Tea Party To Palin: ‘Run, Sarah, Run’
Feb 7th, 2010 | 25 responses
After telling members of the inaugural national Tea Party convention what they wanted to hear in a speech Saturday night, the Nashville dining hall roared with chants of “Run, Sarah, Run” when a moderator during a question period asked Sarah Palin if she planned to run for President in 2012.
Palin, the former governor of Alaska, avoided an answer. She did say her first action as president was reduce government spending in an effort to bring the national debt under control. She also said efforts at bipartisanship were worthy but at the same time meaningless if the other party was disingenuous.
During her appearance, televised nationally by C-Span and all the major cable news channels, she summed up her national security goal as “We win. You lose,” a phrase first stipulated by late President Reagan whose 99th birthday she honored on several occasions.
Her domestic policy was best summed up by her assertion that the U.S. Constitution required limited government.
She scolded President Obama to “stop lecturing and start listening.”
Referring to Obama’s presidential campaign based on hope, she asked her audience “How’s that hopey changey thing working out for you?”
Those were notes I scribbled during her speech and question follow-up session.
What struck me was the complete absence of any specifics to cut federal spending. She said Obama’s proposal to freeze spending except for military and entitlement programs was not enough. Her solution seemed to be to allow an unencumbered market place to drive the economy.
Yet, she did not acknowledge that out-of-control risk takers on Wall Street drove the economy off the cliff in 2008. Nor did she allude to lack of regulations caused the housing market to collapse a year earlier when lenders approved loans to people who couldn’t afford to buy homes.
At the beginning of her speech on national security issues, she slammed the Obama administration for treating the Nigerian underwear bomber of Christmas Day fame as a criminal suspect by reading him his Miranda rights as any U.S. citizen would have received. She failed to mention that the young Muslim later provided the FBI critical information about al-qaeda in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula.
It is these half-truths and complete lack of specific alternatives to our domestic policies that drive me nuts. It is one thing to criticize. It is quite another to simplify complex problems with simple solutions which in the days of Huey Long we called demagoguery.
Palin and the Tea Party people are rightfully upset with the direction they see the Obama administration taking America. They implement God and the Constitution to their own means and always create a strawman to rally against. To wit: The Democrats have stolen the freedoms of our future generations by creating an unsustainable debt.
If Palin and the Tea Partyists can prove their assertion that only low taxes and limited government are the answers to all which beset us, I will join them. Unfortunately, history is not on their side and I am too old to see that day come true.
25 Responses to “Tea Party To Palin: ‘Run, Sarah, Run’”
“It is quite another to simplify complex problems with simple solutions which in the days of Huey Long we called demagoguery.”
Was it okay when Obama bashed Bush during his campaign, and was all nicey-smiley and promised everyone rainbows and ponies, and continues engaging in such campaigning now, two years later?
“What struck me was the complete absence of any specifics to cut federal spending.”
She can start by cutting back the funding the federal government provides to Alaska, which is way more than Alaska sends in taxes. After all, Alaska has a wealth of natural resources and Alaskans do receive money from the government. This practice can stop.
I am definitely not a Palin supporter, and I agree that much of her speech was based on half-truths and slogans, but I have to partially defend her on this point:
“Yet, she did not acknowledge that out-of-control risk takers on Wall Street drove the economy off the cliff in 2008. Nor did she allude to lack of regulations caused the housing market to collapse a year earlier when lenders approved loans to people who couldn’t afford to buy homes.”
She did say that the bankers who caused the crisis should have lost their jobs, and in criticizing the bank bailout, she implied that those banks should have been allowed to go under. So I think that's a consistent free-market position. Free marketers would not argue that deregulation would always avert recessions. Rather, they would argue that recessions are a self-correcting mechanism of the market, and that the best thing to do is the let those who made bad decisions suffer the consequence of them in order to discourage such risky decisions.
Now, I don't fully support that position. Although I am generally a free market supporter, I do recognize that it has some downsides and that there are ways in which the government should be involved in order to minimize those downsides. So, I'm not saying I agree with Palin on this, but I do sympathize with the tea-party position on that issue. It is consistent and principled, even if over-simplified.
“Hopey changey thing”? Fine, Sarah, I get the shtick, actually had a chuckle on that one. Now, how about some meat on foreign policy? Any intellectual growth in that department since your abysmal interview with Katie Couric? Nope, didn't think so.
“complete absence of any specifics to cut federal spending”
Why not start with pay cuts and a demand the President and VP work for $1 a year?
Actually, that would be kind of gimmicky, but would be at least a start.
(I would like to see layoffs in the federal bureaucracy and perhaps a 10-20 per cent pay reduction for those who remain.)
“Now, how about some meat on foreign policy?”
Exactly what should we be prepared to do with Iran? She could tell us without revealing “sources and methods” and too many specifics.
She is a lightweight piece of political fluff, a political amuse bouche – a whimsical distraction to enjoy before the real presidential race begins, but of no real substance.
