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#100726 by CraigMaxim
Sun Feb 14, 2010 6:05 pm
GLENJ wrote:Craig, Ryan, Haley, thanx for trying to explain simple economics. That is the underlying problem that is not understood.



I agree brother.


GLENJ wrote:Craig , you are so eloquent in the way you explain positions, and you do it with so much truth, I have tremendous respect for you and even when I don't agree totally with your position, you always bring extremely valid arguments and truthfull history.




Thank you Glen.



GLENJ wrote:What bothers me the most, is hearing people screaming for help from big govt,some of these people are looking for their own personal bailout from the govt.




Sadly, it's human nature, to covet what others have created for themselves, rather than expend their own work, sacrifice and creativity to replicate a similar success for themselves!

It's jealously!

Anyone familiar with going to the beach in the Summer?

There were the kids that worked for hours to build a huge and intricate sand castle, laboring meticulously to create it. And then there were the other kids, that just watched them, and waited for them to leave, and immediately ran over and jumped on it, and destroyed it.

Some people choose to be CREATORS and others choose to be THIEVES or DESTROYERS, who either take or destroy the work of others, rather than construct their own creations.


#100730 by J-HALEY
Sun Feb 14, 2010 6:46 pm
I have said that for years Craig, it is not a matter of if, simply a matter of when a terrorist organization smuggles a nuke across the Texas border and detonates it in a major metropolitan city. IMO when they do our borders will be SHUT DOWN and no one will get across them. Whomever is the President at the time his career will be over for not secureing the borders. When this happens there WILL be some areas of desert around the world that will be turned to glass. I hope and pray it never happens. I am not going to stick my head in the sand it is a real possibility though.

Shredd, I like the Strat single coil pickups they have that real bluesy sound and that is what I like in the middle and neck positions I am a HSS kind of guy. But I am not that knowledgable about that.
Shredd, What in your opinion are good tubes that will give me the best sound In that amp? I really like the Marshall tube sound. My amp is a Crate V32 Palomino. Leave it to a Texan to buy an amp that sounds like a horse LMAO! The last time I changed my tubes they were becoming microphonic so I have heard that sound. Any advise that can be offered would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

#100738 by philbymon
Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:51 pm
I'm sorry, but I'm laughing, really laughing, out here in the sticks of WV, Craig.

Palin is a "force?" Not from what I've heard & read. A very large percentage of Republicans want nothing at all to do with lil Miss Palin, & she stands to "force" a split in the party in ways that may rival no other inner-party rift. She's most likely gonna be a FARCE to deal with. LMAO

The governor's control of the National Guard has little to nothing to do with issues of national security, Craig, thier power covers the Guard's use within the state only, in times of disaster.

Now I'll admit that Alaska could well be a point of attack by either Russia or N Korea, but a Russian attack has become a moot point since the fall of the USSR. Much more likely is the fact that Alaska's missile silos & planes could stop aerial attacks from either of these places, but the state's governor would still have NO SAY in thier deployment, as that would be a military issue, under the control of the pres.

Work on those facts!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the economy -

I never said that the American ppl had no blame for the current state of affairs, but I maintain that Reagan's deregulation of the banks was the turning point that led to our present disastrous economic woes. With the deregulization came all of those wonderful ads encouraging ppl to put themselves ever deeper in debt, cuz it was a boom time, with nothing but moonbeams & rainbows in our future. Ppl bought into it, at thier financial peril.

As far as WalMart enslaving you...uh...yes, when they & K-Mart & Target are the only stores left, they can charge whatever they want. Watch & see what happens in the near future with prices in these stores. The neighborhood grocery won't be able to help you when that time comes, cuz these superstores will have ALL the buying power, & your lil grocer won't be able to buy a thing.

It's already happened with gasoline. When was the last time you heard of a new gas company coming onto the scene? No one can break into that market, cuz it's been bought out by a mere handful of huge thuggish companies.

