Going Rogue is out and a best seller, it is anticipated that at least 1 out of every five voters may eventually read it. The book is the beginning of the rehabilitation of Sarah Palin and whether it succeeds, we won’t know for another three years but it is a good beginning.
There are three aspects to this book; the first is the introduction to Palin life before her political career, the second being to set the record straight about her record in Alaska and the 2008 campaign including the Katie Couric fiasco. The third aspect is her views (even though this constitute but a small part of the book.)
I will begin with the first point for to understand Sarah Palin, you must understand her early life. Her parents were Roman Catholic but her mother became an evangelical because she wanted something more than the Roman Catholic liturgical style and this influenced Sarah Palin own religious view. Her father doesn’t appear to be religious, not in a traditional sense. Her father saw God in the world around him but he did not appear to be enticed by organized religion.
In some ways, Palin religious upbringing reflects her family toward Alaska. For the Palins, moving to Alaska was moving to the last frontier, traveling there shortly after a devastating earthquake. Alaska land mass is equivalent to one fifth of the United States, rich in resources but sparsely populated. To live in Alaska is accept a more independent life for cities may be miles apart and not easily to get to. Plus it doesn’t help that Alaska is closer to the Artic region than anywhere in the United States and days are nearly dark all day during the winter.
Palin’s religious life is as reflected for her mother retreated from a more rigid church for a more spiritual and free flowing religious experience and her father simply viewed God’s hand in creation that he witnessed around him. Palin noted that there are more pilots and more NRA members per capita and this reflects the land Alaskan lives in. As Palin noted, many Alaskans live off what they hunt so hunting is integral to their life style. Palin, like other Alaskans, grew up hunting, loving guns and racing across the frozen tundra of Alaska. Palin became athlete herself and led her basketball team to a State title. She proved to be a competitor in the sport world and brought this into her political life later. As she stated, you must play to win; a lesson she learned after her first lost when she ran for Lt. Governor.
The book shows a woman who seems contented with life and depending upon God’s hand to guide her life while guiding her through crisis including the birth of a Down syndrome child right before she was picked to be Vice President.
The second aspect of this book is that the reader is introduced to the ugly side of politics including politics of personal destruction as well as the incompetence of a few within the McCain Campaign. While some have stated that this book is payback, it is more of setting the record straight. Her McCain advisors lancing of Steve Schmitt and Nicole Wallace is more of self-defense than attack. Immediately after the campaign, there were unnamed sources in the McCain camps that blamed Palin for the disaster of the 2008 elections and joined in the leftist efforts in trashing her. That has already been documented and for her not to deal with this issue would have criminal in a serious book on the 2008 elections. The two she named as possible leaks were Steven Schmitt and Nicole Wallace while it is hard to say that these two were the sources of leaks post-election; there is no doubt that they proved incompetent in using their strongest asset, Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin admits that the Couric interview could have been handled better and in subsequent interviews, acknowledge that a lack of professionalism and a bad attitude on her part doomed the interview. Democratic strategist Doug Schoen observed, the McCain camp was equally to blame. Schoen stated that for a candidate, any candidate; would be foolish to allow a candidate to sit for a nine hour interview and not expect any editing. The reality is that much of the interview ended up on the cutting board and as Palin stated, much of the more in depth policies discussion never saw the light of day. Nicole Wallace told Palin that Couric is anxious to meet with her and they had much in common- being working mothers. Wallace added that this would be a big favor for Couric, whose ratings were last among the major networks. As Palin quipped, “Why does that concern us?”
The media strategy for Palin was plain stupid and McCain camp obviously traded on past love by the media for their candidate to work its magic. What they missed was that the media treated McCain as a typical conservative Republican and only loved him when he was criticizing other Republicans. What McCain team should have done is what being done now by Sarah Palin on her book tour, start with Oprah and then move up the media food chain. Before meeting a combative Bill O’Reilly, she sat down with Sean Hannity, who took a less combative approach to her. The failure to allow Palin to work her magic with the local media or at least allow her to be on Fox was a major mistake. She would have done better and the McCain campaign would have profited as well. (During the campaign, Obama bought half hour time to give a nationwide talk and McCain had the opportunity to appear on Bill O’ Riley that same night for free and didn’t do it. There were even reluctance to allow McCain to be McCain.) By setting up a wall, they fail to use their best asset with the media; a woman who could make McCain position understandable to the common folks.
