Palin’s speech to the Teabaggers was her boilerplate of nonsequiturs and cognitive disconnections, but in the interview that followed, she revealed her hand in a game for the presidency. We will be covering her astrology again shortly. This article is a political piece, written by Adele M. Stan and first published on Alternet. –efc
In an interview with Chris Wallace, recorded on the eve of her Saturday night special of a speech to the Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville (and aired yesterday on Fox News Sunday), Palin didn’t quite confirm that speculation, but left the door wide open.
“Why wouldn’t you run for president?” Wallace asked.
“I would,” Palin replied. “I would if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family. Certainly, I would do so.”
Palin’s address to the Tea Partiers was standard for her: boilerplate in its arrangement of non sequiturs and cognitive disconnects. She railed against the Obama administration for ostensibly violating the 10th Amendment to the Constitution — the one that guarantees states’ rights — and then offered a health-care “fix” that violates that very amendment (allowing consumers to purchase policies across state lines, which basically intrudes upon the state’s right to regulate the insurance industry within the state). She charged the administration with trampling on the Constitution, while asserting that “foreign terrorists” arrested here aren’t entitled to constitutional rights. (Uh, actually, the Constitution confers those rights on anyone in the U.S. justice system — citizen or not.)
She stoked up the right’s anti-intellectual animus by taking shots at President Obama’s alleged elitism, and went after him for purportedly being soft on terrorism and dictators. All predictable, and a good move if you’re planning to be the opposition candidate to the president’s 2012 bid for re-election.
But during the question-and-answer session that followed with Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, Palin departed from the chant of her familiar refrain to tacitly reveal her hand — and not just the talking points scribbled on it — for the strategy she may use to clear her path to the presidency. That path-clearing seems to involve the sowing of discord, not just within the Republican Party, but within the Tea Party movement as well, along with a sprinkle of discord dust on the Democratic Party for good measure.
Palin took pre-selected questions from conference attendees that were submitted through the Tea Party Nation Web site, and read by Phillips.
In answer to one question, Palin noted with enthusiasm that many Tea Party activists are not registered Republicans — just like the former first dude of Alaska.
“My husband — he’s not a registered Republican. He’s probably more conservative than I am,” she told the convention.
Indeed, Todd Palin, for seven years was a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, which is the Alaska chapter of the theocratic Constitution Party founded by Howard Phillips (no relation to Judson Phillips), one of the architects of the religious right.
TP’s membership in AIP created a bit of a problem for the McCain presidential campaign, and within the campaign, according to campaign aide Steve Schmidt, who had to battle Palin to keep her from denying that fact, which was easily verifiable by any enterprising reporter. Todd Palin left the party before his wife hit the campaign trail as McCain’s running-mate, but maintained his independent voting status.
(Todd Palin made news again this week, when an investigation by NBC News revealed e-mails that showed him deeply involved in the governance of the State of Alaska during his wife’s truncated term as governor.)
Sarah Palin told the Tea Partiers that she supposed she owed an apology to the Republican Party for not being able to persuade her husband to join. Yet she spent the early part of her speech lauding the victory of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who won his seat with a lot of out-of-state help from Tea Partiers.
During her question-time at the convention — she only took questions submitted in advance through the convention Web site — Sarah Palin no doubt pleased the theocrats of her husband’s former party when she would like to see leaders who were willing to “seek some divine intervention in this country” — someone who wouldn’t fear what the media would report when they “proclaim their dependence on our creator.”
In her speech and during her question-and-answer session, Palin applauded the primary challenges that some Tea Party activists are launching for contested congressional and Senate seats in the 2010 election. “Contested primaries aren’t civil war,” she said in her speech. “They’re democracy, and that’s beautiful.”
She hinted that she may campaign for some of those challengers. (In Arizona, however, she has angered some Tea Party activists by backing the candidacy of her former running mate instead of the Tea Party-backed challenger to Sen. McCain, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.)
Yet for all cheerleading of the Tea Partiers, Palin seems just as poised to bust up their movement, and encouraged some light demolition within the Democratic Party, as well.
