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A Natural Patton: How Palin Nearly Saved McCain
Posted By Kyle-Anne Shiver On November 14, 2008 @ 12:00 am In . Feature 01, . Positioning, Elections 2008, Politics, US News | 143 Comments
“Nobody ever defended anything successfully; there is only attack and attack and attack some more.”
— General George S. Patton
For all the tacky talk in media circles, where folks have extremely over-inflated opinions of themselves, one would think that Sarah Palin was the sole arbiter of Republican defeat this year.
What a pile of preposterous poppycock!
From the beginning of ‘08, the accepted wisdom was that no matter whom the Democrats nominated, they would deliver to the Republicans an ignominious defeat. But this year’s defeat was anything but the complete rout it was supposed to be.
And the person who nearly even saved the day — and the election — for Republicans was Sarah Palin.
This is not a minority opinion. When Rasmussen conducted detailed exit [1] polling among Republicans, they found that a full 69% of respondents thought Sarah Palin helped — not hurt — McCain. Governor Palin has not garnered the status as America’s most highly regarded, most popular governor for nothing.
And how much do Republicans admire Sarah Palin? Far more than anyone else on our side of the aisle, according to more Rasmussen tidbits:
Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is very favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) very unfavorable.
When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year — Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.
And just how was it that the pitbull in lipstick upset the pundits and the prognosticators this year, at least in the matter of degree?
The woman, in my opinion, is a natural Patton. A fighter to the core. Palin seems to instinctively know that when one is hip-deep in a culture war and a fight for the survival of American exceptionalism, then one must do more than defend, defend, defend.
If one is not willing to attack in defense of one’s cause, then he ought to get out of the way at the very least — or consider joining the other side.
At least that’s my paraphrase of one of the Patton doctrines.
Sarah Palin came out [2] fighting on her night in the convention spotlight. In her speech, she relied on the same line of attack that catapulted her from Wasilla mayor to governor of Alaska: plainspoken, honest convictions and a sense of humor.
And she debuted with some of the most memorable lines of this entire campaign:
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.
I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
Sarah Palin’s appeal was her willingness to fight — and fight courageously — for the American taxpayers, the ones who actually pay the bills for all that bureaucratic largess and faux generosity.
In this vein, Governor Palin not only brought [3] experience and a track [4] record; she brought conviction to the cause and a willingness to unflinchingly expose her opposition’s “love” for the poor as just another con by just another liberal pandering for votes through the promise of government handouts.
For two months, Sarah Palin traversed the country, town to town, and everywhere the lady went tens of thousands waited hours to hear her speak. When this happened with Barack Obama, he was hailed as a demigod. When it happened to Sarah Palin, she was targeted as a hate monger if anyone there got the least bit excited.
Palin wasn’t hesitant to bring up the voter fraud investigations of ACORN and make certain that her hearers understood the intimate connections between Barack Obama and ACORN [5] shenanigans. Sarah Palin, the mother of an American soldier now in Iraq, wasn’t squeamish about picking holes in Obama’s national defense priorities, even when she was [6] derided in the media for doing so. Sarah Palin wasn’t shy about [7] repeating the very, very late release of Obama’s taped admission that his energy plan would naturally “bankrupt the coal industry.”
Palin never stopped. She fought on until the final tally. Absolutely Patton style.
And the pundits, critics, and insiders can turn themselves every which way and back again, but they will not succeed in tearing this natural leader away from the nearly two-thirds majority of Republican voters who have already hailed her as the next leader in waiting.
It must have been just awful for John McCain to have been upstaged the way he was by Governor Sarah Palin. But McCain’s time is clearly past and Palin’s is just beginning.
This is my own final word on this election.
May it rest in the infamy it deserves.
This election was a triumph not of principle or workable solutions, but of pander to the greed of hosts of those who think Obama will solve their problems and pay their bills from the public trough. From start to finish, Obama ran a campaign more suitable for American Idol than the presidency of the United States, and the mainstream media were his willing enablers in hiding disturbing facts from public view. Obama-Biden outspent McCain-Palin more than four to one and still failed to deliver the knockout punch they and their media lapdogs envisioned.
But Sarah Palin still has a whole state to run, a pipeline to finish, and millions of cubic feet of natural gas to deliver to us in the lower 48.
Godspeed, Governor Palin. Until we meet again. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.
And to Election ‘08, goodbye and goodnight. Thank the Good Lord, it’s finally over.
Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-natural-patton-how-palin-nearly-saved-mccain/
URLs in this post:
[1] polling: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2012/69_of_gop_voters_say_palin_hel
ped_mccain
[2] fighting: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/20080903_PALIN_SPEECH.html
[3] experience: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288722,00.html
[4] record: http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/palin-and-pelosi-worlds-apart-in-house-cleaning-methodolo
gy/
[5] shenanigans: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/stealing_the_presidency_an_oba.html
[6] derided: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015452.php
[7] repeating: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/11/02/politics/fromtheroad/entry4564043.shtml
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