Originally Posted by hotandheavy (Post 2665274)

In the video that Ave provided, Sarah explained very well, even twice to the thick skulled Andrea Mitchell, why she is stepping down-to prevent a lame duck sitting governor. She knew she couldn't get any work done for the people of Alaska.

Originally Posted by hotandheavy (Post 2665274)

#1. While I feel you will discount my reply, I'll go ahead anyways.

By her very existence she puts the lie to numerous liberal mantras, such as the notion that women cannot advance without affirmative action

Originally Posted by Electoral-vote.com

Palin Revisited

There has been a ton written about Sarah Palin's resignation in the past few days. The dominant view (Charlie Cook being an exception) is that she is scheming to run in 2012 but her unorthodox move will backfire against her. With a bit of reflection, there is perhaps another story line. The main thing to consider is that she really disliked being governor. She refused to live in the governor's mansion in Juneau and instead lived at home in Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage 600 miles from the capital. She had endless fights with the Republican-controlled state legislature and has been the subject of over 15 ethics probes and has spent over $500,000 of her own money (which she doesn't have) on lawyers defending herself. The bottom line is that she really hated the job so once she had decided not to run for relection in 2010, why stay at a job that is no fun at all?

Palin is also an impulsive person. She makes decisions on the spur of the moment without carefully weighing the pros and cons. Unlike Mitt Romney, who probably has an Excel spreadsheet with a row for every day from now until the Iowa caucuses in January 2012 listing precisely which Iowa villages, hamlets, and farms he is planning to visit that day and what he is going to say there, Palin is probably now focused on making a lot of money in the next 18 months so she can at least afford running in 2012, if she decides to do so. After all, in 2011 she probably won't have an income and it is hard to run for President and charge for your campaign speeches. She needs to make a few million this year and next even to seriously consider running. An upcoming book and paid speeches will fill the bill nicely.

Her resignation speech was rambling to the point of being incoherent. It is very unlikely she has a master plan at all. She just didn't like the situation she was in and wanted to get out of it and who knows what comes next.

Many pundits have said she wants to carry the conservative banner and that she is a female Ronald Reagan. I don't think that is true. She is a female George Wallace--an angry representative of the lower middle class who feels put upon by elites. She went to six third-tier colleges before managing to graduate and clearly resents people like President Obama who sailed through Columbia and Harvard Law School and surrounded himself with experts from the Ivy League and M.I.T. While she didn't single out pointy-headed intellectuals as the cause of the nation's problems, when listening to her, one feels she easily could and would probably like to except she is smart enough to realize that doing so would cause them to heap even more scorn on her--and she has incredibly thin skin for a politician, constantly blaming the media and hostile (often Republican) politicians for her problems. Her motto is: "It's not my fault."

George W. Bush was no intellectual himself by a long shot, but one didn't feel any rage in him. After all, he went to Phillips Academy, Yale, and Harvard, and was the son of a President, grandson of a senator, and brother of another governor, not exactly prime white trash material. Nobody would mistake him for a downtrodden and scorned worker barely hanging on and feeling the powerful didn't give a hoot about him. And he knew very well that had he been named Smith instead of Bush he would never have been governor of Texas, let alone President. For all her faults, Palin pulled herself up by her own bootstraps and was elected governor of a state by fighting her own battles. Nobody gave her anything. This makes her a fighter to her admirers, who don't give a damn about her IQ, her diplomas, or even her lack of knowledge of government. There is a lot of class resentment here and graduates of fancy universities can't understand why anybody would fall for what they see as a complete nincompoop. She represents Joe Sixpack a lot better than Joe the Plumber, who simply caught a lucky break when John McCain acquired him as his new best friend.

Whether she runs for President in 2012 probably depends on how well she likes her new life--once she figures out what it is. There are plenty of politicians who could have run for President and didn't, for example, Gov. Mario Cuomo (D-NY) in 1992 and Al Gore in 2004 and 2008. Palin may decide she likes being a speaker and class heroine and making millions of dollars a year and would prefer doing that until her 15 minutes of fame are up. She probably doesn't know what she is going to do in 2012 yet. God will tell her when he's ready to do so.

A Gallup poll taken July 6 shows that 70% of Americans say that their view Palin is unchanged by her resignation, with 43% willing to vote for her and 54% not willing to vote for her in 2012. She is popular with Republicans and unpopular with Democrats (surprise) but independents, who hold the key to any election, want her to leave the national stage 55% to 34%. Fixing that without alienating her base will be hard.

