"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain." — Frederic Bastiat — the Law
The Republicans are drawing all of the focus from the MSM and pundits regarding the upcoming presidential election in 2012. This is natural as the Democrats have their candidate — Barack Obama. There will be no challenge to him from any serious Democrat candidate and it will be Obama for better or worse. This leaves the out party — the Republicans — as the main player on the political stage. Obama will run on his record and the Republicans will run on their credibility, personalities and the candidate with the best shot at defeating Obama.
The MinnPost.com reports on a June 23, 2011 Florida poll conducted by Public Policy Polling that while Romney leads with 27%, but Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin (who is not an announced candidate) each get 17%:
“A PPP poll in Florida released today shows Mitt Romney still reigns in the Republican presidential race, but Michele Bachmann is on the rise, tied with Sarah Palin for second.
The poll of Republican primary voters in Florida show:
The good news for Pawlenty: he's not last. The bad news: Huntsman hadn't entered the race yet when the poll was taken.
The pollsters note that Bachmann's rise is big news:
Beyond Romney's continued strength the big stories here are the rise of Michele Bachmann and the collapse of Newt Gingrich. Bachmann's 17% standing represents a 10 point gain from PPP's last Florida poll in late March, when she stood at only 7%. Her strength comes from leading the field with 'very conservative' voters at 21%, followed by Palin at 20%, and Romney at 18%.
The poll says that if you take Palin out of the race in the Florida poll, Bachmann looks good:
…..”the overall standings in a Palin less field [are] 29% for Romney, 22% for Bachmann, 14% for Cain, and 10% for Gingrich.””
The analysis given in PPP poll states:
“If you take Palin out of the mix, Bachmann picks up 37% of her supporters to 20% for Romney, 14% for Cain, and 13% for Gingrich. That leaves the overall standings in a Palin less field at 29% for Romney, 22% for Bachmann, 14% for Cain, and 10% for Gingrich. GOP polls PPP will release in Montana and Oregon over the course of the next few days will also provide evidence that Bachmann has stepped into the role as top alternative to Romney for GOP voters.”
While we are a long way from the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and an even longer way from November 2012 there seems to be a developing trend that a conservative woman could be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
The Des Moines Register reports that Romney and Bachmann lead the pack in the latest Iowa poll:
“Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and business executive, claims 23 percent, and Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman and evangelical conservative, garners 22 percent. Neither has done heavy lifting in Iowa.
The rest of the Republican field is at least 12 points behind them.
Cain, a retired Georgia business executive, is the top choice for 10 percent of potential caucus-goers.”
When Barack Obama was elected the first black (actually black and white) President it was considered a milestone for a nation that has a long history of virulent racism. Whether you agreed with his politics or not, you could surely see the sense of pride that most voters were colorblind when they made their selection for Chief Executive in 2008. Yes, I know that about 98% of blacks voted for Obama, but, considering the history of subservience to whites, I don't think any fair-minded person could have expected less.
Now that we have shown how open-minded we are about race relations, maybe it's time to do the same with gender relations. Hillary Clinton came close in 2008, but no woman has yet to be nominated for president by a major political party. Two women have had a chance to be vice president, but it wasn't enough to push the head of the ticket across the finish line. It wouldn't be accurate to say that women have been subservient in this country, but I'm certain it can be said that they don't have the same image as men when it comes to leadership. Perhaps that's why, with more than half the population made up of the "fairer sex," women have not been able to reach that pinnacle of political power on Pennsylvania Avenue.
There's an interesting dynamic at play here. Before Obama's election, few blacks had been taken seriously as presidential timber. However, once that hurdle had been achieved, several others are being considered for the top job. It reminds me of the story about trained fleas. An experiment was conducted in which fleas were caught and placed in an open jar. Now, fleas are quite capable of jumping great distances for their size, hence, as long as the jar was open they were having no trouble jumping out. Then a lid was place on the jar. For a period of time one could hear the sound of fleas trying to jump out, but hitting the lid and retreating. Soon, the sound stopped and the fleas were jumping just below the level of the lid, so as not to hit against it. When the lid was removed the "trained" fleas no longer tried to jump high enough to get out. Fleas, like dogs and humans are subject to Pavlov’s theory.
