View topic - Palin? Perfect :: Free Dominion - Principled Conservative - Party and Canadian Politics

Posted: 08/ 29/ 08 8:54 pm Post subject: Palin? Perfect

John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate is brilliant. Her individualism matches McCain's. But it's the new strengths she brings to the ticket that make the team formidable.

To say it was a bold pick is putting it mildly. Palin, after all, isn't well-known outside Alaska. But McCain is maverick-bold, and this masterstroke looks like a game-changer for Republicans.

A first look at Palin, 44, shows striking political similarities with the man who heads the ticket. Like McCain, she thinks independently and has shown political courage. Elected governor in 2006, she became popular for tax-cutting and budget-balancing, both hallmarks of McCain's own career.

Also like McCain, Palin has confronted political corruption, even at a cost to herself. In 2004, she quit a position as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission monitoring the industry rather than look the other way on ethics violations by the chairman, who was also the Republican Party chief. That made her a political outcast. It took courage, but it's also profoundly bipartisan. It may render Democrats' "unity" talk hollow.

Palin is also a straight-talker. As governor of a small-population state, she's accessible, with a history of working with and listening to people, taking in all sides. She uses plain language and doesn't fear gaffes. She couldn't be further from the canned, focus-group-driven politicians who dominate politics. This builds trust.

McCain's and Palin's similarities present an emerging political coherence and unity of message that should appeal to voters. But it's new strengths to the McCain ticket that make Palin's entry truly exciting. Several will add fire to McCain's campaign.

Palin, for example, represents the frontier. Alaska and its energy development are at the forefront of American interests. As oil prices soar to record levels, the state's oil and gas could free the U.S. from the tyranny of hostile foreign oil suppliers — including Russia, Iran and Venezuela — that are using high prices to amass power and create trouble abroad.

Palin has been a strong voice for liberating her state's energy for the benefit of the nation. Her recent legislative victory establishing a 7,200-mile natural gas pipeline across North America — after 30 years of failure — is a remarkable accomplishment.

Alaska's leadership will add to Palin's appeal in other frontier states in the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains and pockets of the rural Midwest and mid-Atlantic. Like Alaska with its oil, these are rugged regions desperate to develop their clean coal and shale oil resources.

-snip-

(The Investor's Business Daily editorial, August 29, 2008)
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304903742659205
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Posted: 08/ 29/ 08 8:58 pm Post subject:

A Maverick Choice

The wisdom or error in selecting Palin will be determined later, when the public gets to know her, hears her speak and debate, and the mad-dog, in-the-tank press goes after every detail in her bio. She will have a very thin margin of error as far as gaffes go, in as much as the Quayle syndrome will be quickly invoked at the slightest slip.

But in political terms today, right now, one can appreciate the political brilliance of her appointment, which — given Obama's doctrinaire liberal laundry-list speech — turns the attention to the McCain camp and will hinder the Democratic convention bounce.

1. The pick appeals to the Hillary independent voter and forces Obama to go easy, since he doesn't want both a primary and general election in which liberal women thought he and his MSNBC media henchmen took the sexist, mean-spirited low road. Given McCain's 72 years, women will realize that the role and future of this VP is no token appointment.

2. Conservatives and the base will be OK with both her positions and her life narrative; no defections as threatened with a Lieberman pick.

3.On energy, she will either blunt McCain's unreasonable opposition to ANWR, or, in fact — as an Alaskan pro-driller — give him the opening necessary to "evolve" on the issue into a support for drilling there.

4. In a Zen way it raises the inexperience issue, inviting Obama to critique a fresh VP as "inexperienced" and thereby automatically turn the same scrutiny to his as-thin-or-even-thinner resume for the more important job.

5. McCain can keep running those Biden-attacking-Obama ads, with little worry that he would get the same back had he nominated a primary rival with a Biden-like campaign trail.

6. One governor, even with brief executive experience, still contrasts with three Senate legislators in the race.

7. Obama's "change" mantra and sermons on Washington insiders are suddenly null and void due to both VP picks: McCain went for an outsider, Obama went for the classical Uber-insider.

8. As any one who has met her can attest, Palin has a charismatic presence and winning personality that could help whittle away at Obamania.

9. Much of the arsenal of the left-twing critique of the last eight hate-Bush years is starting to evaporate. Both McCain and Palin have or will have sons in Iraq; both are not easily identified as hard-core insensitive Republicans; McCain's eroding maverick status is rejuvenated with this running-mate pick.

10. Let us hope that energy now becomes the key issue. Given Obama's sorta sorta not references to gas, nuclear, and coal — and not much about drilling, McCain-Palin can really hit hard on natural gas, oil, nuclear, and coal as the perfect U.S.-dominated, at-home transition to alternative fuels that save the treasury and our national security — all much more appealing than Obama's quixotic windmill and solar-panel melodramas.

For today, the timing and choice were inspired; now we await how Gov. Palin fares when the "new," "transcendent" — and vicious — leftwing political attacks come.

(Victor Davis Hanson in National Review, August 29, 2008)
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDgxYWUxYmEwMjA4ODRkYTA0M2RlZTlmNzNhZjhjNWE=

As usual, VDH offers clear-thinking, spot-on analysis.

My initial reaction to Palin's selection is that she is a terrific choice which may have holed the Obama campaign below the water line.
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Posted: 08/ 29/ 08 9:00 pm Post subject:

What Palin Does
How John McCain's running mate shakes up the presidential race.

