freecounterpoint: Precisely

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Precisely

3 comments:

Tecumseh said...: Rove wanted conservatives to relearn what the Establishment has been trumpeting since Barry Goldwater's 1964 failed presidential run. The lesson is that all candidates must meet Establishment approval or they are sure to lose. While election-winners from Reagan to Rubio have proven the theory false, if O'Donnell can become a new generation's Goldwater, then the Establishment can use her race to regain the control lost during the 2010 primaries.

Yes, yes, and no. O'Donnell is neither Goldwater, nor Reagan. Not by a mile. Or a hundred miles. Unless we've sunk so low that a perennial Bill Maher talk-show guest can be mistaken with another generation's trailblazers.; 11/06/2010 11:58 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: But you are jokingly misreading, Tecumseh? Or is Palin a gal that just rubs you wrong, no getting around it?
There is no claim that Palin is Reagan [a man of vision who was a Winner ] or Goldwater [a man of vision who was a Loser who yet won by founding the future success of a Reagan], not in the role of Presidential candidate that is.
The claim of the author is that the Establishment wants Palin to be caricatured as "Like that wild-eyed scary-as-heck to the Rotters of this world Goldwater guy who got us nothing but Clobber in the dark days of 1964". In other words, they want to demonize her in order marginalize the Tea Party movement and scare back voters [and donors, and candidates] into the establishment camp and dutifully follow the dictates of some Rovian Plan Nein [again, not the indivdual Rove alone but the party operatives he symbolizes oh so well].; 11/07/2010 11:34 AM
Arelcao Akleos said...: As for being a perennial Bill Maher guest, are you so sure that is what she is? That is you are so sure you are not falling into the Rovian temptation of caricature as a way of avoiding of having to respond seriously to her? Are you so sure it is not the equivalent of calling Reagan a Cowboy or Voodoo Economist, or Goldwater a RWN or Warmonger?
The truth is that a kid of humble background, with no noticeable characteristic when young beyond being a fiery and able competitor in the things she cared about [sports, beauty pageants, and a normal, healthy, passion for family and children], found in middle life that the troubles of our politics and our culture truly mattered [mattered for her family, mattered for her community, for her religion, for her guns, and to all else which she was to bitterly cling].
Since then, Tecumseh, long before Bill Maher ever heard of her, she has been far from ordinary. To form a political movement and to inspire it to throw out the alliance of the Murkowski/Stevens Republicans, and their Dem allies, in Alaska, was no mean feat at all. To be an able Governor [which she was], and to fully attempt to carry out what she won election on [the stopping of the culture of corruption in Alaskan politics] is not ordinary. To bring dangerous life to a pathetic and self-defeating Establishmentarian presidential campaign was not ordinary. To then play an instrumental role in the rise of the Tea Party, and to inspire the limp body of Republicanism to fight, ably and with fire, against the seemingly Absolute tide of Obama, when all the establishmentarians were either eager to accomodate or were sulking in corners, was simply extraordinary. Late in life, in her own way, she has proven to have some truly remarkable qualities, Tecumseh. Her unblazing academic road to University of Idaho notwithstanding.
Look, I'm sure none of us here on FCP have Palin as our first choice of Presidential candidate. I do not think Palin has Palin as a first choice of presidential candidate [after all, she has just said this last week that her running for the office is conditional on there not being out there a candidate who could carry the flag for the cause]. But she has played a magnificent role in saving the Republican party from its own elitist stupidity, and in doing so has help make opposition to all what the current regime represents a viable political hope.
Her candidates did better than the establishmentarians did, and the general success of Republicans owed far more to the Tea Party than they did to whatever Mr. Steele works for. Without her, we were focked. And that is something a Reagan, or a Goldwater, would have been proud of.
In many ways I find Sarah Palin admirable, and although she is in many ways "crude" she has obvious intelligence. There is no Machiavelli behind her rise, no master to whom she served as useful puppet. She is self-made, and no simpleton could have close to doing what she has done. This even as I acknowledge her limitations as office holder [resigning the governorship was a bad move] and fully hope that there are better choices for Presidential candidate within her branch of the Repubs. But then, she does to.; 11/07/2010 11:52 AM

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