I WILL LIVE FOR AND DIE FOR THE PEOPLE -Sarah Palin National Tea Party Convention.
Palin did an excellent job building the Tea Party movement with her speech. That was her job. She enunciated broad principles of conservativism and libertarianism which motivate those increasingly involved and laid out pitfalls to be avoided, addressing the role of the Tea Partiers as a force which should work with both parties while being beholden to neither. She also contrasted the philosophy of the Tea Party as it takes shape with that of current government, putting particular emphasis on the weakness of Obama, the lack of transparency, and lack of results he has achieved to date.
She made not a single gaffe — no fifty seven states, no lies about T-shirted cancer victims unable to afford mammograms, no warnings to people not to ride on subways or not to go to Los Vegas — while speaking from the heart and apparently not using a teleprompter.
The audience at the convention was thrilled and inspired, as no doubt were many at home. She was carried live on Fox and MSNBC, CSpan, and live blogged extensively as well.
Oh yeah, and she wasn't very specific on some items. Unlike most political figures who lay out detailed specific plans at the first convention ever of a party, and 3 years ahead of an election they may or may not run in. Insert eye roll here and please pass the sour grapes.
If she runs, I hope it's FOR THE DOOR!! Maybe this Dodo bird can jump off her front porch and fly to Russia! LOL.
She says she would die for the good of the people. At least she actually knows what would be best for the people.
She must not have any more power. She endangers the entire nation.
Maybe they should form their own party? Like a real political party. Break away from the Reps completely and stand on an actual platform for people to see. I am guessing they could gather around 20% of the voting population. That is more than enough to form a viable political party.
I think they are all nuts. I really do. I find Palin and Huckabee to be frankly quite frightening. That doesn't change the fact that we need more parties. We need radicals on both sides to split away from the mainstream so we can so who they really are…understand what they really believe. Right now Huck and Palin can hide behind their “R”s. They need to be exposed….just as the people on the far left need to be exposed.
She was already a governor. If she wanted to help “people” then why did she quit being governor of Alaska? She had a wonderful opportunity to show the world how she can help “people” as the state executive of Alaska. She could have built more experience, and, displayed he leadership skills. Instead she bailed out early for a spot on Fox Cable News. In reality, she don’t give a flip for “people”, that’s just crapola. She’s just another wave the flag up your rear republican politician that has no clue.
Sarah Palin giving up the President's salary for $1 per year? THAT I'd have to see – and then I would probably not believe it.
And who would those people be?
Names & Organizations please…
MoveOn .org
Americans United for Change
And countless socialist groups across the nation that we don't hear much about because they don't have a Fox News type entity promoting them.
You really don't believe that Code Pink is the only group of crazies on the far left?
Socialist?
Social democrats, if you please.
That's your definition of far left?
Code Pink? An antiwar organization whose claim to fame is bad theater… Is that the best you can come up with?
Names Please? Not some faceless boogie man of your imagination…
“Social democrats, if you please.”
That is, democratic socialists, advocates of democratic socialism (which what “social democracy” is).
“Sarah Palin giving up the President's salary for $1 per year?”
If she's ever elected, that is — she can follow Obama and Biden, who are overdue for this.
(They'd rather not, and they are doing window dressing with their top people. Meanwhile, more money than ever is being dumped into their pet GM, or planned to be, if the “bank fee” can be made into law.)
Note that once again, Palin isn't the big deal, but her critics and the nature of so many of her critics.
“while speaking from the heart and apparently not using a teleprompter.”
And it was indeed apparent that she was not using one. I wish she had been. It was cringe-worthy how many times she lost her place and had to ad-lib–awkwardly as she is prone to do. Not to mention she was speaking way too fast. I don't blame her for being a little nervous and/or anxious about the speech, given the amount of attention it was getting and what it could mean for her political future. I'd rather judge her on the content of the speech (which I had problems with as well). But it is ironic that in the very same speech that she criticizes Obama for using a teleprompter, she demonstrates that she needs one as well.
I don't blame her for being a little nervous
She wasn't even nervous enough that her palms sweat. Huffpo proved that beyond a doubt.
OK, then she's just not that good of a public speaker. I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Thinking moveon isn't far left is about as blind as thinking FoxNews is fair and honest.
There are socialist political groups in the US. Just google it. Try source watch. I'm on my PDA and don't feel like doing it.
She's such a poor speaker that 90% of the newscasters and commentators, left and right, were hanging on every word and every major network gave her live coverage. Bloggers live blogged across the political spectrum. And reactions to the speech, pro and con, immediately filled up half the page on Memeorandum.
You know what else filled up memeorandum, little pedant?
Palin quitting on Alaska.
Janet Jackson's nipple.
Obama's nobel price.
The death of Michael Jackson.
All of the above are pretty dumb debacles, given horribly inflated weight by the disgusting morons that constitute American polity.
You honestly think that the amount of attention a person is given is indicative of their worth and merit? In America? Seriously? In that case, don't fear death – look forward to it, even if hell is your destination, because life is seriously a horrible curse when spent inside your mind.