Despite strongly articulated qualms by some movement activists that the GOP was co-opting their movement, Palin told the audience that “the Republican Party woudl be really smart to start absorbing as much of the Tea Party movement as possible.”
Of the Democrats, she said, “It’s pretty cool to see some of these Blue Dog Democrats peekin’ under the [Tea Party] tent.”
It’s tempting for progressives to dismiss Palin as a lightweight based on her well-demonstrated ignorance of — well, a whole lot of things. But that doesn’t mean she’s not clever. That doesn’t mean she’s not up to something.
What Palin appears to be doing is adopting the old Howard Phillips strategy of sowing discord in all camps, in order to pick up the shards left behind, and build something of them. In her interview with Chris Wallace, Palin cited a column by Pat Buchanan that assessed the scenarios by which Obama might win or lose in 2012. Buchanan almost became Phillips’ candidate for his third party (then called the U.S. Taxpayers Party) in 1996; by threatening to walk the delegates he won in the presidential primary out of the GOP, he won Phyllis Schlafly and his sister, Bay Buchanan, control of the Republican Party Platform.
(You may recall that during the 2008 presidential campaign, Buchanan asserted that Palin had campaigned for him, but then walked it back when Palin denied it.)
Sarah Palin will never win a majority of America’s votes, should she run for president. But she’s probably betting that she could win a plurality if the major parties and the Tea Party movement are divided.
At one point, Judson Phillips said to Palin, “I can think of two words that scare liberals: ‘President Palin’.”
With that, the crowd broke into a spontaneous chant: “Run, Sarah, run!”
BTW, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful to my US brothers and sisters, Australia is in the same zone almost. We’ll lie over for a quid anywhere. Sell uranium, our public transport infrastructure, nursing homes…. And if Palin becomes President rest assured whoever is our Prime Minister will kiss her sweet ass. While she kicks everyone else’s. Ha!
Where are the strong women taking her to debate….. Hello…. meanwhile she’s got all the ol boys feeding her grapes…. It’s magic and it ain’t white.
I’m in Australia. Palin is a complete idiot and I suspect far more sinister than Bush. She likes to push buttons and speak sh… But that’s ok, she’s an attractive go-getting independent family gung-ho American woman, flying the flag of supremacy and the American Dream, which incidentally wnet down the drain and is presently being treated in the sewerage plant. Plain is more like Our Colective Satan in drag. Who said Satan had to be a man. Like God, the light and dark resides everywhere irrespective of gender. Prepare your concrete bunkers now…… annyone seen “The Road”.
Fe,
Thank you for the selection from Nancy Sommers. Not familiar with her work but it seems she has the story on hoary down pat. Time does not appear to be on The Guv’ner’s side. She can, and probably will be used to make money for other people. She can and probably will be a stalking horse of sorts, or a distraction, a form of entertainment. And if she is being used, what does that say about the people fixated on her?
The faceless behind big money expect a handsome return on their investment. One thing you can say about Dubya/Cheney is that they delivered on that (a bit too well as it turns out). Can Paris do that? It’s not about being President. Now more than ever it’s about THE presidents.
This is from Nancy Sommers’ website “Starlight News”
I was recently freaked out by this little Sarah Palin book icon appearing on my facebook page with a note that MY SISTER is a fan … somehow I found a way to make peace with the Palin movement as I put them all in this nice little (wacky) box and knowing that my sister was a fan blew that notion right out of the water.
My sister-in-law helped me understand this a bit, she too had a very close friend who was one of the Palin people. She’s appealing to a large crowd for varying reasons and if nothing else she is finding a way to draw crowds … so I let go of the freak out knowing that people have a tough time turning away from crash sites.
The woman is so nasty and disrespectful … but she fails to push my buttons anymore.
mm.
