Monday, February 16, 2009

How 2012 was lost

Any candidacy based on personal attributes and not political philosophy will doom the GOP.

Steve Maloney:

Recently, on my other blog, which I hope you'll visit http://draftpalin2012.blogspot.com/), I'm writing about Sarah Palin's life, especially the early years before her family moved to Wasilla. In this column, I'll be writing mainly about Barack Obama, his positive and his negatives.

I'll emphasize how much his [Obama's] life experience differ from that of Sarah. In many ways, Obama is the "affirmative action guy," because he's had so much handed to him. In Sarah's case, she scrapped and clawed for everything she got. Obama has a kind of eerie ("creepy," as a Newsweek editor called it) calmness about him. Sarah is the quintessence of toughness and resolve.

(ea) Mussolini was tough and resolved (kind of), and we know Stalin was, too. Mao might have been called that, as well. In fact, tough, resolved, and dictator usually go hand-in-hand-in-hand.

As for scrapping and clawing for everything you've got.... George Soros worked as a waiter and railway porter, and I doubt his supporters and Palin's overlap.

This isn't to single out Sarah Palin, because she does have an agenda, and it's a conservative one. But entries like the one above are multiplying and infecting the Republican party at its grass roots, like a terrible beetle that's hitched a ride from Malaysia .

Republicans will lose if they think winning is dressed in a pretty face with hollow ideology, and all too often that's what Palinites resort to. Barack Obama nearly lost thanks to his popularity's victory; so he switched into a policy-centric gear at the convention, and maintained it the rest of the way.

Will the GOP learn his lesson?