The mounting momentum of 'The Unstoppable Sarah Palin'?

Apparently some folks who don't like Sarah Palin but spend an awful lot of time tracking her online anyway read our recent item about how extraordinarily rich Sarah Palin isn't and objected to her e-mailed fund-raising link being in there. More properly that link should go to the SarahPAC site itself. So here is that link.

In yet another fund-raising e-mail to supporters Friday, Palin boasts of helping other "commonsense conservatives" with the donations from that site:

Through SarahPAC, we have been able to provide conservative candidates around the country with over $150,000 in campaign contributions. This money goes to support the campaigns of strong, conservative leaders like Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Marco Rubio of Florida, and John Kasich of Ohio.

Palin has been dismissed as a serious Republican candidate by numerous urban know-it-all's, who haven't noticed a new development in U.S. presidential politics: The last three consecutive presidents were all elected on their very first try.

Thanks to candidates' personal books (a new Palin bio for teens) and 21st century non-traditional communications media such as the Internet, YouTube, Twitter, texting and Facebook, where Palin's nearly 2 million fans can feel they're following her every move and statement at any hour, Americans have obviously become comfortable now -- for better or worse -- choosing national leaders with much shorter job resumes than in previous political history.

Like Mitt Romney and several other potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates, Palin is,....

...with only episodic media attention, methodically traveling the country making speeches and doing fund-raisers for local Republicans (see Palin above with South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley).Palin has not impressed political veterans with her staff/campaign organizational skills.

But such stops help the local candidates and party. And they energize and expand Palin's own followers, while also collecting political favors that could be called in come party primary/caucus time in 2012. Palin has chosen to position herself, down to her down-to-earth images and language, as the non-establishment, outside Washington candidate. The one who looks and sounds different from all the others, actually connected to real people.

Ask yourself, who stuck out as that kind of in-touch candidate in the 2007-08 cycle, the one who looked and sounded different from all the other talking-point talking heads in their tailored suits and pantsuits, tainted by long, seemingly unproductive years in Washington?

On this new kind of playing field, having a short political resume, no ongoing elective office, no 747-entourage and no responsibility for this current partisan, oil-stained, jobless, deficit-ridden, D.C. mess actually becomes a plus-size plus.

Speaking of the former Alaska governor, the respected Andrew Sullivan over at The Atlantic -- no fan of SP's --  headlined an interesting Friday blog item, "The Unstoppable Sarah Palin."

He was taken by a John Ellis column that describes Palin as having cleverly positioned herself as the conservative counter-revolutionary to anything and everything being done by those D.C. suits. Ellis makes a compelling argument that by this December Palin becomes the de facto GOP front-runner for 2012. He notes that the Republican base doesn't just like Palin; it loves her, especially the women.

Which brings us to Palin's latest campaign video right here. It's calibrated like a....

...rifle's telescopic sight at "commonsense conservative women" taking back control of their country and party. And it's colored with the former governor's telltale Mama Grizzly image so easily dismissed by political elites. Yet someone's watched it nearly 300,000 times in recent days.

According to Ellis' credible scenario, Palin captures, say, half the women in the opening Iowa caucuses. Add some males there and she could easily aggregate a winning 35-40%. Next up then is the primary in New Hampshire, where Romney is well-known and already investing heavily.

Then comes possibly a two-person race in South Carolina (see photo above again). That state is not known for its Mormon leanings.

None of which says anything beyond Palin positioning herself positively among Republicans to make her Go-No Go campaign decision next winter, like Romney and any others. Is Jeb Bush in the house? Whether after two more years of Democrat Barack Obama Americans at large come to feel Palin is capable of the presidency is an argument for the campaign after the '12 GOP convention.

But as hopefully far-fetched as that might seem to Palin's passionate critics, go back to this point in the previous presidential cycle, to the summer of 2006, 28 months before the 2008 election when Republicans still controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, as Democrats do now.

Who would have swooned then over the White House chances of a little-known ex-state senator who'd never even run a fishing boat?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[Saul Relative]

Andrew Sullivan, respected? By whom?

[Mark Gary Blumenthal, MD, MPH]

Sarah Palin will make a terrific talk-show host or reality-tv star. Heaven forbid she should ever get near the White House or another state house.

[RD Davis]

Liberals are SCARED of Palin because she is a CONSERVATIVE, and a DECENT human being who can rouse the electorate.

[Matthew Schramm]

Scary stuff.

