Palin can run on her record and win

Jedediah Bila replies to Mona Charen’s “Why Sarah Palin Shouldn’t Run”

In a National Review Online column on November 19, Mona Charen provided an explanation of why she believes Sarah Palin shouldn’t run for President. She argued that after the 2008 campaign, Palin “quit her job as governor after two and a half years…and seemed to chase money and empty celebrity.” She asserted that “Palin seems consumed and obsessed” by the media, labeled Palin’s new TLC show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, a “cheesy entrant in the reality-show genre,” and took issue with the fact that Sarah and Todd sit in the Dancing with the Stars audience “cheering on their unwed-mother daughter.” She opined that Palin’s “endorsement of Christine O’Donnell was irresponsible and damaging” and suggested that “She would be terrific as a talk-show host — the new Oprah.”

First and foremost, let’s address one of Charen’s opening points as to why Palin should sit 2012 out. She stated, “Americans will be looking for sober competence, managerial skill, and maturity — not sizzle and flash.” Perhaps a walk down policy lane is in order.

As Governor, Sarah Palin actualized AGIA, the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, the largest private sector infrastructure project in North American history. Palin’s administration opened up drilling for oil and gas at Point Thomson for the first time in several decades. As Governor, Palin reduced earmark requests for Alaska by 80%, established Alaska’s Petroleum Integrity Office to oversee safe energy development, placed the state checkbook online, and reduced spending for Fiscal Year 2010 by over one billion dollars from Governor Murkowski’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget. Palin signed ACES, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share bill, into law, incentivizing development and ensuring that Alaskans would receive a “clear and equitable” share of oil profits. She cut costs by selling a private jet purchased by the previous governor and saying “no thank you” to the Executive Mansion’s personal chef. She has served as Chairperson of the AK Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and Vice Chair of the National Governors Association Natural Resource Committee. Prior to her time as Governor, Palin served as Mayor of Wasilla, AK, and city council member in Wasilla. She has also been involved in running a commercial fishing business with her husband Todd.
CONTINUE

November 21, 2010 | 9 Comments »
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9 Comments / 9 Comments

  1. Yamit asks: Since when has the republican party become the conservative/libertarian party?
    Ted responds: Since it was founded. It has always been a center-right party.

    NOT since the Republican Party was first founded, between 1852 and 1856, when the main driver was the abolition of slavery by using Federal power against the states and territories:

    “In 1856, Republicans opposed the extension of slavery into the territories — in fact, their slogan was “Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont and victory!” The Republicans thus crusaded against the Slave Power, warning it was destroying republican values. Democrats counter-crusaded by warning that a Republican victory would bring civil war.

    In fact, African-Americans remained very loyal to the party of Lincoln until Truman desegregated the military. Until LBJ forced through the Civil Rights Act of 1965, both the Democratic and Republican Party remained mixed-ideological coalitions. Which is why the Democrats still had the Southern Conservatives who were still angry over the Civil War, and the Republicans still had liberals like Rockefeller and Javits, and Edward Brooke, “the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the United States Senatewhen he was elected as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1966, defeating his Democratic opponent, Endicott Peabody, 60.7%–38.7%, through the 1970’s.

    Both fractious coalitions started regrouping after Goldwater, with conservatives migrating into the Republican Party, and liberals solidifying their domination of the Democratic Party.

    The U.S. has been polarized into factions from the beginning, especially over the role and scope of the Federal government.

    The last U.S. President who truly honored the limited Constitutional powers to the Executive was Calvin Coolidge, 1921-28. The Great Depression changed that.

    I am in Massachusetts today, and just participated in a phone survey by the College Republicans (fronting for Mitt Romney) asking for my choice for 2012 in this order: Romney, Huckabee, Palin, Gingrich, Obama, and None of these.

    From November 8 – 15, Quinnipiac University surveyed 2,424 registered voters nationwide, live by telephone, with a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points. http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1538 poll released today shows Sarah Palin as the only Republican losing to Obama (question #3). She does win the male vote with incomes over $100,000.

