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.

Leave Michael Steele, and Don’t Let the Door Hit You in the …

It is difficult to feel sympathy for Michael Steele. The guy is a public relations nightmare, a raging example of the Peter Principal in a world that suffers fools only in its elected officials, not in its hirelings.

That being said, Steele was somewhat right this week in his remarks about Afghanistan. Somewhat. Nevertheless his choice of words was unfortunate.

General David Patraeus will win in Afghanistan, if one can be as Clintonian about war as the former President was about “is.” If by “win” one means walk back the local vintage of rag-clad thugs and stabilize the country, Patraeus will win. If, on the other hand, one expects that he will cause even a good-sized dent in the Islamic jihadist’s assault on this country, Americans are in for a sad disappointment.

And, even if the U.S. liberates the Afghanis from the Talban, one day they will turn on us.

One of the worst misuses of power in the history of this great nation, in hindsight, was the August 6, 1945 atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan, and the “Little Boy” attack on Nagasaki three days later. Not because the level of force wasn’t warranted and justified, but because, now, the U.S. can no longer use the Bomb. We should have held it in reserve for just such a day as this.

Of course that is not strictly true; it certainly could have been used by now. But apparently no American president since Truman has had the stones to do the deed.

One well-placed tactical nuclear devise in Tora Bora in October 2001 could have saved the United States thousands of American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, and never in this nation’s history has any foe deserved it more than Osama bin Laden. Every Muslim in the world would have immediately known the price of waging war against the United States of America.

The rest would have been mere clean up. And make no mistake; the U.S. will eventually have to use the Bomb to end this insanity. Hopefully it will not be too late.

But back to Michael Steele.

Steele’s problems during his tenure with the RNC have been an embarrassment to the GOP. When he was hammered for his lavish spending, he further embarrassed himself and conservatives everywhere by playing the race card. It was a disingenuous ploy that should have been beneath him.

The Party’s problem with Steele is his incredible lack of management skills. At a time when he should be positioning the Party for election wins in November, he is once again busy defending himself for missteps that could and should have been easily avoided. His statement this week on the war in Afghanistan was not only historically inaccurate, it was above his pay grade. His job is not policy; it is politics.

From Lezbo-gate and reports of lavish spending, to this current mess, Michael Steele has been a painful diversion in what should be a watershed year for the GOP.

The country has never thought highly of the Democrat’s as financial managers but many believe Republicans lack integrity.

Extravagant spending, sending big donors to lesbian leather bars, and offending U.S. troops and their families, while claiming to represent family values is unforgiveable in a party chairman.

Michael probably should have stepped aside when he knew that Ken Blackwell was running for the RNC chair. Blackwell was more qualified and more conservative, and the membership needed a strong resolute conservative leader more than ever.

Michael, when a third-string bench-sitter like Ellis Henican can criticize you and make sense, you know you’re in trouble. Preserve what is left of your reputation; step down now.

Republicans: Somewhere in Heaven Reagan’s Laughing

Nearly every Republican I speak to these days, even those who like Sarah Palin, say that that the Governor is unelectable. The ones who don’t like her say she is a dolt in a nice package, that she has no depth. Those who hate her … well it’s not pretty, the things they say. And that’s just the Republicans.

Which is, interestingly enough, almost exactly what they said about Ronald Reagan in 1965.

This is one reason I defected from the Republican Party two years ago, ironically, before I had ever heard Palin speak. I knew she had just been elected governor of Alaska but hadn’t seen or heard her. I left the party for the netherworld of independency because, being an old hippy, I knew—and had always known, I suppose—that Republicans don’t get it. They’re unhip, square … lamers stuck on stupid.

Want to destroy a cocktail party? Invite John Boehner.

My biggest complaint about Republicans is that they run on family values and fiscal restraint, go to Washington, drink the water, and—presto—they’re Establishment hacks. After a year most of them couldn’t find the district that elected them without a Thomas Guide and a wife who knows how to read it.

The Republican Establishment is the sole reason men like Barack Obama get to be President. Find a bad Democrat idea and add two parts John McCain, a splash of Lindsey Graham, fold in Olympia Snowe, and, voila! Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm.

Of course I speak of Establishment Republicans. Reagan was different: he didn’t wear a tie when he let the press in at Rancho del Cielo for photo ops. Not one shot of Reagan chopping wood in a blue serge suit.

I know many of you voted for Ross Perot in 1992 because you felt lost, disconnected from the party, and at least Ross had been successful at something. Of course that didn’t work either. Alas, Ross was closer to the “crazy aunt in the basement” than anyone knew. But he was right about that giant NAFTA sucking sound. Barbie Dolls, three pesos!!!

I’m rambling.

It’s just that I have always judged Republican candidates by what Newsweek has to say about them. Newsweek and its ilk is the sounding board of the DNC. Every pre-primary season, if you’ll read carefully, Newsweek and the New York Times will tell you which Republicans to vote for. Vote for the ones they hate.

I suspect that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee of the Democratic Party in 2011. Barack Obama is beyond salvageable. Maybe you want to want to run Mitt Romney against that steamroller. If so, please share the drugs you’re using. They may help us all cope.

For years Democrats have played mainstream Republicans like a Conga drum. They tell you what to think and when to think it and you think it.

Yet everything Palin touches turns to political gold. Even John McCain, who stood about as much chance of winning a fifth term in Arizona as an illegal Mexican getting busted by Janet Napolitano, will most likely be reelected.

Some of Sarah Palin’s worst critics are Republicans, especially Republican women. Hmm, there’s something in that, not sure quite what.  But if the GOP turns over the House and makes steep trenches in the Senate in November, it will be largely due to the Governor’s contributions to their party.

Wouldn’t that be truly ironic?

Somewhere up there, Ronnie must be laughing and shaking his head.