I confess she [Sarah Palin] made it hard to pull the lever, but I did because I liked his [John McCain's] more liberal Republicanism. And I thought he would be a debt-fighter.But McKenzie would like Palin to run, because, he believes, she would get "waxed" -- so would the Republican Party -- which would lead to an effort to remake the party into a coalition that might hope to win a national election. McKenzie says:But after watching her for the last two years, it seems pretty clear that she's not in the big-tent category of Republicans. What's more, she is the sort of loose cannon that could really damage the party.
Yes, I know, she inspires tea partiers. I'm not here to dump on their activism. But the tea party appears to be mostly a modern version of the Republican right. There may be more of them turning out to vote this fall, but they are not necessarily expanding the reach of the GOP.McKenzies "coalition" would be composed of Latinos, center/right suburbanites, deficit hawks, and moderate evangelicals, and he reminds his readers, "Remember, Ronald Reagan built a big coalition and he did so with a sunny disposition, not a frown."
McKenzies "coalition" is hardly a big-tent. I don't see independents and moderates there. When McKenzie mentions "center/right suburbanites," one has to wonder what is considered "center," now that the right has called people like Lisa Murkowski and John McCain "liberal."
Sarah's been warned: She's going to get "waxed."
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McKenzie also says,
According to this New York Times story, Palin didn't like not (sic) Murkowski's father, who was Alaska's governor, appointing his daughter to the Senate seat he previously held. Not because Lisa Murkowski was particularly bad, but because Gov. Murkowski didn't appoint Sarah Palin, then an Alaskan mayor.
Now, I'm not an expert on Alaska's internal politics, so I don't if this story is 100 percent gospel. But it certainly tracks everything else we know about Palin. Namely, that she is good at division and appears largely in this for herself.
McKenzie saw Palin's divisiveness confirmed in the NY Times article.
The absence of a coherent conservative movement means we Republicans have become a rather weak bunch. The paranoia, eccentricity, and nostalgia once frustrated me. Now those three intellectual aberrations amuse me. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, the GOP continues to prop up Sarah Palin. That is deeply insulting to many conservatives. And asinine.
On Nov.4th, 2012, my registered Republican ass will pull the lever for Obama.
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