backers on here are definitely drinking some kind of Koolaid and think she can do no wrong. She’s good but she needs work, we’ll see where she stands in 2012.

L.N. Smithee on November 17, 2008 at 5:08 PM

As opposed to someone who can only be a shill. I didn’t realize that the great Palin is allowed Mulligans. I must have missed it in the mad rush….
in this case wary means calculating and looking to answer what she thinks voters want to hear… wait a minute, isn’t that what Obama was criticized for?

but just because I know you want to say it I’ll say it for you “CUDA!!!” — no other words are needed or necessary..
/sarc off

Smellthecoffee had it exactly right. It isn’t that Palin doesn’t read, because it was well-established before she was selected by McCain that she always has been a newspaper reader. But having already stepped in some land mines in her previous interviews with MSM anchors acting as DNC assassins, she was wary of what such a question was setting up.

For example, if she said, “The New York Times” or “The Washington Post” or “Time” or “Newsweek,” the next question might have been, “What do you think of the fact that (fill in publication) agrees that Georgia was the aggressor against Russia?” or “Why do you think their editorial boards feel you are unqualified for the Vice-Presidency?” If she had replied, “National Review” or “The Weekly Standard” or “The American Spectator,” I don’t think I need to tell you what sport would have been made of that by Couric.

Or, maybe I do. Well, if so, you’re outta luck — conquering that kind of ignorance is beyond my pay grade. Contact Anne Sullivan, “The Miracle Worker.”

First, if she becomes a millionaire she loses her “regular, hockey mom” persona, something that was already threatened by the whole clothes thing. Second, if such a book were just a rehash of the campaign it could be interpreted as settling scores even if it wasn’t. Third, a campaign or life story book doesn’t actually add any policy or governing meat to her image. Everybody already knows all the really great stuff about her life (moose hunting, mom of five, pioneer woman, etc.). What’s missing in the conventional wisdom about her is a simple, clear governing philosophy and a handle national and foreign policy.

If she’s really serious about running in 2012 or 2016, I think she needs to resist the temptation to cash in until she’s ready to write a serious, detailed book about her governing philosophy and her vision for the country. Such as book would help make the argument on why she’s the best person to lead the country. I know that the fluff book worked for Obama, but I think that the ‘Cuda needs the ballast that a serious book would give. I think it’ll be too easy for some to dismiss any biographical book that she writes as demonstrating that she’s somehow a lightweight. If she writes a good, serious book on governance it helps her knock down the dismissals of her and helps her distill her thinking on conservatism, etc. I think she’s an instinctive conservative, now she needs to think through everything so that she can make her arguments clearly, concisely, and passionately. So, I think that she should actually write such a book for her personal benefit, and not necessarily ever sell it to a publisher.

I definitely agree with you on the primaries. Iowa and New Hampshire have undue influence, and open primaries are a joke.

That’s going to be broken over and over again in the brewing civil war between the blueblood countryclubber Rockefeller Bush Republicans and those who can actually win elections and achieve a minority, the Reagan Republicans.

The latter are the real conservatives, the others a collection of losers who are really happiest when they get invitations to the really cool DC cocktail parties. They couldn’t win a one-man race for dog catcher. All they know is how to cave in to liberals to be “liked.”

Losers, every last one of them.

On the positive side, McCain and Bush no longer have influence in the GOP. The RINO oligarchy needs to be replaced by conservatives, and that seems likely to happen in most cases.

Some changes in networking, and creating grassroots conservative connections to fight off the RINOs and the Paul-droids are needed ASAP.

The RNC needs to change the primaries so that ALL primaries are closed primaries, and Iowa and New Hampshire come later in the contest. If Iowa and NH insist they must come first after coming first for several decades, limit these blue states to one delegate each.

thecountofincognito on November 16, 2008 at 2:25 PM

You took my reply to that poster a little further than you should have. Ms. Couric, being the fair and balanced newsreader that she is, reportedly actually met with people who didn’t support Gov. Palin before she did that hit-job interview, and any remarks by anybody dissing Gov. Palin because of that interview raise my hackles a little bit.

Re the vetting part: Gov. Palin didn’t get vetted, because she was so far off the radar. When she came under the radar, she was vetted at warp speed and anything and everything was thrown at her to try to destroy her.

Whatever reasons McCain had for choosing her over Romney and any of the others for VP, she’s the one that kept him from getting blown out by The Magic One. I worked the phone banks for McCain/Palin, and if I only had a nickel for everyone who told me they were voting for McCain because of her being on the ticket.