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2665446)

Here is my concluding thought for this thread.

Assuming there is general agreement that since October 2008 Palin has done everything wrong and her resignation is a figurative death blow to her political future (I don't agree, but let's just assume that) - she still has polling number that suggest that 43% of all voters would consider voting for her in 2012 according to Gallup and 73% of Republicans. If she puts any kind of a team together that can help her do a few things "right", she will be a force that can not be ignored and she will be a force to be feared by Democrats and some entrenched Republicans. Some very powerful people have strong motives to take her down, she has been fighting alone with the grass roots support of millions of average Americans. The irony is that the more she is attacked the more she is supported. She has played her opening hand. At the end of the day, she is either going to win big or go back to the simple life in Alaska. Those who like politicians with no convictions will never understand the appeal of a person like Palin.

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2665446)

...she still has polling number that suggest that 43% of all voters would consider voting for her in 2012 according to Gallup and 73% of Republicans.

Originally Posted by Rekna (Post 2665477)

If she runs for president and win's two terms will she quit 6 months into her second term because she doesn't want to be a lame duck?

Originally Posted by aceventura3 (Post 2665446)

Those who like politicians with no convictions will never understand the appeal of a person like Palin.

Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2665568)

BTW, how are you appreciating Alaska's beauty when you're shooting at it with a high powered rifle from a helicopter?

Originally Posted by mixedmedia (Post 2665665)

....this thread is making me testy. Everybody carry on.

Originally Posted by scout (Post 2665693)

With all the problems facing this country I can't believe everyone here is still talking about this.

Originally Posted by dc_dux (Post 2665704)

Its ok. Palin got testing too.

Particularly when criticized by the media for repeated baseless shots at Obama (palling round with terrorists and racists, etc), which she has every right to take, during the campaign, then complaining that such criticism of her by the media might lead to some dreaded infringement on First Amendment rights:

"I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

WTF....just doesnt have a clue.

Originally Posted by mixedmedia (Post 2665711)

You won't find me boo-hooing over her treatment by the media. I haven't noticed any 'spotlight' politicians catching a break in the 'liberal media' regardless of affiliation. Like I said before, I fail to see where she's been treated any worse than any other controversial political figure. As far as I can tell, she just can't take it. And that's fine, I probably couldn't either. She's average, so what? Next!

Originally Posted by dc_dux (Post 2665712)

The issue I have is her attempt to make it some infringement of her First Amendment rights.

That is such an ignorant misinterpretation of the most basic of Constitutional rights, its appalling.

Originally Posted by mixedmedia (Post 2665720)

Honestly, I'm not aware enough to know about that. I've never even seen the woman speak, if you can believe that. (read lots of transcripts, though) Is she seriously making the claim that her rights have been violated?

Originally Posted by dc_dux (Post 2665726)

The Young Turks explains it pretty well:

YouTube - Sarah Palin Doesn't Understand First Amendment

Originally Posted by Wyodiver33 (Post 2665725)

The main reason that I am not fond of this thread is because I really want to keep polarizing politics out of the TFP. I don't want fights. Let other areas of the web fight. I just don't want that here. Nobody will win.

Originally Posted by Wyodiver33 (Post 2665842)

Please, I am telling you, let the Dem/GOP debate get out of hand and we will have problems. I Don't want that to happen here on the TFP. Set me off and I will go nuts about my beliefs. I just think that the discussion would boil down to hate. And I don't want that. It would serve no purpose.

Here's an example of how I feel: GW Bush was never in charge. GW was Cheney's bitch. Read the book called "Fiasco." Powell quit because he was used. Rumsfelt would never have been happy until he had a third world war. It goes on and on. Rush? O'Reilly? Should be sent off to Antarctica.

See? There really is no place on the TFP for this. I want us to all remain friends.

Originally Posted by brilliant older american

My God that woman is an idiot. I have said this before, but I feel the need to say it again. Her problems did not come because the media was against her. Her problems come because every time you stick a microphone in front of her mouth a whole lot of stupid falls out.

Originally Posted by mixedmedia (Post 2665665)

And since when doesn't practically everyone on the fucking planet have convictions? It's what those convictions are that matters. It's ludicrous to support someone based on the fact that they 'have convictions.' I've no doubt that the majority of people who go into DC politics have (or did have) real, compelling convictions at some point in their political careers. That's what makes smart people who could make more money elsewhere go into politics in the first place.