The Decade of the Conservative Woman?

Michele Bachmann - Sarah Palin

When Sarah Palin stepped off the stage after making her riveting speech at the Republican convention in 2008, almost everyone in America knew a rock star had been born. You’d have to have been on Mars not to get it.

I turned to my wife that evening and said, “The Democrats must destroy this woman.” We all saw that happen in the late 1980s to Dan Quayle, long before most Americans had heard of Saul Alinsky. It’s now politics as usual. The left, aided by a lapdog media, marginalizing popular conservative politicians. Alinsky’s Rule 13: Isolate, Demonize, Polarize.

But also gnawing at the back of my mind that evening was the unspoken suspicion that the Republican establishment wouldn’t be any too happy, either. And, indeed, the paean died quickly in that circle. Michael Steele seemed lukewarm and Newt Gingrich chose his words very carefully when questioned about the governor. And well he should. Palin represented a threat not only to the so-called New Left, but to establishment politics in general. Early on, rumblings were heard in the McCain camp: Palin was difficult, a diva, dumber than a doorknob. And so on.

But what I did not recognize and what I think almost everyone missed was that Palin’s entry onto the national stage represented an entire awakening. I hate soccer, but Palin apparently has to put up with it, so the New York Times and all the other lefty rags picked up on the “soccer mom” theme, and the attempted marginalizing began. Of course Palin was far from your ordinary soccer mom.

But, vicious media attacks and several freshman faux pas not withstanding, Palin survived (much to the chagrin of establishment Republicans everywhere). Not only have the Left and the establishment Right failed to isolate, demonize and polarize Palin, they have made her one of the most recognizable political figures in history. (She raised 1.2 million for her political action committee this quarter alone.)

And what they also failed to see was that it was in the water.

Suddenly Michele Bachmann, who had already been in Congress for two years and was running for reelection in Minnesota, became a national presence. (She has raised about $5.4 million in campaign funds since July.) An comparison would be something like the Rolling Stones rise on the Beatles second wave in 1964, if you’ll accept that analogy. Then it went radioactive.

The almost simultaneous emergence of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party movement sent the both the New Left and the GOP establishment into marginalization overdrive to sidetrack both Palin and Bachmann. And the media portrayed the women as stupid conservative Christians (everyone knows that Christians are short a brick), and unqualified for much of anything other than baking bread, way up there in Alaska and Minnesota. Just as suddenly personalities like Rush Limbaugh came to their aid. Michael Steele foolishly took on Limbaugh and had his head handed to him.

To be certain, this movement—and I’m not sure it can be accurately be described as the Tea Party movement—is not only about conservative women. Men like Rubio in Florida and Rand Paul in Kentucky are spearheading it as well, but the landscape is rapidly changing in the Republican Party. The leadership of that party still seems to be at a loss to understand that this movement is not simply about winning or losing elections; it is about something Washington seems to have long ago misplaced. It is about principal. And, as has been for more than a century the case with every major movement, women are a powerful force within it.

Kristi Noem, an elk hunting rancher and mother in South Dakota has raised $1.4 million in her election bid against a Democrat thought to be strong. In New Hampshire, Kelli Ayotte, another Palin endorsee, is squeaking ahead of her opponent. We have all heard of Nevada and Sharron Angle’s move on Harry Reid. She should win that race. O’Donnell may not win in Delaware but that will be the national party’s fault, at least in part, for not supporting her. Nikki Haley will be governor of South Carolina. The list is long and it cannot to be taken lightly.

If Sarah Palin rides into the sunset sometime in the next two years—and I sincerely hope she doesn’t—she will leave in her wake and outstanding legacy. It will be largely due to her efforts that historians will forced to acknowledge this as the decade in which conservative women changed the landscape of American politics.

That the Republicans even have a party at this point is in large measure to women like Palin and Bachmann, who have in turn inspired these new candidates, men a women alike. The party leadership is silently afraid of them, as evidenced by Karl Rove and others in the O’Donnell campaign. But they should get used to this; it is the future of the GOP, if there is to be a GOP.