Steve Schmitt had the right strategy in August to attack Obama by emphasizing Obama’s inexperience and celebrity status while pointing out McCain foreign policy experience in a world in which American soldiers were still getting killed. What the McCain campaign failed to count on is that this race would be decided not on foreign policy but economics; McCain weak spot. Before the market collapse, McCain was ahead in the race but after the financial meltdown, it wouldn’t matter what McCain did for he was not going to win. But the McCain camp was not ready for the change in focus and got caught flatfooted. McCain own appearance during the meltdown when he moved on to Washington right before the first debate and even threatened to cancel the first debate until a bill was passed, made him look erratic and the coolness of Obama all but clinch the race.
Schmitt miscalculated but one can have sympathy for the McCain campaign, for even if the financial collapse did not occur, economics was not McCain strong suit. McCain’s strong suit was foreign policy and Schmitt played to his strength. Unfortunately for McCain and his advisors, the race center on economic and with the economy going south; the blame would fall on the Republicans. All Obama had to do was act competent and sound moderate. He did both for he didn’t need to be brilliant on economics, he just had to show the American electorate that he could be trusted to run the country.
Some within the McCain camp showed disdain for Palin and even for their own people working with Palin. If nothing else, some within McCain camp showed a lack of professionalism. As for the famous speech that never happened, Palin sets the record straight. While it is not traditional for a Vice President to give a concession speech, it has been done. Palin was contacted by Matthew Scully, her speech writer appointed by the McCain people, to prepare a statement. She assumed that the McCain people approved but it turned out that this decision was never fully decided until Election Day.
Palin reviewed her record as an Alaska politics and we see a woman who faced down big spending and corrupt Republicans and succeeded. (Also big spending Democrats.) As mayor, she put together frugal budgets that lead to Walissa being the fastest growing city and her term as head of Alaska energy commission found her fighting her own party members and Big Oil. She shows us both government and Big Oil in bed with each other, the result being that Big Oil making money hands over feet without being productive with their license. If nothing else, this simply shows that often it is big government type; who make the deals with Major Corporation in exchange of campaign contributions and support for their policies. Obama has taken this strategy to the federal level as he has essentially socialized much of the financial industry as well as the auto industry. Alaska saw a government industrial policy on a state level being executed and this is not much different to what is being done on a National level today. Alaska resembled a banana republic for it appeared that everyone was on the take and her first year as governor, it was a common site to see legislators being led out of the Capital in handcuffs. When Palin ran for governor, she challenged an incumbent Republican governor and she was not popular among the Republican establishment but she saved the Republican Party by winning the general election. If she didn’t win the primary, Republican would have lost the governorship.
Palin proved to be a moderate conservative as governor. When she first became governor, she worked with Democrats to get things done including designing a new system to share profits with the Oil Companies. She limited pork barrel projects and budget excesses and even on social issues, she was hardly the right wing extremist. She vetoed a bill disallowing benefits to same-sex couples because it was unconstitutional. As she noted in her book, she sympathize with the conservative but she was going to uphold the state Constitution. She concluded that if conservative felt that this was important, they should have taken this to the people. In a recent interview with National Review, while she disagreed with full legalization of marijuana, she did support medical use of marijuana if Doctors feel it needed. There is a libertarian streak in her and certainly a woman who may have her own view but she knows when to push social issues. Palin the politician is an economic conservative first and as she noted in the book, she does have friends who are gay and her pregnancy with Trig her youngest child and a Down Syndrome gave her insight in why women may want to have abortion. Many on the left fear is that she is serious about her Christianity,but they can't see that a politician can be a church going Christian and be inclusive or at least politically smart in dealing with social issues.
She talks of common sense conservatism and there is not much difference between Palin and Ronald Reagan as far as ideas. In some ways, she has the ability to explain conservatism and why it benefits voters just like Reagan and like Reagan, she has the skills to make her case to those in the middle. Her discussion with her oldest daughter about her daughter’s dream shows the pessimisms of what the future will hold to her daughter dream to set up her own coffee shop. The one area will Palin is an expert is energy but the Achilles heel as far as policy when it comes to energy will be; will Palin be as free market as Reagan was? When Reagan decontrolled energy prices; energy prices dropped. Palin is right that America should produced more of her own energy sources to reduce foreign oil dependency but there will be the temptation to involve government in designing an energy independent policy.