Yeah, Craig, I live in a free market, cuz I can choose to buy at Lowes or Home Depot or 84 Lumber. I can choose between WalMart, K-Mart & Target. I can buy Exxon or Citco or Shell gas. It really doesn't bother you that these are the only choices we're gonna be left with, very soon, if the current trend continues? Even local grocery stores are closing up shop, since these items are now covered in the superstores, which had previously kept to the 5 & dime paradigm. Competition is becomeing a thing of the past when you have 3 companies controlling the entire market, Craig. Don't even tell me there aren't anti-trust issues in thier pricing schemes.

You can blame the unions for the fall of the American car manufacturers all you want, but the largest part of the blame belongs to the corporate heads who had no grasp of what the American public wanted (or the foreign market, either). They continued to make thier behemoths long after the public's needs went the other way, probably due to all of thier own propagandas that we lived in boomy times & everything was just peachy.

We used to have 5 major car companies - GM, Ford, Chrysler, American Motors & Jeep. After the fall of Am Motors & the absorbtion of Jeep, Chrysler went under. Three decades later & GM & Chrysler are both failing again. The problems these co's have continually had is simply the failure to provide what the public wants & needs. The current Toyota problem is the best thing that ever happened for any of the American manufacturers, though, & they may be able to rebuild, but only if they pay attention to market trends rather than to try to create them, as they were able to do in the past.

The unions had little to do with the fall of the American car co. They weren't the ones who designed the things, they just made things a bit too fair for the workers, sometimes.

Overall, there is stil a need for unions, though, as long as they don't get too big for thier britches. Ppl need protection from thier employers.

I can hear you now - "no one makes you work there, Philby." That's true, but these days, "working there" is about the only place you'll be working, cuz there ain't nothing else out there but retail & fast food for minimum wage, since Reagan started that wonderful trend where we ship all the unskilled work, & much of the skilled, abroad.

If you care to look at how the very wealthy made thier money, most often it was in crime & unfair business practices. Yes, they were "hard-working" folk, but they were ruthlessly adept at making money at the expense of others. This is especially true if you delve into the backgrounds of the Rockefellers & thier ilk. Ppl are still trying to do that today, too, by bypassing the drug laws, making liquor in stills in the woods, pirating music & movies, knock-off designer jeans & such.

The honest ways are not the tried & true way to "make it" in this country. Even someone like Bill Gates stole his windows ideas from Steve Jobs, who he worked with.

I don't necessarily want to be filthy rich, Craig, but I would like the opportunity to live as well as my parents did, or hell, even as well as I did 30 years ago! But that's rapidly becoming impossible...

#100747 by ANGELSSHOTGUN
Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:41 pm
PASS IT ON DOWN THE LINE. When washington announced a whole new set of fees to be imposed on the banking industry, Wall Street hammered that sector of the market. Then they reversed because the banks said that any new tax would just be passed on to every little guy out there ,you and me and another 300 million little guy Americans. New tax ,just pass it on down the line.
My personal small business, the state of NY has raised my DMV fees,sales tax registration fees, hazmat registration fees, A NEW and RETROACTIVE[this is very scary]MTA tax, [They want money from previous tax periods ,THINK ABOUT THAT],on the local level property taxes are up for me another $1000 food prices are up ,cigarette taxes are out of sight.
I hate to say it but all this extra cost has to come from somewhere,Parts cost have doubled and tripled. I can't absorb all that I HAVE TO PASS ON DOWN THE LINE.
I really like to be able to pay it foward,many times we have just fogiven debts for $500 $1000 $1500 and tried to help some of these older people that are getting wiped out.
Its not just the feds ,its govt at all levels including school boards. If we could stop the corruption and waste we might be suprised how wealthy America truly is,and how much money is available to PAY IT FOWARD.
Phil you are actually living large right now, you and I are just paying off our parents debt,wait till your grandkids get the bill for all the waste going on now.
PS It is still a great idea that you have, You are going to have to push it though, sell it, make it work, and show people the light. I know you can do it , good luck at open mic night.

#100751 by philbymon
Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:48 pm
They'll hafta arrest me, Glen. I will NEVER pay a retroactive tax! I'll find a way to work completely under the table until they catch me & imprison me, cuz I'll physically fight them with every fiber of my being. That is not just scary. That is unconscionable! I can think of few things that are so unAmerican for any local or state or federal gov't to do. My god it IS time for a few tea parties, isn't it?