[MIckeyWhite]

Marsha Blackburn Voted FOR:
Omnibus Appropriations, Special Education, Global AIDS Initiative, Job Training, Unemployment Benefits, Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, Agriculture Appropriations, U.S.-Singapore Trade, U.S.-Chile Trade, Supplemental Spending for Iraq & Afghanistan, Prescription Drug Benefit, Child Nutrition Programs, Surface Transportation, Job Training and Worker Services, Agriculture Appropriations, Foreign Aid, Vocational/Technical Training, Supplemental Appropriations, UN “Reforms.” Patriot Act Reauthorization, CAFTA, Katrina Hurricane-relief Appropriations, Head Start Funding, Line-item Rescission, Oman Trade Agreement, Military Tribunals, Electronic Surveillance, Head Start Funding, COPS Funding, Funding the REAL ID Act (National ID), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, Thought Crimes “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Peru Free Trade Agreement, Economic Stimulus, Farm Bill (Veto Override), Warrantless Searches, Employee Verification Program, Body Imaging Screening.

Marsha Blackburn Voted AGAINST:
Ban on UN Contributions, eliminate Millennium Challenge Account, WTO Withdrawal, UN Dues Decrease, Defunding the NAIS, Iran Military Operations defunding Iraq Troop Withdrawal, congress authorization of Iran Military Operations.

Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her unconstitutional votes at :
http://mickeywhite.blogspot.com/2009/09/tn-congressman-marsha-blackburn-votes.html
Mickey

[opposedtopalin]

I still think Palin is an idiot. She would be an extremely dangerous person to elect as president. We've already experimented with electing a socially popular but intellectually deficient republican for president and it nearly dismantled the party and brought the country to its knees. Palin is worse than Bush Jr., she's far more of an extremist and far less careful about running her mouth. Although I didn't vote for him, Obama is proving to be a powerful president. Besides health care, I think republicans and pundits are really stretching to find things to complain about with his presidency. If I had to choose again between Obama and Palin, I think he is the wiser and safer choice. Palin and her ramblings belong in books and other public forums, but not in the oval office.

[Cynthia Wert]

Andrew,
Please check on your punctuation re. know-it-all's. While we see this apostrophe misuse a lot, I think it still is possessive, not plural. Pardon my parochial school training. :)
CW

[Terry Saulsbury]

She is far and away the best going and team her with Paul Ryan or Bobby Jindal they would certainly get my vote.

[Joseph L Cooke]

The sooner liberals are hiding in caves with their friend OBL being hunted by Predator drone aircraft, the better.
- josephlcooke.blogspot

[Judi Mills]

The only people who write glowing, positive articles about Palin - such as this one - are hard-right conservatives. Show me one, just one, such article written by an established political analyst or anyone else.

Palin's own words and actions are her biggest disqualifier in the political arena. Most people with an ounce of common sense see her as a political freak show and would never, ever consider voting her into any government office, and certainly not into the White House.

I think those hard-right conservatives grossly overestimate their numbers and their ability to win elections.

[MichaelRyerson]

Anyone with an interest in seeing the Republican party remain a national player should be very, very afraid. Personally, I'd be delighted to see her emerge as the standard bearer.

[MicMac]

Overall, I think this article fairly on-target. However, it entirely overlooks the vast amount of old-school UltraRightWing Beltway, TX and FL money that has flooded her coffers - with ties to Koch, Scaife, NRA, Swift Boat Vertan, Arlington Group - money ties representing decades of persistent attempts to turn this country pro-life, anti-gay and RightWing Christian in its laws and sensibilities.

I spend a lot of time analyzing not just the money that goes into SarahPAC, but the meaning and connections of the disbursements made, and the entities behind them.

Palin would be wealthy in her own right based on her book earnings. But that is a drop in the ocean as compared to the gob loads of Old DC money and the newer, reactionary Tea Party/Libertarian funds that truly make Palin's apearances and command of the media possible.

[Susan]

The differences between President Obama and wanna-be Palin are well known, beginning with the level of intelligence of each and how they use what they have. Palin can shake her two million friendly hands, and rake in their recession-proof dollars as often as she likes. It does not make her capable of making decisions affecting the other 305,000,000.
Her PAC raises lots of money, nearly two million, and yet she has sent a measly $150,000 to candidates, while using double that for 'administrative' fees. She may have been Governor of the least populated state for a brief time (they run a 45 day legislative session, hardly mind-boggling) but she has not come up with solutions to any of the major problems facing the US. Does she have a fiscal policy beyond "stop taxing?" An energy policy that entails more than deregulating the oh-so-concerned oil companies and "drill, baby?" Any kind of educational policy at all? What we hear from her is a litany of complaints about Democrats, whining about the media, and bravura talk about "mama grizzleys." Hardly the stuff of policy makers.
I predict that her immense ego will propel her to run, but that the RNC will whip out their dossier of her lies, Todd's over-involvement in governing, her manipulation of facts, and her basic lack of knowledge, and she will whither in the debates. If she thought preparing for Biden was tough, wait until some high school buddy tries to get her ready for the Republicans.
Then, too, she would be forced to face the press at last, and she is not ready for that either. She has no answers unless they are fed to her (see her recent foray onto O'Reilly's friendly show about illegals) and she refuses to sit down with anyone not paid by Fox at all. Hardly Presidential. What is she afraid of? And don't give me that "the media bashes her" stuff. She bashes pretty well herself.
Finally, she will not be President because Todd would not be allowed in Cabinet meetings, nor to be copied on official email. Washington is not Juneau, and the Senate Ethics Committee is not a three person appointed by the Governor panel of sycophants. She would have to follow the law, and actually know something about a million subjects. Do you really think that in one more year she can face that? Without killing us all?

