PALIN FLASHBACK: Sarah Palin’s a Brainiac

This article was written by Elaine Lafferty, a Democrat, who was hired by the McCain campaign as a consultant.  She spent time with Governor Palin on the campaign plane and shares her observations on the subject of  Governor Palin’s intelligence and on her support for women’s rights.

Sarah Palin’s a Brainiac

by Elaine Lafferty

The former editor in chief of Ms. magazine (and a Democrat) on what she learned on a campaign plane with the would-be VP.

It’s difficult not to froth when one reads, as I did again and again this week, doubts about Sarah Palin’s “intelligence,” coming especially from women such as PBS’s Bonnie Erbe, who, as near as I recall, has not herself heretofore been burdened with the Susan Sontag of Journalism moniker. As Fred Barnes—God help me, I’m agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in the Weekly Standard, these high toned and authoritative dismissals come from people who have never met or spoken with Sarah Palin. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.

I’m a Democrat, but I’ve worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin’s nomination. Last week, there was the thought that as a former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine as well as a feminist activist in my pre-journalism days, I might be helpful in contributing to a speech that Palin had long wanted to give on women’s rights.

What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

Now by “smart,” I don’t refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don’t really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I’d heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

Palin’s Glass Ceiling Speech

For all those old enough to remember Senator Sam Ervin, the brilliant strict constitutional constructionist and chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee whose patois included “I’m just a country lawyer”…Yup, Palin is that smart.

So no simple task then, this speech on women’s rights. For the sin of being a Christian personally opposed to abortion, Palin is being pilloried by the inside-the-Beltway Democrat feminist establishment. (Yes, she is anti-abortion. And yes, instead of buying organic New Zealand lamb at Whole Foods, she joins other Alaskans in hunting for food. That’s it. She is not a right-wing nut, and all the rest of the Internet drivel—the book banning at the Library, the rape kits decision—is nonsense. I digress.) Palin’s role in this campaign was to energize “the Republican base,” which she has inarguably done. She also was expected to reach out to Hillary Clinton “moderates.” (Right. Only a woman would get both those jobs in either party.) Look, I am obviously personally pro-choice, and I disagree with McCain and Palin on that and a few other issues. But like many other Democrats, including Lynn Rothschild, I’m tired of the Democratic Party taking women for granted. I also happen to believe Sarah Palin supports women’s rights, deeply and passionately.

“New Jefferson Era” Is A Start. New Madison Era, Under Palin 2012, Is The Culmination

 Salena Zito has a brilliant article up on Real Clear Politics which contrasts the differing philosophies of government between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

Zito states that America is moving away from the Hamiltonian model i.e. “His vision was to promote an economy based on commerce, wealth and strict laws, advancing towards a technological age and European-style collectivism.”

Hamilton was, in his wider view, a non-believer in the basic capabilities of humankind to manage its affairs” he believed humans were inherently flawed and, left on their own, made poor choices.

In contrast, Jefferson “had a deep belief in man’s goodness and liberty’s importance…and his vision of America was of a decentralized federal government with power spread out to the states and local governments”

Zito sees the election of 2010, and incidences from popular culture as marking a shift away from the Hamiltonian to the Jeffersonian with the Democratic Party being particularly “out of sync” with this changing mood.

Whilst making the point that American history is one of “zigzagging” between these visions-not wholly embracing either, Zito stops short, I believe, of the full transcendence of the deepest nature of the 2010 result.

For the true nature of this paradigm shift we need to look beyond Jefferson, whose vision has been, to some degree, made archaic by the shift from the agricultural country America was in his time, to the commercial one Hamilton conceived of, to now consider the vision of his colleague James Madison.

Madison had moved in his thinking to a strong states rights position.* “He characterized inherent or implied (i.e. federal) powers as ‘the creatures of ambition…powers extracted from such sources will be indefinitely multiplied by the aid of …patronage which, with the impossibility of controlling them by any demarcation….would ultimately swallow up state sovereignties”.

In his later thinking Madison had been inclining towards the doctrine of “Dual Federalism,” according to which collisions between the states and federal government were to be avoided by recognizing that the purposes which the general government was intended to promote were relatively few, whereas the states were entrusted with the furtherance of government; the public safety, morals, and the general welfare.”

