After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.
My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.
From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.
I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs. Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.
In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.
Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country! God bless America.
"[S]omething curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide."
Happy Right to Work Day!
In celebration, I spent the day investigating and learning. Then I ate a porterhouse. Rare. (And, honestly, don't tell my bbq-meister-Dad, I woulda eaten it rare-er). We opened less-than-fancy wine with our steaks, and we toasted in honor of the day that workers in my fuckin' state (/all states) might be allowed to cash in a pay check without bending to Senor Union's will.
After that, we watched Undefeated. Yeah, that movie. The Palin movie.
Before watching the movie, I told my mother that I was going to have a difficult time returning to Madison (after spending the summer in northern WI w my folks). Gotta say, the movie didn't change my position at all.
Gotta say. Aw, shit. Negate the coupla paragraphs I was gonna write and reduce it to this: Happy Right to Work Day! Palin 2012!
I just read a great article over at Mark America -- Bi-Partisan War on the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. As I tried to decide which paragraph to excerpt, my first choice was to highlight the whole damn thing. Instead, I ask you to go over there and check it out for yourself.
Here's the first paragraph to get you started.
There has been a sudden wave of attacks by the DC establishment against Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. You know something is afoot when forces of the elites of left and right begin to unite, with Bill O’Reilly, and his recent mini-me, Laura Ingraham, along with all the other usual suspects, aligning with such leftist jackals as Maureen Dowd, who today compares the Tea Party members of Congress to suicide bombers. Foxnews is busily hustling Tea Party critics into their studio and via live feed, to claim that the Tea Party is to blame for our current crisis. With Foxnews having secured a lock on many Republican minds, they’re now free to push stories fitting the corporate messaging in service to the DC establishment.
Rolling Stonewarns: The Tea Party contender may seem like a goofball, but be warned: Her presidential campaign is no laughing matter.
Before you read the article or the excerpts I've pasted below, consider this quote from the article: Asked about Bachmann's run, Pawlenty seethed, "I'm not running for comic- or entertainer-in-chief."
And then, consider this quote from the AP (linked from Yahoo): Asked if he is capable of exciting voters as he competes for the GOP nomination, Pawlenty replies, "I'm not running for entertainer in chief."
And then watch this video (pertinent moment starts at 3:30):
Is Sarah Palin running? In case I've not yet done so here, I want to go on the record with my prediction. Palin will announce her intentions to run for president during a Fourth of July celebration.
Well, today around 2:00, Anthony Weiner announced his resignation. This is a man who, arrogance and out-of-control doesn't begin to describe him. Sending naked pictures of himself. Texting porn stars. Even driving around with a car with a license plate that wasn't even the right licence plate for the car. The car wasn't even registered. This guy was totally out of control.
...are being released. All 24,000 of them. Over at Daily Caller, they're calling a spade a spade. Or, so sayeth their headline: NYT, WaPo give up even trying to be a news organization. They're asking for volunteers to comb through the boxes and boxes of emails. My favorite line from the article: Wow. Just imagine if they had put this kind of effort into analyzing… I dunno… Obamacare?
Pop Quiz! Which of the following phrases and descriptions are applicable to Paul Revere's Ride? (I will use the colloquial terms American and British, rather than the more historically accurate terms British and Regulars.)
A. One if by land, two if by sea.
B. The British are coming!
C. Paul Revere was a lone rider.
D. Paul Revere warned the British
E. Paul Revere warned the Americans
(Answers at the end.)
Ruh-Roh! The media caught Sarah Palin again... During her One Nation tour, she stopped in Boston and checked out the Old North church, of Paul Revere fame. A reporter had a chance to talk to her. Did he ask about her views on the debt ceiling? Medicare? Libya? NOPE. Did he ask about founding principles (which is, after all, the purpose of her tour -- to educate and energize Americans about our nation's founding principles)? NOPE.
Actually, we don't know what question was asked. That's conveniently not included in the video that's been running around the internets like a rat at the county fair. Presumably, it was a question about early American folklore/history.
“He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed.”
(The clip cuts out before she finishes her sentence, but you can catch those last few words here.)
OMG! Palin said Paul Revere was warning the British?!
Well, actually, yes.
And she's right.
Paul Revere was captured during his ride and did, in fact, warn the British that we were ready to go. What? All you know about history is Longfellow's poem? And you dare criticize Palin for a "flub" on a topic about which your knowledge base is a poem written decades after the event?