[Rising Tide]

Sarah Palin grows on you like watching a flower bloom in the morning dew.In
theese trying times,her zest for life and contagious enthousiasm represent the
most powerfull example of our most precious asset..the american spirit.No
challenge is too daunting for this gift from god.

[Jay]

Lol, total nonsense. Palin is an empty vessel.

[obama]

I would move to Canada if she became president.

[JD]

In the last 50 years, virtually every president has been elected as the antithesis of his predecessor...Nixon vice Johnson, Carter vice Nixon, Reagan vice Carter, Clinton vice Reagan/Bush, W vice Clinton, Obama vice W.

Palin's popularity is a crystal clear indictment of the policies of Obama, nothing more. We'll see if he can turn it around.

[Triple G]

I don't disagree with the assessment of Mr. Malcolm. What scares me is how quickly people forget the consequences of having a president who talks and acts like your average joe is running the country. We get two unpaid for wars, a tax policy that favors the rich and a crumbling economy. But damn we could really relate to her.

[Raul X. Garcia]

This was one of the most amusing articles I have read in a long time.

[section9]

In before the Palin-Haters!!!!!

[Dan]

With respect, Andrew Sullivan is NOT respected. He is a luantic who is literally obsessed with Sarah Palin's vagina. He writes about how he has dreams about her and still insists Trig is not her son. The man has serious mental issues.

[Winski]

Has anyone bothered to ask her any questions about a subject that makes a difference to anyone?? NO.. Does she have an agenda that her minions are fronting for her? YES.. Did anyone pay attention over the last week when even people over at Cluster-Fox we're questioning her ability to carry a discussion past a cliche??

Don't you care that this woman is STUPID?? Does it matter that the things she says NEVER come out of HER brain - always a ghost spokesperson?? DO you understand that if she ever got into a rational discussions about a rational subject she would collapse in less than 2 minutes because she didn't understand the question or the premise??

This woman is stupid and you people are treating her like she's not. You are NOT serving your readers because what you are writing/printing is GARBAGE !!

[c moon]

Anyone will be better than the community organizer who we have in the white house who have no experience with business and doesn't have a clue how to bring this country back except passing more regulations to kill the business. We are being beaten to death with regulation, classic movement by the ideologues as if it is going to solve the problem. I want to see 2012 coming soon so we could have a wiser and experienced president who will lead this country from the ruins from the Democrats destruction.

[azmi ramzi]

Live from Reno Nevada. IF YOU THINK THE LEBRON JAMES MOVE FROM THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS TO THE MIAMI HEAT WAS EARTH SHATTERING!!! The Hot August Night move from Reno Nevada to Long Beach Califronia will HURT THE NEVADA ECONOMY!!! Senator Harry Reid has nothing to do with this because HE IS A DEMOCRAT!!!! Mayor Bob Cashell is a conservative Republican as well as the Hot August Night President Bruce Walter who supports Republican causes in Nevada!!! Hot August Nights has been here for 24 years appeals to conservative Nevadans because of THE CLASSIC AMERICAN CARS. Bruce Walter is like LeBron James dangling Long Beach to bring the event there!!! If the Tea Party is winning in America and Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle of Nevada is ahead HOW COME SHE IS NOT ADDRESSING THIS ISSUE??? Thousands of Jobs in the Reno Casinos will be lost and Senator Harry Reid is held accountable for THIS!!! when Republicans are in charge of this event!!!

[Richard]

Palin is an air head and her increasing popularity is just a confirmation of what an airhead electorate we have in the U. S. We began the age of superficiality with the ascent of Ronald Reagan and despite a few turns and twists away from that course (Clinton and Obama) we have remained on it for the last thirty years. So it understandable that rather than a in-depth look at the cause of problems, we react with the game of blame and excuses and go even further in the direction of what has caused the problems, more conservative extremism as seen with the Tea Party and the election of Rand Paul. This is exactly the problem with the Middle East as they blame their problems on the West and resort to Taliban type extremism in response .

