Fox News continues its "slobbering love affair" with all things Sarah Palin. I just don't get it; I do understand the Angry Left went after her in very personal terms, which was unconscionable. Bill O'Reilly has personally attacked John McCain at least a half dozen times since the election, criticizing him as unchivalrous, for not coming to the defense of Sarah Palin on multiple occasions after the election, for not explicitly listing her among GOP Presidential hopefuls for the 2012 campaign, etc.; Sean Hannity gets exclusive in-depth interviews; Greta van Susteren has made trips to Alaska, even doing interviews in Palin's kitchen while the governor was cooking for her family.
I think the only time the "fair and balanced" O'Reilly or other media conservatives ever critically address the "Wasilla pork queen" is an ad hominem attack on McCain, i.e., to attack his judgment for picking her in the first place ("if she was so bad...") I've already made my opinion known on Sarah Palin for some time; I wish her well in her reelection as governor or perhaps as a future US Senator from Alaska. I think most conservatives feel the way I do; we may applaud her courageous decision to choose to have Trig over a eugenic abortion and her grace under some of the nastiest personal attacks, but she is unelectable--the highest negatives of any vice presidential candidate in recent history. The previous record holder, Dan Quayle, placed eighth in the 1999 Ames Straw Poll and withdrew from the 2000 race.
Reflections on the 2012 GOP Race for the Nomination
The April 23 Public Policy Polling shows Sarah Palin with a net unfavorability rating (42/49, -7), scores very poorly with women (39,49,-10), and loses more conservatives in a head-to-head with Obama than any other major Republican hopeful (the other GOP hopefuls analyzed were Gingrich, Huckabee, and Romney). [All of the GOP candidates currently lose in prospective head-to-heads with Obama, whom maintains a 53% approval rating; Huckabee does the best of all four, but Romney is least well-known among the major candidates and shows the most potential for improvement.]
I am currently drafting a separate post on Romney. I made my feelings clear in a September post pleading with McCain to dump Palin in favor of Romney. My emphasis has been clear since the beginning of the Obama Administration: I advocate a pro-growth policy, and Romney's expertise in the private sector combined with executive experience in the public sector I think plays very well against Obama's "government-is-the-answer" philosophy. No one should think this constitutes an early endorsement; I am intrigued by Mitch Daniels, one of 2008 Governing's 8 public officials honored, whom, among other things, has reduced the average wait time for Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles to under 9 minutes. (I have written posts on the need to focus on taxpayer-based metrics, and this is a classic example.) In a Democratic election change year last year where Obama topped McCain, Governor Daniels won reelection by almost 18 points (58-40-2). I am also intrigued by Bobby Jindal. The Republicans could do a lot worse in 2012 than nominating a Daniels/Jindal ticket, which I think would stand a realistic chance of unseating Obama/Biden.
It's very difficult to see where Sarah Palin goes from here. If I was advising a conservative preparing to battle Sarah Palin in a primary, I would make her eat each and every earmark she requested and received as Wasilla mayor, I would demand that she apologize for misleading the nation about the Bridge to Nowhere, which she not only ran on, fully supporting, and, in fact, not returning a penny of the money that Congress appropriated for the bridge (and optionally available for other projects), and I would ask her to explain why, despite the fact that Alaskans pay no state income tax (and in fact get an annual check from the Alaska Permanent Fund reflecting a prorated share of oil & gas revenues), that the 2009 federal budget omnibus Alaska earmark per capita is $209.71 vs. a national per capita average of $22.39. (What? You mean you didn't hear this from Fox News "fair and balanced"?) However, Fox News did ask at least a half-dozen times yesterday whether you had heard yet from the liberal media that all the ethics complaints against Palin had been dismissed; you don't think Fox News is in the tank for Sarah Palin, do you?
The Hannity Interview
Drudge Report has the following transcript from the June 8 Hannity program:
PALIN: Well, when you consider that the federal government is about eleven trillion dollars in debt, and we’re borrowing more to spend more.. it defies any sensible economic policy that any of us ever learned through college. It defies economy practices and principles that tell ya ‘you gotta quit digging that hole when you are in that financial hole’America is digging a deeper hole and how are we paying for this government largesse. We’re borrowing. We’re borrowing from China and we consider that now we own sixty percent of GENERAL MOTORS – or the U.S. government does… But who is the U.S. government becoming more indebted to? It’s China. So that leads you to have to ask who is really going to own our car industry than in America.
HANNITY: ...It does go back a little to the campaign. I mean, ‘[Obama] spread the wealth, [Biden] patriotic duty [to pay taxes]…’
PALIN: Kind of a ‘we told ya so’...I feel like… and I think that more and more constituents are going to open their eyes now and open their ears to hear what is really going on and realize ok… Maybe we didn’t have a good way of expressing that, or articulating that message of ‘here is what America could potentially become if we grow government to such a degree that we cannot pay for it and we have to borrow money from other countries, some countries that don’t necessarily like America. And this many months into the new administration, quite disappointed, quite frustrated with not seeing those actions to rein in spending, slow down the growth of government. Instead Sean it is the complete opposite. It’s expanding at such a large degree that if Americans aren’t paying attention, unfortunately our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize.
HANNITY: Socialism?
PALIN: Well, that is where we are headed. That is where we have to be blunt enough and candid enough and honest enough with Americans to let them know that if we keep going down these roads… nationalizing many of our services, our projects, our businesses, yes that is where we would head. And that is why Americans have to be paying attention. And we have to have our voices heard. And ultimately it need to be our will, the American people’s will imposed on Washington, instead of the other way around.
A Review
I get impatient in listening to this woman talk: she's repetitive in style, elaborates unnecessarily on fairly obvious points, and responds to questions with a rambling discourse. The professor and writer in me would heavily red-line her entire interview. I know how I would respond to these following points, but in listening to her, I want to ask things like:: The Democrats have been claiming that Bush ran a deficit; why are deficits important now? What's different now versus last year? Isn't it true that the Chinese were buying T-bills under the Bush Administration? Why are they buying T-bills? In a recession don't tax receipts fall and relief social spending increase? What is this discussion about, re: China buying T-bills and the US owning GM? Is she suggesting China could demand US assets like its ownership interest in GM in exchange for T-bills? Aren't there banks which didn't issue riskier mortgage notes? Isn't it true that Ford Motor Company hasn't received a single federal bailout penny?
And where's the evidence of this creeping socialism? It seems GM and Chrysler were headed for bankruptcy; they came to the government as lenders of last resort. The ownership interest is by default, not by intent, and the transactions were above board.
And, of course, there's all that "tough questioning" from Sean Hannity; for example, Governor Palin, wouldn't you agree that as a national candidate, you need to model the same degree of financial responsibility you expect from others? Isn't it true that Alaska gets back more from the federal government than it pays in taxes? What do you have to say about all the federal earmarks you've taken as a mayor and since you've become governor? Are you comfortable about the fact that your children and grandchildren are going to have to pay that money back? Isn't it true that you hired a lobbyist just so Wasilla would get its fair share of federal pork? Are you going to repay all that money? And you and Senator McCain talked a lot about earmarks, but isn't it true that earmarks only account for a small portion of the budget; what steps did you propose to balance the budget--exactly whose taxes were you going to raise, and exactly what services were you prepared to cut? What's that, you're saying? Sean Hannity asked the really tough questions like, "What do you make of...the state of the economy now? Is that how you feel? Socialism?"