People are often like fleas in that they don't try to succeed past a point where they have been trained to stop. Feminists have coined the phrase "glass ceiling" indicating an unreachable barrier that keeps women and minorities from reaching the upper rungs of the corporate ladder.
It's my contention that women will continue to face perceptual roadblocks in the presidential area of politics until one of them becomes the role model for others to follow. Currently, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann (neither wear pants suits ala Hillary) have popular support for 2012. My choice is Palin because she has demonstrated her executive ability as Governor of Alaska and was the most exciting candidate in the election of 2008.
Although she hasn't decided if she'll run next year, we constantly hear that she has too much baggage. What baggage? Anyone who knows anything about her record in Alaska would have to admit that she exhibited all the traits that make up the building blocks of leadership. Her rise to prominence is well-known and doesn't need to be restated in its entirety here. Suffice to say that she took on a corrupt system within her own political party and rose to the governorship after throwing the bums out of office. Certainly, a résumé like that should be viewed as the perfect recipe for a country in need of a moral renaissance. Aha, therein is the problem! How many in this country want to return to the days when politicians weren't sending their nude photos on the Internet, fathering children with their housemaids, or having sex with interns in the Oval Office?
Robert Eugene Simmons Jr. writes in American Thinker “Why Palin Can Win:
“One of the most talked about subjects in politics is whether or not Sarah Palin will run for the presidency. It's frankly anyone's guess which direction she will go with her decision and when she will make the decision. However, if Palin doesn't run it will be a disaster for the Republican Party and quite possibly the country.
Aside from the fact that there isn't another libertarian-conservative in the race, at least not another one who isn't an international isolationist, if Palin doesn't run, it will represent an enormous victory for the Republican beltway establishment and the big players in the left-wing-dominated media. Furthermore, the leftist media will learn a fool-proof means to destroy any political opponent in a manner that will likely result in another four years of Obama.
In watching the coverage of the announced candidates, the alarm bells should be clanging violently. The fact that the leftist media hasn't really gone after the other Republican politicians in the race should be a violent warning to all conservatives and libertarians out there. It's totally out of character for the leftist media to not bring up Newt Gingrich's infidelity every ten minutes, or to have squads of reporters interviewing every foster child of Michele Bachmann that can be found to try to dig up some dirt. The rigorous inspection that has been visited upon Sarah Palin hasn't even started on the remainder of the Republican field. However, that doesn't mean the media has tacked suddenly to the center; far from it.”
I suspect that all decent people want to go back to a time when their children had better role models than Weiner, Schwarzenegger, and Clinton. The culture shift in the last few decades is more than mildly alarming; it is downright frightening! Every aspect of our lives has eroded. From education to entertainment to politics; we have seen a value system that was once the envy of the world, slowly, insidiously corrupted by a philosophical framework that is inimical to any concept of a great nation. Today, we have a country whose people have almost given up on the idea that morality has value.
What has all this to do with Sarah Palin? She's a threat to those who have become addicted to the titillation of a callous and uninhibited lifestyle, free from compunction or responsibility. She represents the wholesome values and patriotic spirit that have been all but lost in the violent maelstrom of social and political engineering that has distorted our sense of right and wrong. No flea is she; Sarah's the iconoclast that breaks glass ceilings and shatters the lids on jars.
Simmons continues:
“Throughout the last two years the media has embarked on a vitriolic, obsessed campaign to destroy Sarah Palin, not just as a politician but also as a person. They manipulated the legal system to try to bankrupt her while in office; they hacked her personal email and forced the release of her official email. When all of that produced nothing consequential, they simply made up the stories they wished and put them out to be in every headline for two weeks until they have the majority believing their deceits. As an example, ask any ten people you know who said, "I can see Russia from my house," and probably most of them will incorrectly name Sarah Palin rather than the comedian Tina Fey who actually said it. To the media, facts are unimportant so long as the story forwards the agenda.
If Sarah Palin doesn't run for president, the operatives in the media and Beltway establishment will have learned a fool-proof method of destroying any political opponent. If they are allowed to successfully paint a politician as stupid without any facts, merely because they disagree with the "aristocracy," America will be left with a choice of RINOs or progressive socialists. If that happens then the transformation of America from a libertarian culture to one of socialism and government dependence may very well be irreparable.