  2. Max asks:
    Would she give Israel blessings and aid to wipe out Hamas and Hezbollah?

    You will have to ask the Israeli leaders why they haven’t done so already. No one in the US has stopped Israel from doing so and it has had plenty of opportunities.

    Yamit asks:
    Since when has the republican party become the conservative/libertarian party?

    Since it was founded. It has always been a center-right party.

    Most republicans might be termed in this context as moderates of the Nelson Rockefeller type and most of those have most of the money and therefore most of the influence

    This information is grossly obsolete. I wonder if Yamit has heard of a Republican president called Ronald Reagan?

  3. Birdalone writes:
    Oy

    Perhaps we can get an Oy, veh! from Birdalone for the following paragraph showing Sarah Palin to be a REAL achievement-feminist, which seems to have escaped the attention of the pro-abortion-feminists:

    Quote:
    As Governor, Sarah Palin actualized AGIA, the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, the largest private sector infrastructure project in North American history. Palin’s administration opened up drilling for oil and gas at Point Thomson for the first time in several decades. As Governor, Palin reduced earmark requests for Alaska by 80%, established Alaska’s Petroleum Integrity Office to oversee safe energy development, placed the state checkbook online, and reduced spending for Fiscal Year 2010 by over one billion dollars from Governor Murkowski’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget. Palin signed ACES, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share bill, into law, incentivizing development and ensuring that Alaskans would receive a “clear and equitable” share of oil profits. She cut costs by selling a private jet purchased by the previous governor and saying “no thank you” to the Executive Mansion’s personal chef. She has served as Chairperson of the AK Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and Vice Chair of the National Governors Association Natural Resource Committee. Prior to her time as Governor, Palin served as Mayor of Wasilla, AK, and city council member in Wasilla. She has also been involved in running a commercial fishing business with her husband Todd.
    Unquote.

  4. My only fear is that should Sarah receive the nomination, the GOP establishment will work to undermine her out of spite.

    As to why Sarah Palin is so popular amongst rank and file conservatives is the fact that the GOP elite hasn’t stuck to conservative principles and ultimately cares more about acquiring and maintaining power then about conservative ideals and have no qualms about compromising on those values. The GOP establishment hates principled conservatives.

    Since when has the republican party become the conservative/libertarian party? Most republicans might be termed in this context as moderates of the Nelson Rockefeller type and most of those have most of the money and therefore most of the influence. A conservative like Goldwater might get a nomination but would lose in a national election as the moderate republicans might just opt out rather than vote for the Dems. Bush got elected and first nominated because he seemed just conservative enough (a lie) but mirrored the moderate mainstream in the Republican party.

  7. Thanks to Jed Bila for confronting an elitist conservative like Mona Charen and illustrating her vapid and out-of-context comments about Sarah Palin.

  8. Sarah Palin has done something that no-one since President Reagan has been bold enough to do: just be herself. Sure, she’s a prominent political figure. Yes, she was a 2008 Vice Presidential candidate. But she’s also a mom, a wife, a hunter, a fisherwoman, and a plain old American just like you and me. In her new TLC show, Palin’s not afraid to show you how proud she is of the beauty of her state, a state which is so often discarded as unimportant – despite extensive energy and national security clout – by the likes of New York and California elites. She’s not afraid to speak in her folksy accent, to invite you inside her very regular American home, to let you watch her accept the challenge to climb Mt. McKinley, and do the dirty work of wiping slime off of newly-caught halibut.

    In other words, she’s a real person, not a phony like the DC elite.

    My only fear is that should Sarah receive the nomination, the GOP establishment will work to undermine her out of spite.

    As to why Sarah Palin is so popular amongst rank and file conservatives is the fact that the GOP elite hasn’t stuck to conservative principles and ultimately cares more about acquiring and maintaining power then about conservative ideals and have no qualms about compromising on those values. The GOP establishment hates principled conservatives.