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Top Ten Reasons Why
Sarah Palin is Running For President
by Tony Lee
04/13/2011
Will she or won’t she run for President?
I once laid out the reasons why Sarah Palin has a better shot of
becoming president than Barack Obama did before Obama announced his
candidacy during the 2008 election cycle.
And while conventional wisdom among the chattering class continues to
lean against Palin mounting a presidential run, Palin has been courting
the conservative base while not alienating swing voters in swing states
such as Ohio, Colorado, and Florida better than any potential GOP
contender.
Too often, those who cover Palin do not listen to her words or read her
statements, Facebook postings, or tweets. As a result, conventional
wisdom holds that Palin is setting herself up to be an entertainer, a
conservative money maker, or a right-wing flame thrower who seeks only
to rouse up the conservative base and get rich quick off of it. If
those who proffer these theories had listened to and read her words
closely, they would know that Palin has been telling everyone that she
is running for president in 2012. Here are ten reasons why.
1. A pension is a promise
At an appearance before a Long Island businesses association, Palin
said that a “pension is a promise” in response to a question about what
to do about entitlements in an age of austerity. Her answer indicated
that she does not want to anger older voters who are the most reliable
subset of voters in the primary and general election.
If Palin did not have her sights on winning a potential general
election, she could have taken a more extreme position and called for
cuts to some programs that benefit seniors and retirees to pay down the
debt.
2. Tea Partiers have to pick a party
While addressing the first Tea Party convention in Tennessee, Palin
responded to a question about whether the Tea Party should become a
third party by saying, “now the smart thing will be for independents
who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of
start picking a party.”
“Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be
taken? Which party will best fit you?,” Palin asked. “And then because
the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system,
they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or
‘D’”
If Palin only had intentions of being a conservative rabble rouser, she
would have encouraged Tea Partiers to break away from the Republican
party and go at it alone. Instead, Palin knows she can only make it to
the White House if she ultimately works within the Republican party
apparatus and brings independent minded Tea Party voters along with
her.
3. Birtherism a distraction (wink)
Palin, speaking in Long Island, said that claims that Obama was born in
Kenya or is a secret Muslim are “distractions” and “annoying,” and that
Republicans should focus on the economy.
She had indicated before, though, that those who wanted to question
Obama’s birthplace had every right to do so.
Last weekend on Fox News, Palin seemed to be walking that line again
when she said that she believed Obama was born in Hawaii before saying,
perhaps a bit sarcastically, that she’s not going to get in the way of
Donald Trump’s quest to find the true origin of Obama’s birth. “More
power to him,” Palin said.
By saying she thought Obama was born in Hawaii, Palin prevented anyone
from calling her a birther. By not denigrating those who may find it
odd that Obama has not released his long-form birth certificate, she
did not alienate a group of voters who can potentially vote for her in
the primary and general election.
4. The anti-Obama
From her maiden Facebook post opposing ObamaCare to her energy speech
at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in 2009 to her stands
on foreign policy issues (most recently on Libya and Egypt), Palin has
emerged as the most prominent opposer-in-chief, establishing herself as
Obama’s main foil.
With the GOP primary electorate staunchly against Obama, this allows
Palin to cater to Republican primary voters while getting a head start
on potentially becoming Obama’s main opponent in the general election.
5. The anti-McCain
If Palin learned anything from John McCain’s failed presidential
campaign in 2008, it may have been that McCain probably lost the
presidency because he wanted to be liked by the media, turned off
conservatives who did not show up for him at the polls, and took
Republican primary voters for granted by trying to run a pure general
election campaign before winning the GOP primary. Palin has shown that
she could care less about what the media -- left, mainstream and right
of center --thinks of her. In addition, in backing Arizona’s Governor
Jan Brewer in support of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 immigraiton law and
standing behind conservative causes and candidates, such as recently
elected Justice David Prosser of Wisconsin, Palin, the person who most
likely could take the GOP primary base for granted, is the one who is
least taking the GOP primary voters for granted.
6. Anti-establishment and Todd Palin
Palin always mentions how her husband does not belong to a poltical
party and was a union member. By constantly reminding people that her
husband is not a Republican, she is trying align herself not only with
independent voters in the general election but also with voters who in
the primary would identify themselves as conservatives before
Republicans.
On the policy front, Palin has often opposed fellow Republicans, most
recently in her strong opposition to the temporary Continuing
Resolution that Congressional Republican leaders supported last weekend.
7. On Labor Unions
Responding to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and addressing public
sector union members in Wisconsin, Palin constantly discusses how union
leaders are leading their members astray.
She wrote to public sector union workers in Wisconsin: “Hard working,
patriotic, and selfless union brothers and sisters: please don’t be
taken in by the union bosses.” And this seems to be Palin’s mantra when
it comes to unions and their leaders.
Palin knows members of labor unions made up a big chunk of the Reagan
Democrat coalition. By criticizing union leaders and not union workers,
Palin is indicating a willingness to cobble together Reagan’s
blue-collar coalition, particulalry in Midwestern swing states such as
Ohio, for these Jacksonian Reagan Democrats have swung every election
since 1980.
8. Israel and Star of David
When Palin recently visited Israel, POLITICO’s Ben Smith reported that
she had arranged her travel plans through a Christian tour operator.
Intentionally or not, the optics of this again showed how she is
appealing to potential primary voters (Evangelicals) while
simultaneously appealing to general election voters (Jewish voters in
Florida who may be disaffected with Obama).
Palin has also worn a lapel pin with the American and Israeli flags
together at a TIME dinner and recently was photographed wearing a Star
of David necklace during her trip to Israel.
9. Foreign trips
If Palin were to run for the presidency, her greatest liability, even
in a potential GOP primary that currently lacks many authorities on
foreign policy, would be her perceived weakness on foreign policy.
These trips are not for her to cash a paycheck. Rather, they are trips
to potentially buffer her from being tagged as weak on foreign
policy in a potential GOP primary and general election. In her most
recent trip to India, Palin laid out themes that could be used in a
potential GOP primary without losing their shelf-life during the
general election.
10. She said she can beat Obama
A week after the 2008 election, Palin told Greta Van Sustern of Fox
News, “if there is an open door in ‘12 or four years later, and if it
is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for
my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”
In an interview with Runner’s World magazine, Palin was asked if she
could beat Obama in a race (running), and she responded, “betcha I’d
have more endurance. What I lacked in physical strength or skill I made
up for in determination and endurance. So if it were a long race that
required a lot of endurance, I’d win.”
To Barbara Walters at the end of 2010, Palin said that she believed she
could beat Obama in a general election.
And most recently, Palin spoke to Van Sustern in Florida upon returning
from her trip to Israel, and told Van Sustern that, “I’m still
wondering who the heck is going to be out there with a servant’s heart
willing to serve the American people for the right reason, not for ego,
not for special interests, not with obsessive partisanship.”
Palin could not hide back her desire to run for the Presidency a week
after Obama won the 2008 election, she implied to Runner’s World that
she could defeat Obama in a metaphorical race, and she told Walters
that she could defeat Obama in a general election. And with her most
recent statements to Van Sustern, Palin has set herself up as a
candidate who can survey the current crop of potential GOP contenders
that lacks a candidate that people are enamored with and use that as an
excuse to enter the 2012 nominating contest with a “servant’s heart”
despite the great sacrifice she and her family would have to endure.
It is obvious that Palin has been telling everyone who would listen
that she is running in 2012. It’s just a matter of when she is going to
make the announcement.
Read it at Human Events
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