Romney, along with most others running, went through a year and a half of very thorough media vetting. Palin got on the ticket because Obama didn’t pick Hillary so McCain’s team thought they saw an opening. Being McCain’s VP pick is not “getting further.” It just means either McCain or his team thought she was the best choice. Whether you trust the judgement of those particular people is up to you. This is not a knock on Palin, just on that line of thinking that she “got farther” and is therefor superior.

I’ve known a few people in my time who were scary smart, but they couldn’t even do their own hair. It’s not alays what you’ve got upstairs, it’s how you use it.

TeeDee on November 16, 2008 at 1:53 PM

We are experiencing what happens when politicians who don’t have much “upstairs” but know how to manipulate the system. Dodd, Frank and fellows in Congress really blew stupid out of the water with this financial crisis. They weren’t smart enough to follow the money.

I want a smart leader, not just street smart.

Amazing – Mitt Romney, MBA/JD from Harvard v. an idiot who went to 5 colleges in 6 years and can’t even tell you what newspapers she reads.

Vernon Hardapple on November 15, 2008 at 11:25 AM

And yet, she got further than Romney did, actually being ON the ticket. Go figure.

I’ve known a few people in my time who were scary smart, but they couldn’t even do their own hair. It’s not alays what you’ve got upstairs, it’s how you use it.

Perhaps a Romney/Palin ticket would have won. Who knows, maybe by 2012, as we hide in our cave and strike flint, this will be a salvation ticket.

The worst of times is upon us.

smellthecoffee on November 16, 2008 at 10:57 AM

Translation: “I like sara and if I like her it means she is the best gol darn true conservative to ever walk the earth. You haven’t been enlightened because you are not a true conservative who understands the special code…”

Definition of cult from Merriam Webster:
5 a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book) ; especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b: the object of such devotion c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion

If it looks like a duck……

I hope they don’t stop this tradition now that the next guy in line is actually really good.

What is really sad about the Palinheads is that you come across as grasping at straws.
Bradky on November 16, 2008 at 9:53 AM

That’s largely because no one in the media has ever really looked into Palin’s accomplishments in Alaska. We only know the sound bites–took on the good old boy network; negotiated a pipeline deal that had been going nowhere for better than a decade. There are more examples, but my point relates to the ones given here. Where have you seen a lengthy substantive analysis of the pipeline deal–detailing who the parties were that were involved, what companies, countries, agencies, what the obstacles had been that had kept the deal from being done all those years, and how she was able to get passed all that. Ditto the Alaska corruption story. The reason why people who have interviewed her (seriously, not launching a gotcha trap at her) come away very impressed with her, is because that is when they actually find out the substance of who she is. That talking to her seems to be the only way to find this out is not her fault; it’s the fault of the “incurious” fourth estate, which is more interested in playing king-maker, through the manipulation of good and bad caricatures, than in providing information people can use.

I wish someone would write a fair book about her. Those of you who are criticizing her have no real idea what you’re talking about. None of us do. We don’t have enough information. All I know is that people who have had close contact with her generally have very good stuff to say about her; those who have really bad stuff to say about her, to a man (and woman, ahem), have NOT had close contact with her.

benny shakar and joey24007 meet on a political board and discover they are a match made in heaven. Spend a few months finding a state who will marry them. Lifetime makes a movie…
you can’t make this stuff up!

Bradky on November 16, 2008 at 10:13 AM

what is Lifetime?

Guy from Jersey with a blog of Palin pics trying to trash talk… you can’t make this stuff up!

benny shakar on November 16, 2008 at 2:25 AM

Guy from wherever, who spends his whole life trashing the Republican vice presidential candidate on a conservative website because his mommy doesn’t give him any attention at home

you can’t make this stuff up!

If I were a dictator of any country out there I would view the next four years as free play. Despots will be free to do whatever they want ’cause BO will not commit troops anywhere. It would really suck to be in the military right now. After eight proud years under Bush they get stuck with the effete elite running the show. I view BO as a greater danger to our fine military than any foreign enemy.

ProudPalinFan on November 16, 2008 at 9:18 AM

So do many movie stars but that doesn’t qualify them to be president.

What is really sad about the Palinheads is that you come across as grasping at straws. “The only hope for the GOP is Palin! – yeah Cuda!” “she was set up in the Couric interview. She sounded out of her league because it was McCain’s fault” “she is conservative AND hot” etc. etc.
There are many good candidates and keeping an open mind is the adult approach that offers the best chance for the right candidate to represent the party.