Don't Underestimate Sarah Palin for 2012

I first posted this article about Saran Palin's 2012 presidential campaign at my own blogs, the Francis L. Holland Blog and the Truth About McCain Blog, because I believe liberals, leftists and the media are dangerously underestimating the possible strength of Sarah Palin as she runs for the presidency in 2012.  (Since I haven't figured out how to find or use the highlight tool to indicate that this material is from my own blog, I will post that part in bold and indented and hope that someone will explain in the comments how the Firefox highlighting tool that I downloaded and installed works.) 

For the following reasons, I think many of us are dangerously underestimating Sarah Palin's potential attractiveness, first to the conservative Republican base and then the to general electorate:

I am certainly not pro-Saran Palin. In fact, I personally interviewed and reported on the story of the Duke Ellington Orchestra member,  Charles Gregory Royal, who recounts that Sarah Palin refused to speak with members of the orchestra when she saw their skin color (brown).

Some blogs are saying her resignation speech was terrible and will exclude her from contention for the Republican nomination in 2012, but I think they're probably wrong.

In spite of the fact that I don't like Sarah Palin anymore than I would have wanted McCain for president (see my Truth About McCain Blog), I think Sarah Palin's speech was actually pretty good.

She mentioned the troops and the military several times. She described the state of Alaska in glowing and engaging terms that would make people less resistant to having a president from Alaska.

Although her speech was noticeably longer than would neccessary to announce her resignation, it was only rambling by political speech standards.  As prose, it sounded like John Steinbeck or President Obama's autobiography, including many details that fill in the nation's sense of who she is and what her values are.  None of it was accidental, in my opinion.  The lovely green backdrop certainly wasn't an afterthought.

Palin talked about her commitment to all of the issues are seen as most important by the extreme right voters who decide the Republican presidential nominee: small government, low taxes, helping and respecting small businesses, opposition to abortion, commitment to family (she said that was part of the reason she was resigning).

I actually think that, for what she was trying to accomplish, which was to announce her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, the speech was very effective. Remember: She's not trying to convince liberals, leftists or the media. She's trying to create a coalition of right-wingers and independents who will support her candidacy in 2012, and I think she's doing that. At least, I think her speech was a successful run at it.

Quitting the Governorship in Alaska makes sense for a presidential campaign because it frees her to travel and speak to Republican groups, frees her from negative news over her governorship, enables her to raise massive speaking fees which she can lend or give to her presidential campaign. Meanwhile, by 2012 most Americans will have forgotten that Palin gave up the Governorship early and will judge her based on what she's been saying and doing since then.

Don't count Palin out. The very fact that she is known all over the Internet for disparaging Blacks and Native Americans will HELP HER with the Republicans who vote in Republican primaries.

She's got an entire dead bear in her office in Alaska, which gives her the 100% support of the NRA going in.

The other thing she did in her speech that proved she is running for president is that she said she would work with and support people from any political party if they had good ideas, which was Sarah Palin emulating the "broad tent" strategy that put Barack Obama in the White House. It's the same thing Barack Obama said. He said he was not interested in labels and parties and he invites everyone to the table to help make progress.

That's exactly what Sarah Palin says, and her emulation of Obama on this point is another reason why I think she is running for president and I wouldn't count her out of the 2012 Republican nomination.

Remember something else about a Palin/Obama matchup. Americans supported Obama because their memories of Bush were fresh and raw. But, Americans often prefer a president who is at least as lacking in intelligence as the voters he represents. Americans often prefer a president who says he will do extreme things; Ronald Reagan promised to send troops to South Africa to protect the "stability" of the Afrikanner apartheid regime.

Palin's probably the most exciting candidate the Republicans have, compared to the flip-flopping Romney, who was liberal before he was conservative . . .

Americans voted for visible change when the elected a Black man in 2008 and they could again vote for visibile change by electing a white woman in 2012, even though it could take women the country a couple of decades to recover from the kind of change Sarah Palin would wreak.

If the post-Bush economy is still terrible in 2012 and unemployment is still at ten percent, Americans might go with the other Party and elect Sarah Palin. Remember that when Ronald Reagan was running for office he constantly misspoke and said things that offended the media but helped round up the hate-groups that constitute the Republican Party.

Make no mistake.  Palin is dangerously ignorant of foreign police, national domestic policy, and the various constituencies that make up the Democratic Party, and she invents the truth as she goes along, depending on the needs and viccissitudes of her campaign situation and strategy, all of which characteristics will make her more attractive to Republican Party voters.  Remember Ronald Reagan's insistence that trees were a major source of air pollution?

Ronald Reagan ran for the Republican nomination in 1976 and lost. He ran for the Republican nomination in 1980, won, and went on to win the presidency.  So, don't count Sarah Palin out. CAMPAIGN to keep her out, and don't assume that it will be easy!