Agreed, Len — and agreed, Fe — and Hazel, I’m boggled as well by the women who admire her. My concern isn’t that she’ll become president. My issue is that the rhetoric that’s being used, so obvious to us, is very close to that used by hate groups, and not a single ‘mainstream’ Republican is willing to criticize it. Back in the 30s, there were over a half-million women who belonged to the Klan — it took a series of ugly revelations to wise them up. I suspect we’ll have some ugly revelations of our own, soon enough … but that can’t come quickly enough to suit me. It’s the deep polarity that has us tunnel-visioned — but if this stuff isn’t marginalized for what it is, it becomes the Elephant we don’t dare take our eyes off of!
Be interesting to read the astrology given that we share the same birthsign and year (albeit in widely different locations and obviously dates ….) . Hmmm
“We’re focusing our marketing efforts on activities that allow customers to get behind the wheel of our Cadillacs,” Twork said. “This is a different stance than we’ve taken in the past when we’ve tried to raise awareness for our brand.”
Further to the quote above, the world is changing. So, who knows for sure what’s gonna happen? Not me. Not for sure. However some ideas:
In spite of the fact that branding is not what it used to be, we must also remember that Paris Palin is not exactly being the Original in this strategy. Buchanan used it as a bluff to get leverage and influence. That’s a long way from being The Candidate. Also please remember Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, and on and on who had a large following and ample financing and still fell short of even the low number of votes to qualify for public funds.
Finally, now that Pluto is in Capricorn, what’s anything “theocratic” going to do to improve the bottom line? That’s the real key as to whether Paris is a herald or an echo.
“And until more Americans understand its true nature, they will keep getting surprised by the virulence of its message and the power of its momentum.”
Jude:
I read Sullivan constantly, because his perspective is very clear on what is happening to conservatism in America.
More to the point, the true face of modern American conservatism is getting more clearly revealed. It is a mask over corporatism, dressed in religion and sporting hegemony. That they can speak and act with words that inflame the basest passions, no reasoning or rational thought can exist in the same room without being starved of oxygen.
The closest we came to realizing that in this era was when Obama took the Republicans to town on their talking points at the Leo Full Moon. It was as if that mask was stripped away and reason prevailed for a moment’s worth of hope for a participatory democracy.
We are going to need more moments like that, otherwise its the loudest, most violent and ill-informed who will control the country. And it can’t be Obama alone. The election was a loud message to these goons. But they’re pushing back hard. We need to keep at them. All of us.
I work at a small resale shop that sells mostly donated women’s clothes and most of my customers are women and it really scares me down deep when I hear some of these ladies say they admire this woman. She knows how to play her audience, I’ll give her that. She might not be a big threat as far as getting votes and becoming president, but she is doing damage with her words. And I think she means to do damage, even if she doesn’t sound like she knows what she’s talking about. It’s not the words she says, but the intent behind them. In The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis the uncle demon is telling the nephew demon about how to steal a human soul and when the nephew asks, the uncle tells him that there is no one “side” to get the human to be on, only that the human be convinced that his “side” is the right one and that the other human’s “side” is the wrong one. The uncle demon tells the younger that the discord and misunderstandings that lead to hatred are how the demons know they’re making headway in stealing the soul, it doesn’t matter which side, as long as the humans are taking sides against each other. I don’t think this woman really has a master plan to turn us all against each other, but she seems to get a boost or something when she gets people riled up.
I would like to pretend this woman wasn’t capturing the zeitgeist of the radical Right, begging her obvious inability to articulate an actual policy or plan that creates responsible options in governance, but I can’t — I consider her as dangerous as a coiled rattler. The religiosity that peppers her conversations covers a thinly veiled racism. She speaks the language, albeit confused, of the Christian white … and they all agree that she’s ‘plain-speaking’ to their concerns.
Andrew Sullivan, small ‘c’ conservative, has been on Palin’s case from the git-go. He posted an example of what we’re facing … and I appreciated this quote:
“But I do not believe you can understand contemporary conservatism as a political entity. It is a religious entity. And until more Americans understand its true nature, they will keep getting surprised by the virulence of its message and the power of its momentum.”
You can read a snip from Palin’s $100,000 speech … yes, her brand is For Profit … that makes this obvious here: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/02/christianism-in-its-essence.html