Taxing isn't the only thing needed for corporations, Glan, Thier new-found rights (that they've been doing all along) of buying thier candidates of choice need to be nipped in the rather large bloom, since it's far too late to catch it at the bud stage!

These outfits also need to be charged a fee for using temporary workers, & watched very closely for employee abuses.

Every co that has more than 50-100 workers & uses part-time help or temporary help to avoid giving those workers bennies should be taxed heavily for putting extra burdons on the workers & the public, should the fair health care thingie go through. That crap needs to be stopped.

There need to be watchdogs in place to stop the trusts, like the gas co's who charge extra when it isn't warranted, just to take our hard-earned dollars when we need it.

Prisons need to be under gov't charge, NOT private firms. The gov't's laws were what was broken, & we need it to handle things without putting extra monies into the private sector, who work for profit instead of rehabilitation & punishment.

There need to be watchdogs to make sure that businesses aren't using tactics like taking a short-term loss to eradicate thier competition, as Lowes, WalMart, & many others have done.

Ppl need these protections. Small businesses need these protections.

Small business is what thos country was founded on, & it needs to be protected from the hugs corps, or we'll lose wharever freedom we have to work for ourselves without being priced out of existence, only to have the prices re-apploed as soon as we are out of the picture.

#100773 by Kramerguy
Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:45 am
Ryan_Strain wrote:
Kramerguy wrote:Like I said in another thread- I'm done with the political crap here. It's a buzzkill to say the least. I'm in a good place right now and don't need it bringing me down.


Be smarter and you wouldn't have this problem...


You truly have no class Ryan. None.

#100776 by Ryan_Strain
Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:30 am
Kramerguy wrote:
Ryan_Strain wrote:
Kramerguy wrote:Like I said in another thread- I'm done with the political crap here. It's a buzzkill to say the least. I'm in a good place right now and don't need it bringing me down.


Be smarter and you wouldn't have this problem...


You truly have no class Ryan. None.


No, I just have no respect for people like you.

#100780 by Kramerguy
Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:40 am
Ryan_Strain wrote:
Kramerguy wrote:
Ryan_Strain wrote:
Kramerguy wrote:Like I said in another thread- I'm done with the political crap here. It's a buzzkill to say the least. I'm in a good place right now and don't need it bringing me down.


Be smarter and you wouldn't have this problem...


You truly have no class Ryan. None.


No, I just have no respect for people like you.


I have no idea what I ever did to you, but you clearly have a chip on your shoulder. Get over it, get over yourself. Seriously, grow up.

#100872 by Shredd6
Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:26 pm
Sorry Jeff, I didn't see that you had more to ask. If you could contact me on Facebook it would be easier. This kind of advice is more of an individual thing. My facebook page is facebook.com/shred

Not every amp is the same, this kind of advice shouldn't be given in general. I only advise NOS tubes. Once we're done, you'll understand why.

#100898 by CraigMaxim
Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:35 pm
philbymon wrote:
Palin is a "force?" Not from what I've heard & read.




The Atlantic
POLITICS
Feb 9 2010
by Marc Ambinder

Getting Sarah Palin's Paradigm


"If the primaries were this year, I suspect she'd be nominated," a senior adviser to one of Sarah Palin's potential rivals confides. It's easy to see why: no one who's thinking of running beats the enthusiasm she generates among Republican activists. But there is more to the case for Palin than just the confluence of her personality and a vacuum within the Republican Party: there is a method to her management of her public image. It strongly hints that she has pretty much decided to run for president in 2012, unless something knocks her out of the race; it is more organized and structured that it appears; and it is something that Republican insiders, in particular, will ignore at their peril.

Next week, Palin will be a VIP guest of honor at the Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona 500. She'll walk among the campers and RVs set up infield. This summer, she's agreed to speak at an international bowling expo. In April, in Las Vegas, Palin will keynote the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers Convention at Caesar's Palace. She will make choices in Republican primaries -- she campaigned Sunday with Rick Perry, bearing a "Hi mom!" on her palm -- more on that in a bit -- and an eloquent jab at the President: "'We will proudly cling to our guns and our religion."