1. Steps on the story of Obama's speech (and convention), and possibly the bounce coming from them, and wipes them off the news cycle. The Sunday news shows will be all-Palin, all of the time.

2. Sends Republicans into their convention on a huge head of steam.

3. Wipes out the image of McCain as the crotchety elder and brings back that of the fly-boy and gambler, which is much more appealing, and the genuine person.

4. Revs up the base AND excites independents, which no one else in the party, or perhaps in the world, could have accomplished.

5. Puts youth, change, and history on both of the tickets.

6. May detach some young people, especially women.

7. May attach some women pissed off about Hillary.

8. As a pro-life super-achiever, puts feminists in a tizzy.

9. Revives some of the double-edged nature of the Democratic primary, which featured a black vs. a female trail-blazer, and put both sides on notice on sensitivity issues. Democrats used to raising charges of racism against Obama's critics may face charges of sexism and/or condescension if they try to diss her.

10. Steps on Obama's claims to have been a reformer, as he reformed nothing (much less the corrupt mare's nest of Chicago arrangements), while she was a dragon-slayer up in Alaska.

-snip-

(Noemie Emery in The Weekly Standard, August 29, 2008)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/482nfeqo.asp
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Posted: 08/ 29/ 08 9:02 pm Post subject:

The Most Popular Governor
Alaska's Sarah Palin is the GOP's newest star.

Juneau – The wipeout in the 2006 election left Republicans in such a state of dejection that they've overlooked the one shining victory in which a Republican star was born. The triumph came in Alaska where Sarah Palin, a politician of eye-popping integrity, was elected governor. She is now the most popular governor in America, with an approval rating in the 90s, and probably the most popular public official in any state.

Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle — especially to transparency and accountability in government — can produce political success. And by the way, Palin is a conservative who only last month vetoed 13 percent of the state's proposed budget for capital projects. The cuts, the Anchorage Daily News said, "may be the biggest single-year line-item veto total in state history."

As recently as last year, Palin (pronounced pale-in) was a political outcast. She resigned in January 2004 as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after complaining to the office of Governor Frank Murkowski and to state Attorney General Gregg Renkes about ethical violations by another commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, who was also Republican state chairman.

State law barred Palin from speaking out publicly about ethical violations and corruption. But she was vindicated later in 2004 when Ruedrich, who'd been reconfirmed as state chairman, agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws. She became a hero in the eyes of the public and the press, and the bane of Republican leaders.

In 2005, she continued to take on the Republican establishment by joining Eric Croft, a Democrat, in lodging an ethics complaint against Renkes, who was not only attorney general but also a long-time adviser and campaign manager for Murkowski. The governor reprimanded Renkes and said the case was closed. It wasn't. Renkes resigned a few weeks later, and Palin was again hailed as a hero.

Palin, 43, the mother of four, passed up a chance to challenge Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, the then-governor's daughter, in 2004. She endorsed another candidate in the primary, but Murkowski won and was reelected. Palin said then that her 14-year-old son talked her out of running, though it's doubtful that was the sole reason.

In 2006, she didn't hesitate. She ran against Gov. Murkowski, who was seeking a second term despite sagging poll ratings, in the Republican primary. In a three-way race, Palin captured 51 percent and won in a landslide. She defeated former Democratic governor Tony Knowles in the general election, 49 percent to 41 percent. She was one of the few Republicans anywhere in the country to perform above expectations in 2006, an overwhelmingly Democratic year. Palin is unabashedly pro life.

With her emphasis on ethics and openness in government, "it turned out Palin caught the temper of the times perfectly," wrote Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News. She was also lucky. News broke of an FBI investigation of corruption by legislators between the primary and general elections. So far, three legislators have been indicted.

-snip-

(Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard, July 16, 2007)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/851orcjq.asp
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Posted: 08/ 29/ 08 9:04 pm Post subject:

Foreign Affairs Experience

Since Andy has more or less invited me to second his comment on foreign policy "experience," let me do so. He's broadly right. Mrs. Thatcher had little experience of foreign policy on becoming Tory party leader. She knew it and immediately contacted those experts whose general outlook she trusted. Robert Conquest was, I think, the first such expert she recruited, and she continued to see him regularly during and after her premiership. She also asked the historian Hugh Thomas, now Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, to get together a group of like-minded foreign policy people whom she consulted as a kind of counterweight to Foreign Office caution. From her second term onwards she relied very heavily on the advice of Charles Powell, an independent-minded Foreign Office official who combined diplomatic expertise with firm opinions similar to those of his boss. And, knowing her own original lack of expertise, she threw herself into mastering the full range of international issues. Of course, it helped that she was extremely brilliant, hard-working, initially cautious but decisive, tough-minded, brave, and determined.

So, yes Andy, you can start out by not being experienced in foreign policy. The test then becomes: Show me your advisors and I will tell you what you are.

(John O'Sullivan [The Corner] in National Review, August 29, 2008)
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzVmMGJlY2E5NmJlN2EwZTcwZmZjOTY2ZWIzNzk0NGY=
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Posted: 08/ 29/ 08 10:17 pm Post subject:

I bit risky as she hasn't been on the national stage before. Hopefully she is up to it.
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Posted: 08/ 30/ 08 12:39 am Post subject:

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