We have lost the spirit of communitarianism which is what really made this country great. Palin and the Tea Party thinking continue to magnify and accelerate that loss.

[Claudine Willis]

The woman who cling to Palin are of the "needy" variety. What's missing in their lives? Who knows, but Palin promises them a step up from the laundry room.

[Truth]

"Don't let Meg Whitmen bring Bush economics back to CA"

That's a joke right? CA is 40 billion in the toilet because of liberal democrats, because of the Unions, because of special interest, and because of Jerry Brown.

That ad tells me that Jerry Brown thinks the people of CA are very stupid.

[Benjamin Cole]

Yes, yes, yes, Sarah Palin-Michelle Bachman, the 2012 Presidential ticket. Bring it on.

[Amilius]

Disagreeable women practice dog-whistle politics and flaunt their willful ignorance in the process. Yawn...

[Lee Paxton]

Palin loves to blow her own horn even though she's a simpleton & I suspect she even knows that, but God forbid if an electorate of Tea Party Ilk and other like minded simpletons elect her and march in lock-step with her ideas.

[DEO]

An empty vessel. This woman is an idiot.

[TomTom]

Palin-Linbaugh 2012!
Yall rehdee for dat?

[JSantos]

If this moron where to get elected, I would end up being a citizen of Costa Rica in a heartbeat!!! I am Republican and I served in the Marine Corps for 21 years. There are the Fiorinas and countless others in the GOP that have a brain. Not this!

[john]

serioulsy?

[Grant Cramer]

If you think the Republican party loves her then wait till you see the swell of enthusiasm by the Democratic party if she gets the GOP nomination. But who is she then going to bring on as her running mate...Donald Duck?

[bcorp]

It is with great amusement that I read the posts making statements about how badly Palin would fair in a real debate and how all of her answers have to be fed to her. How soon you leftist/communist thinkers discount your comrade Obama use of the teleprompter and when not using it, 1/3 of his responses are hems and haws. Heck the poser/usurper had to even have them at a school room talk with elementary students. Palin not intelligent? Well just a few well chosen words she spoke unraveled the Admin. and now Obama has put in place the person to carry out the "Death Panel" sentences. So I could say without a doubt she was right on target. I and others could go on with more of her one liners that have untracked the traitor. Yes traitor, how many times has he stated America and Americans are bad? How many times has he stood up for the USA? Zero! He does not like the USA or most Americans and yet you lemmings continue to follow. Sad that the media elected to ignore all of the warning signs and evidence of his radical beliefs and they continue to ignore them even when the evidence is clear. Why? Was the country so bad that it needed to be transformed, and into what? We came virtually from nothing to the greatest nation in a very short time, our system served us very well, now to change it to a system that has proven over and over to fail is a big failure in logical thinking. So to say Palin does not have the smarts, Obama has history and yet ignores it, he has economic facts and ignores them, this is call extremely dumb, his teleprompter has not served him very well, the mam is a puppet and his teleprompter is just as dumb.

[F. Stanton]

Dream on. If Palin runs, the first time she is asked a policy question, her ship will sink. She uses more cliches and hackneyed phrases that Lebron James did in his Miami infomercial. The best she can do is get rich and play a fundraising role like Ronald Reagan did in the 70s.

[mrk]

Get your story straight. Liberals don't fear Palin, they fear what will happen to the country should someone so INCOMPETENT get elected to the highest office in the land.

[Tom R]

Its a given that progressives believe that all conservative politicians are stupid, idiots, etc. That is their standard opinion of anyone who disagrees with them.

Palin is clearly not stupid. Regardless of your ideology, you don't gain as much political power that she has if you're an idiot. She possesses the same type of charisma that Obama possesses. She can successfully connect to a siginificant segment of the electorate. Whether that is enough to get her elected is a another question.

Of one thing there should be no doubt. If her critics are correct in their assessment of her intellectual capability, she would at least be as good a president as Obama. She could just rely on teleprompters to tell her what to say.

[Jim Palmer]

Absolutely, Sarah Palin for president in 2012! Her running mate could be another oilman like Bush or Cheney, or better yet, the CEO of a defense contractor or food conglomerate poisoning consumers with toxic additives. Let's allow the GOP to finish the job they started in 2000! Mainly, destroying the country and making it an international laughing stock.

[Se]

Sarah Palin, i and many others love you. We can see that you love America and works hard to prove it. I can't wait until you or someone like you replace this, pal around with radicals barack hussein obama. He's unqualified, non-citizen, hates America and disrespect the constitution and White House office.