Palin, writes Jonathan Raban in an excellent essay in the New York Review of Books, has an "exceptionally canny political instinct for connecting with her own kind." It has been noted that her conservatism is resentment-based, and is fueled and nourished by the specter of elite mistreatment. (Palin is savvy enough to tease back.) But it is more than that. More than a list of grievances, Palin mixes Nixonian derision for those who think they know better with an aspirational dimension that motivates the middle class to vote. Out of the tony leagues of Washington and New York, she is -- well, an Idahoan by birth, an exurbanite mother, able to expurgate the Republican Party of its own cosmopolitan tendencies. (This is one reason why the McCain campaign could not tend to her.) She is, as my friend @thetonylee says, "a hybrid of Nixon and Buchanan."

The only presidential candidate who is able to put the boots to Obama and get away with it. What's she running for? Not the question. What's she running against? Not just Rockefeller Republicanism and the media, or pointy-headed law lecturer presidents, or Katie Couric: she wants to relitigate a bunch of issues that once were settled but now seem to be unraveling. The unrestricted embrace of immigration and the dilution of an American culture. Overweening Greenism. A complicated socially engineered tax code. A much larger role for government (embraced by the president who said that the era of Big Government Was Over and his successor, who was a Republican). The rule of experts. Even the concept of bipartisanship itself.

In Searching for Whitopia, Rich Benjamin defines of a geo-racial balkanization that gives Palin-like candidates a natural base: towns like Couer d'Alene Idaho, with a "diversified economic base," a pro-business regulatory environment, a commitment to "quality of life" issues, and -- a 95% ethnic homogeneity. Coeur D'Aleners were migrants from the California of the 1990s; they live now in Colorado and the suburbs of Phoenix and are slowly pushing their way around the Sunbelt. Benjamin notes the "cultural, ancestral and implicitly racial" bond to their communities. The new residents come looking for land and living space; the long-time residents just want as little disruption as possible. Right now, there is enormous disruption. It is the same disruption that Democrats believe redounds to their benefit; depressed wages, exotic financial deals, government spending cuts (which feeds the disruption), what one Palin watcher calls the "downstream effects" of a country that has lived beyond its means for 60 years.

George W. Bush never spoke this language. He was an evangelical convert, more influenced by his advisers Catholicism than by, say, Palin's Assembly of God charismatics. She is pure in ways the rich son of Connecticut could never dream of.

These simple folk of Idaho aren't so simple. They get their news from talk radio and new media; and Palin speaks in 140-word epigrams: fragments that are icky to the ears of more polished speakers but convey meta-data -- she understands this. What's most appealing about Palin to these exurbanites, I think, is that the big Elite Crucible tore her apart -- and she rose again, stood up, straightened her dress, and is now confronting her tormentors. When it was pointed out that Palin had scribbled some policy points on to her hand during the Tea Party Q and A, she was widely mocked. The next day, Palin wrote "Hi Mom!" on her palm. Palin doesn't like to be mocked, but she doesn't like to be beaten, either.

Not a single other Republican presidential candidate can build a crowd like Palin, can run against something like Palin (be it Washington, the media, the McCain campaign or Obama); no one speaks to the resentment/aspirational conservatives like she does; no one's life has better exemplified the way they perceive their struggle against the elite. We like to think about presidential primaries in paradigms, but candidates who fit with the times often find ways to completely subvert established paradigms.