If you don't believe that Palin was accurate, try reading Paul Revere's own words here.
This isn't what bothers me, though. Do people really care if a presidential candidate is an early American history scholar? If so, then why was Obama never asked these kinds of questions? The answer is simple. It's a non-issue. The media asked Palin a question that they had no business asking her; they might as well have asked her if she knew the Lone Ranger's nephew's horse. The media likes to watch Palin flounder, so they ask her obscure questions -- obscure when compared to the large amount of information that a candidate must have on the tip of her tongue at any given moment.
There have been times when, caught off guard, I have answered questions about my personal life with stutters and stammers. It's not that I don't know the information (I mean, it's my own frickin' life), it's that I wasn't expecting the need to flip through the file cabinet in my memory and pull out the story of losing my first tooth, for example. Palin's biggest crime here is that she was not prepared to answer questions about historical trivia.
Actually, there's one more thing. I have a deep love of early American history, and one thing I find very satisfying is learning the real stories behind the oral mythology. Sam Adams lost his brewery, because he was too interested in revolution to manage a business. There was no George Washington cherry tree. In 1776, Abigail Adams' husband John was serving in the Continental Congress, and she wrote to him and asked that he "remember the ladies." African-Americans and women even had the right to vote in many of the colonies.
When I learn something new about American history, the most fascinating things are those that change my previous conceptions of reality. You know what I'm talking about, those Aha Moments. New information is exciting, and it takes time to mentally repaint your previous perspective.
So here we have Sarah Palin. I don't know if she loves American history in the same way that I do, but she certainly loves the founding principles. Loving the history isn't a far stretch. The day of this interview, Palin had just visited the Old North church. Prior to that visit, she might have always known the basics as they were taught in high school and college, cemented into her brain by the Longfellow poem and general American folklore. (I know I didn't remember that Paul Revere had been captured, and not only have I spent much of my adult life reading about Early Americana, but I've also been to that church.)
Honestly, Paul Revere was never one of my favorites. I like Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin... Paul Revere and John Hancock always felt like the pretty boy jocks of the revolutionaries. That's okay. You can be enthralled by early American history, hell, you can be a maestro... but that doesn't mean you know everything about everything.
But Palin had been to the Old North church, so the reporter asked a question about it. I am incredibly suspicious about the framing of this video clip, because we are not shown what question was asked. If the question weren't clear or was disrespectful, that could account for Palin's uncomfortable oration style. I think something else was happening.
I think Palin knew the familiar story, and if she had been asked about it prior to visiting the church, she would have been fine. Instead, she had this new knowledge floating around her head. Now, put yourself in her shoes. You can do this even if you dislike her. (That actually makes it easier.) You know that the media is trying to catch you saying something stupid every time you open your mouth. This time, they ask a question about something you learned THAT DAY. Hells yes! You can show them. You can pull out the big guns and tell the story, including the new information you learned that day.
Unfortunately, you only learned it that day. It's not cemented in your head. It comes out as if you're searching for words. And the information you provide does not align with what the general, uneducated public believes. The reporter wanted the storybook version, and you're giving the f-a-c-t-s.
It doesn't help that you stumble over your words. Then again, if you had spoken clearly and concisely, it would sound just as bad. Speaking "lies" with certainty makes one look calculated and cunning. Speaking "lies" while babbling makes one appear buffoonish.
The nail in the coffin for Palin is her body language. She looks drunk. She obviously is not drunk, but she has all those signs -- wandering speech, swaying, eyes a little unfocused. I don't think anyone's accusing her of being drunk... But let's think about her day. She had been to three different national landmarks that day, and she's a week into her tour. She has minimal staff with her, and she has family with her. With no scheduled press stops, she has to be On all of the time.
I get exhausted going to the Farmers Market. That's a few blocks from my house, I go alone, and I'm home within a few hours. I cannot imagine how exhausted Palin must have been during that interview. Imagine, if you will, taking your family to Disney World and, at the end of a long day, being asked to recite your favorite poem. You would stutter. You would sway. You would look confused as you search for words. Add on to that being asked to recite a poem you had learned that day. Sheesh, America.
