Run, Sarah, run!
Yes! I heartily
endorse this thing that is—believe it or not—not parody.
I've got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
You think I'm joking? Think again.
Wait, not a joke? Ha ha ha ha ha!
Meet me below the fold for all the great fun. It's as good as you think it's going to be.
In 2008, Palin, running as my party's vice presidential candidate, was widely supposed to have cost John McCain the election. But that wasn't so. A national exit poll conducted by CNN asked voters whether Palin was a factor in their voting. Of those who said yes, 56% voted for McCain versus 43% for Barack Obama.
The
exit poll asked of the vice-presidential candidates: "Who is qualified to be president". Guess how many said Sarah Palin?
Thirty-eight percent.
Furthermore, Mitt Romney, the GOP's anointed contender this year, got almost a million fewer votes than McCain did in 2008. (Meanwhile, President Obama, although winning reelection, lost far more voters than the Republicans, with nearly 7 million fewer voters checking his name on their ballots than did in 2008).
Someone tell this joker that they're still counting votes. As of this post, Romney is
90,000 votes behind McCain. And when the vote is fully counted, he'll have gotten marginally more votes than the GOP ticket in 2008.
Meanwhile, Obama is a little more than 5 million down, but millions of votes remain to be counted in California, while turnout fell by millions more in heavily Democratic New York and New Jersey because of Hurricane Sandy.
Millions of Americans didn't much care for Obama and his Obamacare spending blowout, but they didn't feel like voting for Romney either. Some said that Romney didn't resonate with recession-hit blue-collar folks in swing states because he "looked like the boss who outsourced their jobs," as one blog commenter quipped.
Romney didn't resonate because he was a dick. Obama won with a bigger share of the popular vote (not to mention Electoral College) than George W. Bush did in 2004. The election was a referendum on Obamacare, and the results were unambiguous.
Palin can more than keep up with the Democrats in appealing to voters' emotions. Hardly anyone could be more blue collar than Palin, out on the fishing boat with her hunky blue-collar husband, Todd. Palin is "View"-ready, she's "Ellen"-ready, she's Kelly-and-Michael-ready.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh wait, I forgot. This is supposed to be serious.
A Palin "war against women"? Hah! Not only is she a woman, she's got a single-mom daughter, Bristol, to help with the swelling single-mom demographic.
Obama won women 56-43 percent in 2008.
Chris Murphy won the women vote against Linda McMahon 60-39.
Women are smart.
On social issues, Palin, unlike Romney, has been absolutely consistent. And let's remember that most Americans, whatever their view of choice, disapprove of most abortions.
Americans disagree with Palin on choice, but they'll vote for her because she's consistent?
In any case, who cares about consistency? Certainly not GOP primary voters, as their last two nominees confirms.
Gay marriage? Palin opposes it. But she is also a strong advocate of states' rights, and I'm betting she'd be fine with letting states and their voters grapple with the issue on their own.
I'm betting she doesn't. But I like the acknowledgment that being a bigot will be a future impediment to national office.
Remember that all of America didn't swing toward approval of gay marriage on Nov. 6. Three reliably blue states and their voters did.
Nah, it's
all of America, actually. And
four states endorsed equality at the ballot box.
If she were smart, Palin would recruit a member of her impressive gay fanboy base — yes, she has one — to help run her campaign. I nominate Kevin DuJan of the widely read gay conservative blog HillBuzz, a Palin stalwart since 2008.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh wait, this isn't a joke.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Palin's son Track is an Iraq war veteran, so she can be proudly patriotic without being labeled another George W. Bush, looking to do aggressive nation-building.
Textbook definition of
non-sequitor.
Furthermore, looks count in politics, and Palin at age 48, has it all over her possible competition, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will be 69 by election day 2016 and who let someone talk her into adopting the flowing blond locks of a college student, making her look like Brunnhilde in a small-town Wagner production. Men love Sarah Palin, and she loves men.
Who looks more presidential. Sarah?
Or Hillary?
Not even remotely close.
She's tough as nails too. After Election 2008, she was supposed to have been through. This year eight of the 14 GOP candidates Palin endorsed for Congress won election or reelection, including tea party favorite Ted Cruz for a Senate seat in Texas.
Remember when she quit the Alaska governorship because it was too hard or something? Tough as nails!
Sure, there is going to be never-ending nastiness from the left, but she's already lived through that once. Katie Couric? A has-been. Tina Fey? Her shtick was already wearing thin in 2008.
With Palin's only two foes vanquished, it's smooth sailing ahead! That is, until the next "liberal media" personality asks Palin a "gotcha" question like, "what do you read?"
There are also the snooty East Coast Republican intellectual types, such as Peggy Noonan, who look down their noses at a woman who doesn't shop at Neiman Marcus and didn't attend an Ivy League university.
No way would Sarah be caught dead at a
Neiman Marcus!
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
Maybe she's thinking of a different Sarah Palin? Back to the column:
But Peggy made a fool of herself calling the election for Romney on Nov. 5. Who's going to care what she and her ilk have to say next time?
Awesome! So we can safely dismiss any conservative commentator who called the election for Romney? In other words, all of them?
Some Republicans will say Palin has too much baggage from 2008, and we need to look for a new Sarah Palin.
Those Republicans are stupid!
But I don't see what's wrong with the one we've got.
Me neither!
Ever since the 1990s, Republicans have been looking for the next Ronald Reagan. Reagan is now revered in bipartisan circles, but during his presidency he was, like Palin, ridiculed by liberals.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
They cited "Bedtime for Bonzo" and sneered at his no-name college degree.
We sneered at far more than that, lady. And we still do.
Sarah Palin is the new Ronald Reagan: charming and affable and unwilling to back down if she's right. I can't see what's wrong with that.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Please, by all means, don't give up on Palin! Because I certainly won't.