#100902 by jimmydanger
Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:02 pm
Test the nation, Sarah Palin, and run for president

BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Dear Sarah Palin:

I hear you're pondering a run for the White House in 2012. Last week, you told Fox news it would be "absurd" to rule it out.
I'm writing to ask that you rule it in. I very badly want you to run for -- and win -- the Republican nomination for the presidency.
Maybe you figure I think you'd be a weak candidate who would pave the way for President Barack Obama's easy re-election. That's not it. No, I want you to run because I believe a Palin candidacy would force upon this country a desperately needed moment of truth. It would require us to decide finally what kind of America we want to be.
Mrs. Palin, you are an avatar of the shameless hypocrisy and cognitive disconnection that have driven our politics for the last decade, a process of stupidification creeping like kudzu over our national life.
As Exhibit A, consider your speech at a so-called Tea Party event, wherein you dismissed the president as a "charismatic guy with a TelePrompTer." Bad enough you imply that TelePrompTer use is the mark of an insubstantial man, even though you and every other major politician use them. But what made the comment truly jaw-dropping is that even as you spoke, you had penned on your left palm, clearly visible, a series of crib notes.
Mrs. Palin, if Obama is an idiot for reading a prepared speech off a TelePrompTer, what are you for reading notes you've inked on your hand like a school kid who failed to study for the big test?
In the Fox interview, you scored Obama for supposedly expecting Americans to "sit down and shut up" and accept his policies. But when asked when the president has ever said that, you couldn't answer. Obama, you sputtered, has just been condescending with his "general persona."
I found that a telling moment. See, ultimately what you represent is not conservatism. No, you represent the latest iteration of an anti-intellectualism that periodically rises in the American character. There is, historically and persistently, a belief in us that y'all just can't trust nobody who acts too smart or talks too good -- in other words, somebody whose "general persona" indicates they may have once cracked a book or had a thought. Americans tend to believe common sense the exclusive province of humble folks without sheepskins on the wall or big words in their vocabularies.

#100903 by CraigMaxim
Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:10 pm


The Washington Post
Analysis
Can Sarah Palin translate celebrity into real political power?


Image


By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 14, 2010


Sarah Palin has proved that she can draw a crowd. What she has yet to demonstrate is that she can translate the appeal of a phenomenon into a political force that can attract or mobilize sizable numbers of voters.

The former Alaska governor is the Republican Party's biggest celebrity. She has given voice to a grass-roots movement grounded in anger with Washington and President Obama's policies. But her political future remains in question. Is she presidential timber? A force only within the Republican Party? A protest candidate like George Wallace (minus the racial divisiveness) or Ross Perot?

"Sarah Palin will have to choose to be either the leader of a movement or the leader of a nation. She can't be both," said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. "Right now, she is a figure like [George] McGovern or [Barry] Goldwater, two candidates who led the most intense movements in our country's political history, but who couldn't win the middle."

If Palin harbors presidential ambitions, she has a huge mountain to climb. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 71 percent of Americans do not think the politician who was Sen. John McCain's running mate in 2008 is qualified to be president.

Those numbers are so daunting that some Republicans who otherwise admire what she has accomplished doubt that she will run in 2012. Others say that unless she can transform attitudes dramatically, she cannot hope to win a general election. Still, GOP strategist Phil Musser said, "if she ran for president today, she would be the Republican nominee."

Musser's comments are notable because he is an adviser to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), who is eyeing a 2012 candidacy of his own. Palin's political future remains "very much an open question," Musser said, "but the intensity that she brought to the ticket in 2008 hasn't faded, and one could argue that perhaps it's been enhanced."


A media magnet


The news media clearly cannot get enough of Palin. Her speech to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville last weekend was carried live by the three major cable news channels. Her declaration the next morning on "Fox News Sunday" that she would not close the door to a 2012 campaign drew headlines everywhere, even though it did not represent a significant change in her position.


But she is more than catnip for the press and blogs. The tea party convention crowd gave her a rousing reception. The next day she drew about 8,000 people in a campaign appearance for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is in a high-stakes Republican primary race against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Perry adviser David Carney said that Palin's appearance was "the largest Republican primary event in the history of the state" and that the audience was built "without one dime of ads, mail or phone calls, just through social media, e-mails and the earned media off of that." Across the state, he said, "the coverage was wall to wall."

That she is a force within the party is indisputable, but her power is not easily quantifiable. She has taken sides in several GOP primaries -- in Texas, Kentucky, Arizona (for McCain) -- but how much those endorsements have meant in extra support isn't clear from the polls.