Watching the Palin video certainly is uncomfortable. I wonder if, after she spoke, the reporter said "uh... he warned the British??" and she succinctly replied, "Yessirree. I was surprised when I learned that, too. Here's what happened... [Much less uncomfortable clip of the Paul Revere story]." Given that the point of the clip was to embarrass Palin and given that the entire clip (question, reply, reporter saying thank you) was not shown, it is not unreasonable to presume that the omitted portions of the clip could be redeeming for Palin.
We can't know what's not there. All we know is that people are taunting her for giving an uninformed answer, which she did not. What people could reasonably talk about is Palin's questionable speaking style. I provided a detailed possible explanation for her appearing, well, not presidential. Ultimately, it doesn't matter why she appeared that why. The issue is that she did appear sloppy.
We don't want a sloppy president. We want a president that will present herself with decorum while winking at the camera to make us feel special. With Obama's stumble through Europe and public meeting with Israel's Netenyahu, we want a president who will emit strength while being diplomatic, empathy while laying down the law, intelligence while managing children in Congress. We want this all of the time, at any time, whether or not she is exhausted from her tour.
Why, then, didn't the media and the public pick up on that? Yes, for whatever the reason you believe, Palin is now a target for Gotchas, especially those that could make her appear unintelligent. Apparently it doesn't matter if she's actually saying intelligent things or not.
The much strong argument against Palin's oratory is not that she is unintelligent, it's that she appears unintelligent. This is a matter of opinion, of course, but it's an easy argument to make. Everything from her accent to her chosen phrases ("hockey mom", "fight like a girl", etc.) speaks to stereotypes associated with lesser intelligence. I have no counter-argument to someone who says that they don't want a president who appears unintelligent, even if she's the smartest person in the world. One of our president's largest jobs is to be the face of the country and communicate with other countries. I don't want someone in that role that the rest of the world sees as a bumpkin.
The media does not choose this meme. The public do not choose this meme. Instead, it's just "Palin's dumb." From a marketing aspect, that sure is easier to push, but aren't the media supposed to be above marketing tricks? (I know, I know...) But there is another way to look at it.
"Palin appears dumb" is the most appropriate meme, and it would be just as effective. In marketing terms, it's less effective than "Palin's dumb", but since it's impossible to disprove, it measures out ahead. There's one vital flaw, though. To say "Palin appears dumb", it is assumed that she has something of merit to otherwise be considered. Not necessarily that she's actually smart but appears dumb, but something deeper: Sarah Palin is legitimate. To contemplate how she delivers the message inherently implies that she has a message that is worth contemplating.
As a previous governor and vp candidate, she obviously has something legitimate to consider. If the Palin haters were being sincere with their hatred, they wouldn't be afraid to let that something *be* considered. Instead, they use every attempt to delegitimize her. On the surface, there's not much difference between "Palin is dumb" and "Palin appears dumb", but use of the latter prevents the possibility and prevents contemplation of the message.
I mean, why even bother listening to the woman's words? She said Paul Revere warned the British. She's dumb.
Here's what I want to know: who is calling the reporter dumb for demeaning the country by asking a politician trivia questions.
... and she doesn't know much. She did, however, have this to say:
If you think about it, she is free to do whatever she wants….bus ride, no bus ride. It is those of us in the media who are seeking her out (and by watching all in the media, it is intense….otherwise why would everyone be talking about her?)
In the article Ups, downs for White House of a Palin Candidacy, CBS notes that while Palin is "quite unpopular" among independents, "her entrance into the race would create a lot of interest in the Republican field". So, Palin isn't worthy of the WH herself, but since the MSM flocks to her, she could make other GOP candidates look more appealing than Obama.
Yes, there is a constant media buzz around Palin. The MSM fails to recognize that their buzz provides her with the platform to reverse people's opinions about her. America indeed seems to be fascinated by Mama Grizzly, for better or worse. Is it so impossible to think that she might -- MIGHT -- be able to use that platform to transform public opinion?
The rest of the article mentions other candidates, using Palin as a launchpad. The "downs [for the WH]" of a Palin pre-nomination candidacy is that it draws attention to Pawlenty, Romney, Bachmann...
If Palin is not a real threat to the Democrats and Obama, why does CBS spend so much time focusing on her in this article which clearly explains that she doesn't have a chance?
What is it about Sarah Palin that makes her so fascinating yet so polarizing? Why does the media continue to give her press if they think she is, ultimately, not worthy of serious attention?