[byzantium]

A big snort to "Opposed to Palin" who calls Palin an idiot, and to Susan over Obama's "intelligence." Unfortunately for you, you've got those characterizations bass-ackwards.
Obama has already destroyed our economy. His foreign policies would have to be described as even worse than his domestic ones, except that this is a logical impossibility.
Beisdes deliberatelt destroying the economy and totally undermining national security, Obama's other interests are enabling Black Panthers to fix election results and waging all-out war against American citizens so he can swamp them with illegal aliens.
Obama, a man of no ability but unlimited dishonesty, keeps
saying he inherited all his problems from Bush. Poor baby. And other Presidents don't inherit problems? Bush probably inherited some from Martin Van Buren and Benjamin Harrison.
But that's irrelevant here, any problems Obama inherited, like the economic mess, were caused by the Democrat rulers of Congress during Bush's tenure, including Obama himself and other plunderers like Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters.

[BartA58]

This is the woman who as the Republican Nominee for Vice-President did not know the difference between North and South Korea, nor did she know what the Fed did. Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager told the staffers who would be briefing Palin..."You've got a lot of work to do, she does'nt know ANYTHING". Can you say "insufficiently vetted?". This is from McCain's guy, not the commie, pinko, liberal media.

[Raymond]

Ah, yeah, Sarah Palin is an idiot and she can be qualified for POTUS. Why? Barack Obama is the same idiot that is now occupaying the Whitehouse. Bwahahahahahaha! I have voted for Obama last 2008 and I now felt sorry for this. On 2012, choosing between and idiot with balls and an intellectual but with no balls, I'd rather choose the one with balls like Sarah Palin. Hahahahahaha! What I need is a tough leader and not an intellectual professor because I already have my own intelligence.

[Robert M.]

Sarah Palin 2012.
Armageddon 2013.

[drkoelper]

Former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is both a serial dissembler and ethical equivocator who was cited by her own state's legislature for (a) Abusing the inherent authority of her office to conduct a personal family vendetta against her former brother-in-law, and (b) Treating the public domain as her own family's personal reserve by charging state taxpayers the cost of her children's intrastate travel, including airfare to watch their father in a smowmobile race. Sorry, RDDavis (July 12, 2010 at 4:50AM) but there is nothing "CONSERVATIVE", "DECENT", wholesome or admirable about this emotionally unbalanced political opportunist and demagogue who lives in a fact-free bubble and revels with her many fans in their own collective ignorance and xenophobia.

[affableman]

Please, oh please let them nominate Palin. Then the country can really see what a bunch of empty headed know-nothings the Republicans have become.

It's such a shame as I used to be one. But now, too many nuts for my tastes.

[barta58]

Interesting take Mr. Malcolm. I take it however that you're ordinarily an entertainment/tabloid writer most of the time from some of the arguments you make for taking Palin seriously. First of all, you are correct that she is a force in American politics in that she can raise money for Republican candidates and excite the right-wing base. Where you go a bit overboard however is to even raise the possibility that she would be a viable presidential candidate. Obama, as you say did not have experience "running a ship" but he did put together an amazing organization and was able to win the big prize after having served only two years in the Senate. By the way, only three men in the last one hundred years have been elected directly from the Senate to the White House...the last two being JFK and Obama. Additionally, he was president of the Harvard Law Review. So, to compare the president's background to Ms. Palin's is a bit silly because she obviously did not pay attention in class. Did you pay attention in class Mr. Malcolm?

[barta58]

Interesting take Mr. Malcolm. I take it however that you're ordinarily an entertainment/tabloid writer most of the time from some of the arguments you make for taking Palin seriously. First of all, you are correct that she is a force in American politics in that she can raise money for Republican candidates and excite the right-wing base. Where you go a bit overboard however is to even raise the possibility that she would be a viable presidential candidate. Obama, as you say did not have experience "running a ship" but he did put together an amazing organization and was able to win the big prize after having served only two years in the Senate. By the way, only three men in the last one hundred years have been elected directly from the Senate to the White House...the last two being JFK and Obama. Additionally, he was president of the Harvard Law Review. So, to compare the president's background to Ms. Palin's is a bit silly because she obviously did not pay attention in class. Did you pay attention in class Mr. Malcolm?

[pril]

what we have is spin three around the toilet bowl of incompetency. Bush went first, just to show everyone how it's done. Then comes Obama, following right along, just a little more incompetent, and next, unfortunately, is probably Palin. When our leaders are dumber than the electorate, what happens next? I guess we'll find out soon enough.