Democrats regard Palin as mostly a Republican problem, someone capable of throwing the Washington political community into a lather with a Facebook posting or a tweet, but not yet a credible potential presidential candidate or leader of a broad-based opposition. They also think her embrace of the tea party movement is as risky as it is beneficial for the GOP because it puts the party too much on the side of anger and could turn off middle-of-the-road voters who want more bipartisan cooperation.

Palin has many detractors, even within the GOP. They deride the content of her tea party speech as being long on grievance but short on substance. They mock her for the notes scribbled on her palm during that appearance and what they see as inconsistencies in her statements.

But as one GOP strategist, who declined to be identified in order to speak more freely about her, put it, "Palin has a following that is thoroughly uninterested in experiences on issues and instead is completely motivated by attributes. They'll take her authenticity over her ideas every day of the week."

"No matter what she does, she has an important role in the Republican Party," said Fred Malek, who has advised Palin over many months. "She relates to and embraces the grass roots in a way nobody else does."

For those thinking of running for the GOP nomination in 2012, Palin's presence must be noted but not engaged politically or substantively. "To do anything, to go out and challenge her, just does not make any sense right now," said another Republican strategist who is advising a prospective 2012 candidate. The risk, this strategist said, is that a candidate could alienate voters who, if Palin does not run, will be looking for someone else. "And it's clear she holds a grudge and doesn't forget it," he said.

But the others should be paying close attention, Castellanos said. "Mitt Romney, Pawlenty and every other Republican contender ought to be worried," he said. "An authentic, populist voice has emerged as the anti-Obama and that voice doesn't belong to the Republican establishment. It belongs to Sarah Palin."


Expanded political team


Since leaving the governorship last summer, Palin has taken steps to expand her political operation, which was derided even by those in the Republican Party as thin and inexperienced.

Tim Crawford, who has been working in GOP politics for 30 years, serves as the treasurer of her political action committee. Others who are helping include Randy Scheunemann, who offers foreign policy advice as he did during her vice presidential campaign. Longtime adviser Meg Stapleton continues to serve as principal liaison to the news media.

Palin told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace that she receives a daily e-mail from advisers outlining domestic and international developments. Asked by Wallace if she is more knowledgeable about domestic and foreign affairs now than she was two years ago, she replied: "Well, I would hope so. Yes, I am."

Those in Palin's circle said there is no single person to whom she turns most often for advice. There is no Karl Rove to George W. Bush, or Lee Atwater to Bush's father. "It's not like there's this last person she talks to before she goes to bed to get her marching orders," said one person knowledgeable about her operation who declined to be identified in order to share information. "It's her instincts and her thinking that's driving this."


Palin continues to express surprise to some of those close to her about the attention she attracts, most recently her tea party convention experience. But she is keenly aware, they say, of the poll numbers that show her as unelectable in a general election at this point.

Where there is disagreement is in reading between the lines of her recent activities to discern whether there is a budding candidacy in the works or the playing out of something that has brought Palin national celebrity and commercial success.

Some strategists see her efforts as intended to make sure that the door to a candidacy remains open until she is ready to make the decision. Others interviewed for this story think she is not doing all she can or should to develop relationships in key states, either during her book tour or on other travel. "When she was on her book tour, people wanted to meet with her, but she didn't do any of that," said one person who has been watching her closely.

A recent Gallup poll showed a wide-open race for the Republican nomination in 2012. Asked to name their preferred candidate, 14 percent of Republicans named Romney; 11 percent said Palin. But 42 percent offered no opinion, and the rest were scattered among a slew of other candidates.

As for the widespread lack of confidence in her ability to be president, one adviser said Palin has time to turn that around if she decides she wants to run in 2012. Another Republican said that if she chooses not to run, she can play an influential role in determining who wins.

For now, she remains the Wasilla-based mother who is rapidly becoming the embodiment of the anger and disenchantment that has been rising since Obama took office. As good as that might make people feel, that is far from a willingness to entrust their futures, and the country's, to her.