Because of the politics of personal destruction, she has much work to undo the damage done to her reputation. She understands how the modern day left works as she noted that she was a victim of Chicago style politics combined with Saul Alinksy method of destroying political opponents. As she admitted in an interview, she was surprised by the viciousness of the left and much of the media, who carried the left water. Now she understands her political opponent better and this alones would make her a formidable opponent.
While many today would say a Palin Presidency is a suicide pact, what is being missed is that Democrats are committing their own suicide with Obama recklessness in economical polices that is leading to an economic catastrophe that could sink his administration and his Party. Obama have already shown his own radical nature and the moderate sounding Obama has been replaced by the real Obama, the Obama who sat saying amen to Jeremiah Wright from his church pew and the Obama who was good buddy to William Ayers. Obama most recent decision to hold a trial in New York of leading terrorist may be the tipping point to send his administration spiraling out of control. It doesn't help that Nancy Pelosi maybe the most incompetent Speaker and she is doing her best to help the Republicans retake the house in 2010.
This past year is showing an inexperienced man not ready for prime time and having trouble under the most difficult of situations. If anything that could hurt Palin in a 2012 run, it is that Americans may not want to allow another inexperience leader run the country.
40 percent of Americas call themselves conservative and only 20 percent call themselves liberal plus Obama incompetence is leading to a Republican renewal. If nothing else, Palin has shown to be quick study and her knowledge of issues are more considerable than the man she is often compared to, Barack Obama. If nothing else, America would not be worse off with a Palin Presidency compared to the present administration. She does a quick dissection of the Reagan approach in dealing a serious economic downturn, which she noted was worse than the present economic scenario. She observed correctly that Reagan policy of low taxes lifted the nation out of the recession of 1981-82, so we can at least say she understand economic history better than the present occupant of the White House. Obama, like Palin, has a sharp mind but his first year has exposed his big weakness, his lack of substantial knowledge on both economic and foreign policies as well as a blind leftist ideology. Much of the criticism directed toward Palin has nothing to do with her qualifications but a blind hatred for what she represents. A Washington Post writer reviewed the book while admitting she hadn’t read the full book. The left goal is ignore the book and repeat all that has been said before; hoping that enough lies and misrepresentations are repeated, they become truth.
There are legitimate concerns about Palin; the most important is whether she has gravitas. She has the right instinct but she has yet to show that she has substantial in depth knowledge on key issues whether foreign policy or economic. While many have compared her to Reagan, Reagan had substantial knowledge on issues. Many of Reagan’s critics considered him a dunce but a review of his years before his election would show a serious man who wrote on a variety of issues. In 1967, Reagan upstaged Robert Kennedy on a CBS program and he held his own against the master debater William Buckley on the Panama Canal in 1978. Reagan also had a weekly column that allowed him the opportunity to vet ideas before he ran for Presidency.
Palin is using facebook to do that nowq but she is no Reagan when it comes to substantial knowledge on the big issues. She has three years to show that she has the gravitas to be President and that in the end will determine her political fate. In many ways, she is the conservative version of Obama, a woman with immense political talent but has yet to show that she has the goods to be trusted in the Oval office.
Obama ran a beautiful primary campaign as he stomped over the favorite, Hillary Clinton but rarely did he show in depth knowledge and with a compliant media, he didn’t have to. Palin will even get hammered by some on the right whereas Obama was virtually untouchable when he was running for President but still is in many quarters of the media. So the one area that Obama has the advantage is media, who still worship him. What will sink Obama will be the results of his policies and that can’t be hidden.
For those who are unbiased will find in this book, a woman who has shown to be competent and a woman who has been the victim of a Democratic smear campaign and a totally different person. For those of us who love Sarah, there are legitimate concerns about her and a possible Presidential run that centers not just on her electability but her ability to be President. Only a Presidential campaign will begin to determine that for she will be compared to other Republicans, such as Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty. Both of these men have substantial accomplishments and have substantial knowledge of the issues. Palin fate is in the hands of voters.