Palin’s Shot Across Newt’s Bow

Anybody see Newt Gingrich’s comments on Sarah Palin’s new YouTube video on Greta the other night?

(Laughter) … I like the video overall. How many women wanna think of themselves as a momma grizzly? … A lotta what she does is a very Alaska, very down home feel to it, ah … She’s saying, ‘You can be a conservative feminist … you can be a prolife feminist … ’ she’s pretty smart and very tough, ah …

In other words: “How rurally … quaint,” right Newt?

It was a chuckle. What would this esteemed conservative icon have said about Abraham Lincoln and his rough-hewn folksy vernacular in 1858? Not that Palin possesses Lincoln’s keenness on the vernacular, but she undeniably possesses his fix on the contemporary American mindset.

No Newt, she is not saying, “Look women, we can all do a load of wash, cook up a batch of moose chili, be prolife and still be feminists.” She is saying, “I’m running for president in 2012, dude, so don’t get under my wheels.”

The truth is, Newt knows what less astute political thinkers do not, or at least refuse to admit: Palin is a formidable obstacle to anyone’s aspirations for the GOP nomination.

For all you Orange County Republicans who think Wasilla was a Polish labor leader during the 1980s, here’s one to get your IBS raging: Either Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin will be the GOP nominee in 2012, and both will likely be on the ticket.

Here’s why: with the defeat of John McCain in 2012 the moderate wing of the party is finished for the foreseeable future. They cannot unify the base vote much less draw independents, and they need a win more desperately than anytime in modern history to preserve the party in any viable way. At best, Mitt Romney or, say, Mitch Daniels, will attract the moderate base and a smidgen of conservatives but not nearly enough independents for a win.

Enter Gingrich. Newt is granted a conservative, but he is also a party elitist, as evidenced by his ridiculous endorsement of liberal Dede Scozzafava against Palinites in the New York 23rd District special election last year. Not only did Scozzafava fail to pull it off, but she did what any good RHINO would do—she withdrew and threw her support to the Democrat, allowing him to eek out a narrow win over Palin’s conservative candidate.

Whatever the perception, Palin won that contest. Newt walked away with a red butt.

Palin is the only potential candidate who can deliver a large significantly unified bloc of voters—Tea Party conservatives and a humongous number of women—to the convention in 2012. Newt is the only party line conservative with the political finesse to coalesce the two wings of the party.

And limp-wrist liberal Republicans will trip over one another getting to the polls to vote for them when they feel the tread marks of Obama’s tax hikes up your backsides in 2011.

Regardless of one’s position on Palin or Gingrich this is the only calculus that makes sense in the current political climate. The backlash against incumbents has never been greater. If the party goes with Mitt or a less-known brand, running up the middle, against either Obama or Hillary (I believe Hilly will be the Democrat’s nominee in 2012), it will lose hands down.

Acknowledge is the fact that Palin could dead end all of this speculation by taking the RNC chair—a job that is well below her pay grade—should the committee draft her, but it is doubtful she will.

If you live in Laguna Niguel and drive a BMW X5 with a “Baby on Board” placard in the rear window, you need to listen here.

Republicans have woefully underestimated Palin, while she has gone about her business undaunted, forging strong alliances both inside and outside the party. Only someone who considers the New York Times crossword puzzle as their greatest challenge in life could possibly believe this is a stupid woman. She is—for Democrats and liberal Republicans—the most dangerous thing on two legs since the colonist who fired the first shot at Lexington-Concord.

Gingrich is a warhorse and he will undoubtedly make a strong play for the lead slot on the ticket. He is arguably the most brilliant politician in modern U.S. history and has done much to redeem himself after a bad patch of sheer egoism during the 1990s. He could well be the presidential nominee and no sane Republican can reject him out of hand. However, Palin presents an undeniable and very formidable obstacle.

No one can guess how a race between Palin and Gingrich will turn out, but one of them will be the nominee in 2012.