"Her challenge is to fill in the substantive blanks in a way that demonstrates that capacity, without losing her uniqueness and her role as provocateur," said Tom Rath, a GOP strategist who has been part of Romney's political team. "Not easy."

#100904 by CraigMaxim
Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:16 pm


The Huffington Post
Taylor Marsh
Political analyst, commentator, with foreign policy focus
February 12, 2010

Underestimating Sarah


Image

Robert Gibbs pokes fun at Sarah Palin from his presidential podium. Giving a high profile dig to someone not in office, running for any office, or having any official role anywhere in the country. That's a lot of attention for someone who supposedly doesn't matter. The White House getting a little sloppy with their arrogance. It's not like Sarah's viability has spiked. A new ABC/Washington Post poll finds her unfavorable numbers at 55%, with her support among Republicans down. But then again, Gibb's boss is tied with a generic Republican in the latest Gallup poll. Okay, so "generic" doesn't mean a whole lot, but who would have bet that Obama would be that close to Republicans in a match up this time last year? While the DNC makes money off of Sarah's wink. There is no one who fits the mood or the times or fills the current political vacuum better than Sarah Palin. There has also never been anyone as electric on the right since Ronald Reagan. That's a lot of star power for someone whose adversaries are spending a whole lot of time talking about her irrelevance.

David Broder even weighed in sending a rhetorical wink to the GOP establishment to let them know at least he's taking her seriously. "She's good," the dean of Washington swooned.

The Tea Party crowd thinks so, too. Oh, and by the way, in South Carolina, the GOP and the Tea Partiers have joined forces, just like Sarah said they should.

While liberals continue to delight in using everything Sarah as a punching bag.

Matt Lattimer reminds us of recent history:

"No actor can be elected president." "No First Lady can win a Senate seat in a state where she never lived." "No one-term senator can defeat Hillary Clinton."

There are plenty more opportunities to prove those in the know wrong.

Let's just say Palin's preparing her way and intends to be ready, because she has no intention of letting the Establishment ruin her party like what happened to Hillary, because Mrs. Clinton actually was the establishment candidate or so she thought.

Marc Ambinder wrote a very interesting post earlier this week about the devilish prowess of Sarah Palin:

Next week, Palin will be a VIP guest of honor at the Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona 500. She'll walk among the campers and RVs set up infield. This summer, she's agreed to speak at an international bowling expo. In April, in Las Vegas, Palin will keynote the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers Convention at Caesar's Palace. She will make choices in Republican primaries -- she campaigned Sunday with Rick Perry, bearing a "Hi mom!" on her palm -- more on that in a bit -- and an eloquent jab at the President: "'We will proudly cling to our guns and our religion."

[...] "If the primaries were this year, I suspect she'd be nominated," a senior adviser to one of Sarah Palin's potential rivals confides. It's easy to see why: no one who's thinking of running beats the enthusiasm she generates among Republican activists. But there is more to the case for Palin than just the confluence of her personality and a vacuum within the Republican Party: there is a method to her management of her public image. It strongly hints that she has pretty much decided to run for president in 2012, unless something knocks her out of the race; it is more organized and structured that it appears; and it is something that Republican insiders, in particular, will ignore at their peril. ...
- Marc Ambinder


Mitt Romney's lack of emotional connection with voters works against him, even as the economic climate plays into his strengths. But Palin's evangelical roots have the potential to wipe him out in the primary. As for Mike Huckabee, Sarahcuda will annihilate him with negative ads on his pardons, so it remains to be seen if his current popularity can withstand her onslaught, which will be unflinchingly devastating. As Sarah Palin has no compunction about playing hard and dirty. Palin at least has her national security talking points down now, which one would assume will be the same for Romney and Huckabee (add more God), which is why Gen. David Petraeus could pop up on any Republican's short list for veep. They're long overdue for an Eisenhower like push and the timing is perfect, because the right wants to beat Obama in 2012 as bad as the left wanted to beat Bush in 2004.