The states rights position is one that is clearly recognizable as one that has indeed had a zigzag course through American history. In ascendance throughout the laissez-faire  pre-depression time of the first third of the twentieth century, and very much in abeyance during the centralising period of Roosevelt’s administration and the second World War.

Democratic Party majorities in congress were tempered by the substantial number of old South representatives who, due to longevity, headed up key committees. Democratic Party president’s ambitions towards centralizing were quickly muted by mid-term swings to the GOP. However, during the G.W. Bush years things got out of kilter.

A huge swing to the traditional control on the leftward swing of the Clinton administration “The Contract with America” was negated as the pitfalls of becoming a Washington insider allied with a tendency to fall for the siren songs of lobbyists, led to a massive increase in government spending. That this led to economic near collapse and the massive repudiation of the Republican Party in 2008 was a natural consequence.

The hubris of the Obama administration driven by  a demanding “progressive” left and a lickspittle media, led them to a wildly leftward swing which was, as Zito points out, rejected strongly and led to the rise of the Tea Party.

In examining this return to Jeffersonian principles, which is described by quoting an author Dr.Lara Brown  as “ our culture connecting with individual liberty again” Zito misses the Madisonian prescription. The “principal objects of government…public safety and general welfare” are implied in the Jeffersonian blueprint, what is missing is the third arm of the Madisonian analysis-morals as a principal object of government.

This is understandable as Jefferson was a deist, at best, and his view of human nature was predicated on man’s inherent goodness. The true nature of America has been one of a belief in man’s inherent goodness allied with an abiding belief in a loving God who guides America’s destiny. “One nation under God” is still the prevailing ethos no matter how much the progressives may wish to demean and deprecate this ideal.

The election of 2012 will be a battle between the Hamiltonian forces as represented by the Obama administration and the Madisonian forces represented by Sarah Palin. It is clear that Palin’s entire political being is a  combination of Jefferson’s individualism and belief in states rights and the inherent goodness of mankind, coupled with Madison’s belief in (state) governments having a responsibility to be an exemplar in morals. This assumption of moral guidance is one of “by example” and not by force.

Palin would have ranged against her the massive forces of centralization, the bureaucracy, the liberal media and the violent “progressive” blogosphere. It would be normally a daunting, near impossible challenge for one lone woman.

But the reality is that Palin will have an army of supporters and, perhaps, most importantly “an idea whose time has come” which idea is as old as history and is an unstoppable force.

Sarah Palin: The Truth Behind the White House’s Budget Spin

– by Josh Painter
*
Gov. Palin returned to Facebook after a two-week hiatus Monday with a critique of the Obama Administration’s proposed budget, which will double the national debt over the next decade :

The Truth Behind the White House’s Budget Spin

Today the White House finally produced its proposal for the 2012 budget. Beware of the left’s attempt to sell this as “getting tough on the deficit,” because as an analysis from Americans for Tax Reform shows, the White House’s plans are more about raising taxes and growing more government than reducing budget shortfalls.

The fine print reveals a White House proposal to increase taxes by at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade. If you want to know how minuscule their proposed $775 million-a-year budget “cuts” really are, please look at this chart. The proposed cuts are so insignificant – less than 1/10 of 1% of this year’s $1.65 trillion budget deficit – that they are essentially invisible on the pie chart. That speaks volumes about today’s budget.

– Sarah Palin

Cross-posted from Texas for Sarah Palin

– JP

Only One Winner From CPAC-Sarah Palin Who,Once Again,Demonstrates Unique Political Skills

Politico weighs in on the “Winners and Losers at CPAC”. Which right to pontificate on the event Stacy McCain at The Real McCain tears to shreds.

And rightly so, having Alexander Burns, a liberal, arvard grad describe the outcome of CPAC is like Stalin giving a dispassionate view of Trotsky’s collected works.

However, Burns makes the comment that perhaps those who staid away did better than those who attended. He almost has it right-the better sentence would have been “Sarah Palin, by choosing to stay away was the winner and, once again, showed her perspicuity and political nous. Even more so because she was roundly criticized for not attending which played into her hands, once again, by her critics ending up with egg on their faces”.