Assuming that Sarah Palin doesn't run the campaign will go sort of like this: the media will talk up the largest RINO they can find in an attempt to split the Republican Party from within. However, the real dirt will be kept securely under wraps. As the Republican primary nears its close, the research effort will go into full force. They will send squads of lawyers to go into every tiny detail of the candidate's personal and professional life. They will examine every detail of the life of the nominee from the day of their birth. The researchers will talk to every ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, every business partner, and any employees they can find.
After the primary is over, they will start to dump the juiciest tidbits in carefully edited and scripted special stories. National interviews will be granted to jilted lovers and business acquaintances that felt wronged by the candidate, or perhaps could be persuaded to feel wronged with a little interview stipend. The candidate will be mocked for their lack of intelligence and any microscopic mispronunciation or slip of the tongue will result in a weeklong national news cycle about why that candidate is too stupid to be president. The candidate will not have time to counter the perception and, combined with the media adoration of Obama, likely Obama would get another four years.”
Simmons concludes his case for Palin by stating:
“By contrast, if Sarah Palin runs, the media has already shot all of their ammo. They have done everything they can possibly do to destroy her but she has learned how to counter them via Facebook, Twitter, and streaming video. The accusations against Palin and her children have been flying in for two years and have failed to destroy her. All they have left is to repeat the old tired line of "Palin is an idiot." Of course it wouldn't take more than a debate or two, nationally televised with live video, to dispel that myth with everyone that can possibly be persuaded. The problem with the media is that all they have left to shoot are lies which can't stand in the light of day, and even all the plausible lies have been spent by Palin's opponents. If Palin wins the primary, the leftist media will be left to incoherent rage watched by fewer and fewer Americans.
With a properly run campaign, Palin will be able to easily counter the media perpetuated perception of stupidity with all except those that are so ideologically or emotionally committed as to be unpersuadable. Furthermore, on the issues Palin will be able to bring all guns blazing against Obama rather than being handicapped by prior records of endorsing government-mandated healthcare or global warming hysteria. On the issues, Palin's conservatism combined with her small-government libertarianism will make a stark contrast to Obama who will now be forced to defend his policies rather than run on emotion ad-hominem attacks and catchy phrases.
When the political calculus is done, it is clear that Palin is the only real conservative with libertarian leanings that can possibly be elected in the country. Although there are other conservatives with promise such as Bachmann, Cain, and West, they have not been subjected to the vetting that Sarah Palin has and there should be no doubt that the media will do everything they possibly can to destroy them should they win the nomination.”
Simmons is obviously a fan of Sarah Palin, as I am, but I also favor Michelle Bachmann. I see the major, if only differences, between Bachmann and Palin are their speech patterns, accents, name recognition and the way they have been attacked by the MSM and Left. As Simmons points out Palin has had about everything but he kitchen sink thrown at her and is still popular among men and women. Bachmann has yet to get this treatment, although she certainly will as she becomes more of a threat to the Left. Here is a sample from ThinkProgress, the George Soros funded left-wing attack dog:
“November 2004 EdWatch National Education Conference, Bachmann said the “normalization” of homosexuality would lead to “desensitization”: “Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’ for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.”
And there are plenty more, just Google her name.
Both are constitutional and social conservatives who are supported by the Tea Party. Palin was a governor and VP Candidate with broad name
recognition and over 3 million Facebook fans. On the other hand Bachmann is a three term Congresswoman from a deep blue state, Minnesota, and a former tax litigator. Bachmann was selected by House Speaker John Boehner for a position on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, giving her a new role as overseer of the CIA, the National Security Agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community. Bachmann, Her name recognition, if you take the number of Facebook fans as a bench mark, is one tenth of Palins with just over 300,000 fans.
Of course all of this will change in the next year as the primary season approaches and the abusive and obscene rhetoric from the left heats up. The more she becomes a real threat to the left, the more they will the mud at her.
I would support either Palin or Bachmann for president for several reasons. First; I believe a conservative woman can be a good leader. Remember Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir? Second; I agree with most, if not all of their positions on national and international issues— they have both proved themselves to be constitutional, fiscal, and social conservatives. Third; I think they are both tough enough to lead this nation and take on those who want to do us ill. Fourth; they both believe in the exceptionalism of the United States and our founding principles. And, fifth; they are good looking and don’t wear pants suits. It will be far better for our nation to be led by a strong conservative woman like Palin or Bachmann than a wimpy, indecisive male like Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.
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