As for the Republican Establishment, Sarah Palin has no intention of going the Hillary Clinton route. Palin knows they can't stand her, fear her and will stop her if she gives them a chance or waits for their nod. Something Hillary never grasped of the Senate Democrats who worked behind her back to encourage Barack Obama to run. All's fair in politics, but Hillary missed what was happening all around her. It's not that Democrats hated Hillary like the GOP Establishment does Palin, but people from Harry Reid to Ted Kennedy to Nancy Pelosi were rooting for Obama, some long before Hillary even announced, with key players offering their support to Obama in private and long before it was made official.

It's too soon to tell about Sarah and 2012, but she's not going to wait for anyone else to give her permission to run for president. She's not going to be a good little Republican and wait her turn either. Her instincts tell her, and Scott Brown's win showed her, that the mood is right for someone who can tap into that populist, old fashioned anger, topped with a lot of home spun, good old American patriotism, which she hopes will harken back to a time when America was on top in all columns, everyone was working, Detroit was selling cars, and American prestige financially was still intact. Making people feel good about her, bad about Obama, and thinking Palin populism can translate into a different type of change is job one right now.

So, Sarah plans to ride the wave of gun toting, religion clinging, angry Americans, as they were known in 2008, as far as she can, dreaming of being the first female U.S. president. Nate Silver has already handicapped the possibilities.

Besides, Hillary already prepared the way so that no woman on the national scene will ever have to go through the media gauntlet she did again.

If Democrats were smart and had a strategy, which they aren't and don't, they would go at Sarah Palin straight on, challenging her on issues and talking points, instead of ridiculing her and setting her up. Their real problem is they can't ignore her, but don't know what to do about her, simply hoping her star will eventually burn out.

There is nothing that gives the White House crew and their No One Can Beat Our Guy fans a better laugh than anyone thinking that Barack Obama would have to worry about the likes of Sarah Palin. In fact, the way the White House has been taking their sweet time on just about everything, you'd think they'd won an 8-year stint. That was assumed, right?

Sarah, her fans, and the Tea Partiers are here to let Democrats know there's a different type of change a foot and it doesn't come cloaked in an Ivy League resume, GOP Establishment credentials or the centrisy-centrism, lefty moving right sort of gaming nonsense. She's just Sarah, bringing common sense to America, something Washington sorely needs.

Palin's "pitch-perfect populism" to the rescue, as Mr. Broder called it in his column.

The Republican Establishment has to prove they've got someone better.

After all, as far as Sarah and her fans are concerned, the smart set has had their chance and they blew it.


Taylor Marsh is a political analyst out of Washington, D.C.

#100908 by philbymon
Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:37 pm
"But as one GOP strategist, who declined to be identified in order to speak more freely about her, put it, 'Palin has a following that is thoroughly uninterested in experiences on issues and instead is completely motivated by attributes. They'll take her authenticity over her ideas every day of the week.' "

LOL This man's refusal to allow his name be used clearly shows how even "GOP strategists" hafta worry about what they say about her. She's obviously being groomed for something big, but that doesn't make her any less ridiculous or irrelevent or any less of a plain old "spoiler," along the lines of Limbaugh or Beck, etc. But those are the folk who get all the attention, aren't they? Does that mean that we should put them in office?

Authenticity? LMAO!!!! No, they'll take her AUDACITY over her "ideas," cuz these are the same kinds of uneducated ppl who believe pro-wrestling is real, & NASCAR is the greatest sport ever, & Budweiser beer is the greatest beer ever brewed.

The bottom line is still that Palin has no plan. She has no substance. She's as qualified as Lady Ga Ga to run anything at all. The only thing she has going for her is her hate-filled speaches coupled with a nice ass, & there are a lot of uneducated ppl who will buy into that sort of thing every day of the week.

Yeah, perhaps she should be taken seriously, since this country has already proven how fond it is of STUPID...just look at the "leader" we entered into the new millenium with...so perhaps I AM underestimating her impact on America's fear of the educated...that's not to say that I find her relevent in any way at all, other than as a spoiler, which she is proving to be quite adept at.

I honestly believe that if she didn't wear glasses, even those stupid ppl wouldn't take her seriously!
Last edited by philbymon on Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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