CPAC presented an image of, at times, near farce with the arguments over Gay conservatives attending, last minute decisions to attend and speak by the likes of Donald Trump which only added to candidate cattle call atmosphere, including candidates who have no chance of getting the nomination, look silly, and lower the tone for all candidates.

<The main reason Palin was the winner was the ridiculous straw poll. For Her and Huckabee to poll below 3% when poll after poll shows Palin and Huckabee with around 40% of the GOP vote and leading in most polled states shows how silly the straw poll result was.

If Palin had attended, then her losing to the fanatical forces of the Ron Paul supporters, as she surely would have, would have put her in a poor light. By not attending and with those forces so apparent, then it did not matter what her result was. In fact, <it is clear that the lower her result was, to the point of silliness, the better she looked in the light of a warped result.

If she had attended her address would have been lost in the crowd and added to the carnival atmosphere (not her doing of course) at best, and at worst it would have been subject to the usual media distortion and mockery.

No, Palin, by not attending showed, once again, her brilliant political skills. If she attends next year it will be with a much

smaller field of candidates, in fact by that time, should she have chosen to run, she may probably be the only candidate, or one of a few worth considering, with the no-hopers having dropped out. Her speech will be presented in a serious atmosphere and once again her political skills will be to the fore.

The First Valentine

DaySpring, one of my favorite greeting card companies, sent me an e-mail containing the following Valentine messages, which I find inspiring.  (You can send the accompanying free e-cards to friends and family by clicking on the titles.)  

Your Divine Valentine

A Valentine may play a love song for you, but God sings you the sweetest love song in the universe.

The Lord your God… will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

A Valentine may give you flowers, but God sent you the most beautiful rose of all. Jesus.

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. Song of Solomon 2:1

A Valentine may bring you chocolate, but God provides you with something even sweeter, His Word.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119:103

A Valentine may love you for a lifetime, but God loved you before you were born and will love you for all eternity.

Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love…with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Jeremiah 31:3

Praying you’re blessed by the wonderful love of God this Valentine’s Day and always!

The First Valentine

For God so loved the world

that He gave His only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in Him

should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

The first Valentine message is still the best one ever sent.

God Bless You Today and Always

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

Yahoo Has Obama/McCaskill Activist Pick VP Running Mate For Palin.PDS At Berserk Level

Yahoo has an article up ” Possible Running Mates for
Sarah Palin in 2012 Presidential Election”.  That such an
article should surface in the “silly season” so far out from the
GOP convention is of course to be expected. This especially
after the long CPAC conference with its cattle call of would-
be candidates which did not include, sensibly on her part,
Sarah Palin.

What is unusual is that the article was written by a William
Browning who is described as a Research librarian
specializing in US politics

Browning is further described as;
“active in local politics and served as a campaign volunteer
for President Barack Obama and Missouri Sen. Claire
McCaskill.”

At least Yahoo/Browning are upfront about the political bias motivating the thinking behind the author’s work. It is like having Stalin comment on the collected works of Trotsky. Not only a liberal, but an activist to boot.

Only someone from the other side-way on the other side in this instance- could dream up, as his lead in selection, a Palin/Ron Paul ticket.  Paul would, he advises, ” serve as a foil to Palin’s youthful exuberance”.

Next up is Jim DeMint who “can lead voters in the Southern states to the polls”. Whilst there is an idealogical fit, the Republican voters in the South will not need anyone to lead them to the polls in 2012. Demint would be, in the unlikely event of his even considering such a slot, too much of a muchness,  and the media would harp on the supposed hard edge of the ticket.

Brownings two final choices Cantor and Rubio both have some validity, Rubio especially, but it is way to far out from the time when a decision is needed. And way to early for analysis to be warranted by Palin’s political enemies.

The important thing that this article signals is,of course, that speculation on Palin’s choices, by Yahoo via Browning means that her getting the nomination is a serious matter, and that she is included in the very top of front runners.

It is noteworthy too that any speculation of Romney’s or Huckabee’s or in fact any other the other possible candidates in noteworthy by its total absence.