Tag Archives: Sarah Palin

Republican Roots

Politics, , , ,

Neal Gabler has an interesting opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times tracing the roots of modern Republican electoral success not back to Goldwater, as the story often goes, but instead to the vicious scapegoating of McCarthy.

In a way, Goldwater was less a fulfillment of McCarthy conservatism than a slight diversion from it. Goldwater was ideological — an economic individualist. He hated government more than he loved winning, and though he was certainly not above using the McCarthy appeal to resentment or accusing his opponents of socialism, he lacked McCarthy’s blood- lust. McCarthy’s real heir was Nixon, who mainstreamed McCarthyism in 1968 by substituting liberals, youth and minorities for communists and intellectuals, and fueling resentments as McCarthy had. In his 1972 reelection, playing relentlessly on those resentments, Nixon effectively disassembled the old Roosevelt coalition, peeling off Catholics, evangelicals and working-class Democrats, and changed American politics far more than Goldwater ever would.

Today, these former liberals are known as Reagan Democrats, but they were Nixon voters before they were Reagan voters, and they were McCarthy supporters before they were either. A good deal of McCarthy’s support came from Catholics and evangelical Protestants who, along with Southerners, would form the basis of the new conservative coalition. Nixon simply mastered what McCarthy had authored. You demonize the opposition and polarize the electorate to win.

Sarah Palin’s tactics in the past election fell right along these same lines, which is why many of us find her so disgusting. Still, I hope she runs in 2012 because I don’t think she has the knowledge necessary to pull off a sustained smear campaign.

Palin “Didn’t Understand Africa Was a Continent”

Politics, ,

First seen on Daily Kos (via Balloon Juice), here’s a Fox News interview reporting that Sarah Palin “didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA” and “didn’t understand Africa was a continent rather than a country just in itself.”

Here’s a partial transcript provided by Daily Kos diarist ksh01:

Smith: Now that the election is over, Carl, tell us more about those reports of infighting between Palin and McCain staffers.

Cameron: I wish I could have told you more at the time but all of it was put off the record until after the election. There was great concern in the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin lack the degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, and a heartbeat away from the presidency. We’re told by folks that she didn’t know what countries that were in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that being the Canada, the US, and Mexico. We’re told she didn’t understand that Africa was a continent rather than a country just in itself … a whole host of questions that caused serious problems about her knowledgeability. She got very angry at staff, thought that she was mishandled…..was particularly angry about the way the Katie Couric interview went. She didn’t accept preparation for that interview when the aides say that that was part of the problem. And that there were times that she was hard to control emotionally there’s talk of temper tantrums at bad news clippings……

How any can say that McCain ran a responsible campaign after hearing this is beyond me. Hopefully this kills any chance of a Palin resurgence in 2012. Apparently she really hasn’t read a newspaper, at any time, ever.

Palin Profile in the New York Times

Politics,

The New York Times continues to probe Sarah Palin’s record. The most recent profile, “Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes,” explores the governor’s history of favoring loyalty over competence in Alaska political positions. Alarmingly, there’s also a history of nontransparency, with Palin using private e-mail addresses and behind-the-scenes dealings to conceal the workings of government.

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.