Likewise, I do think there are some staffers and others who expect Mitt Romney to run again in 2012, they decided McCain could not win, and decided to undermine Sarah Palin and her chances hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney. This also explains people like Kathleen Parker, who lusts the magnificent hair.

I am one that thinks it is Romney people who are behind this…I don’t necessarily believe he’s orchestrating it…or that he tacitly approves…I have no evidence to prove one way or another concerning his part in it beyond what I read in the Wash Times and other reports saying weeks before the election that Romnney’s people were planning this…low and behold it happened within hours of McCain’s concession speech…

That being said…I have said I’m giving Romney the benefit of the doubt…as I am John McCain…these may well be rogue staffers who are trying to ingratiate themselves to Romney in 2012 as you say…My point has been and continues to be that John McCain and Mitt Romney should find the nearest microphone and put an end to this by telling these staffers that they will never work for them in any future campaigns unless the subterfuge and vicious backbiting comes to an end…I would add that the Huckster and his former staffers could also be behind this and I call on him to do the same!

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

Senate Conservatives Fund House Conservatives Fund Michael Williams for Senate

Marco 2010 Toomey US Senate SarahPAC

I’m a Massachusetts Republican. Romney governed to the right of the Massachusetts. I have supported and still like him. Right now and for 2012, I am supporting Sarah 100%.

My problem is with those who single out Romney and Romney supporters. There is an ugly part of the Republican base that harbors anti-Mormon feelings. There is also a stupid part of the Republican base that wants all Republicans to act like they like in Oklahoma.

The truth is Sarah is threatening. She is threatening to Romney. But she is also threatening to Huckabee. She is threatening to post modern feminists. She is threatening to Obama 2012. She is threatening to anyone who plans to run in 2012 or even 2016 including Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty, Rudy Giuliani, Jeb Bush, etc…

You may not find a representive from those respective parties actually leaking information, but you will see a certain willingness to spread these unsubstatiated rumors. There is a defeaning silence from certain corners. They certainly are not coming to her defense.

This is not just a Romney problem. The animosity and intrigue she generates is a testament to her viability. She is the future.

Huckabee needs to step up and help the party like he said and his tv show is really bad to watch

He needs to go back to AR and help Party and run for Senate

I agree totaly with the following btw

Let me be clear here: it is not just about Palin. It is about mercenary politicos who work for the paycheck, not the cause. They are the reason the GOP is where it is now. They had no principle and no loyal except to the paycheck. And they must be annihilated.

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

Senate Conservatives Fund House Conservatives Fund Michael Williams for Senate

Marco 2010 Toomey US Senate SarahPAC

Huckabee, if he does have aspirations toward 2012, is doing this thing right. He’s laying low, hosting his own talk show so he has national exposure, and will continue to be a household name for the next four years. Romney will come out of the shadows in 2012, but Huckabee will have a huge advantage.
Sarah Palin can wipe them out. If she can keep reaching out to Barack Obama to make Alaska the energy independence leader and make headlines doing it, then Romney and Huckabee will be quite irrelevant.

I like him a lot but his tv show is really bad.

I wish he would help the party and run for US Senate

put an end to this when it would take McCain 5 minutes to stop it? I want to hear what McCain really thinks of her. I have to assume by his silenece that he agrees with these staffers. Why else would he let this go on? Maybe Palin should switch party affiliation so McCain will feel more inclined to defend her.

This is the story of a few staffers who ran a bad campaign and are afraid they will never get hired again, so they tried to blame their mistakes on Sarah Palin. She’s already got a pack of haters after her who will swallow these lies easily. Palin’s success, however, all hinges on how the country fares during the next two years and how ready people are to shake off the liberal illuminati come election time.

McCain is on Leno Tuesday so I wonder if we may get our first response

He says they are all lies and he’d like to know who was behind this!

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

Senate Conservatives Fund House Conservatives Fund Michael Williams for Senate

Marco 2010 Toomey US Senate SarahPAC

I dont think it is romney, him self, either.

I think all the palin smear stuff is about people trying to position themselves in favor with the media and those who these “anonymous” sources plan to work for.

Peopl shouldnt be looking at 2012. We have to start looking at legislation which is at hand and the business of the country now, and then to 2010.

We make all candidates take a pledge, or we wont support them, “I pledge not to hire anyone who ever worked in the McCain or Bush campaigns, ever, for anything, forever.”

It was bad enough he just walked away when the fuel of corruption was brought to many folks attention by the McCain campaign.

Sarah, has more Integrity in her little pinky than all three of these guys.

It would be respectable and honorable of McCain to correct this problem.

Her son is overseas fighting for this country and I am sure it would help him to justify the sacrafice his mother and family made, much less him who is in harms way.

…unfortunately, is not the only one who works at NRO who “lusts the magnificent hair” although she’s the most unhinged about it…that site was a bit of a joke to me during the primaries…

I don’t think Romney is coordinating this either, but the longer he stays silent, the more suspicious it makes him look…I think an nifty little “anyone involved in this crap will not work for me on a compaign…ever…period” from Mitt would stop at least some of it, and make him look good in the process…

John McCain apparently isn’t too tired/busy/under a rock to go on Leno next week…I hate to believe it, but I’m growing more and more certain with each passing day that he’s just fine with what is being done to Governor Palin, and if he is, his “honor” was and is vastly overrated.

This episode and the fact that Erick has had to institute Operation Leper in the first few days after the campaign is one of the best reasons why we lost this election. When you see things like this, you start to believe the Republican Party is a patchwork group of single-issue mercenaries held together by a few mutual grievances and because they:

1) Don’t understand the outside world
2) Don’t understand each other

It’s disgusting and its unprincipled and we deserved to lose. The Democrats should be cramming it down our throats and gloating from the parapets. We don’t even have the dignity to lose well any more.

just happened to be “moderate” Republicans who fear Palin’s one-two punch of conservatism and charisma.

For the past eight years we have been implementing their “kinder and gentler” strategies and accomplished nothing but losing ground.

They know that if she becomes the new face of the party we could very well enter another era of Regan Conservatism and all hope of “moderation” will be lost.

They fear her policies, the direction she would take the party, her popularity, her ability to communicate conservative principles and being proven wrong. But mostly they fear that in a truly conservative Republican Party, no one would listen to them anymore.

I was a big FredHead during the primaries, and I remember like it was yesterday both the Romney camp and the Huck camp sliming Fred (not accusing them of the Palin smears as I do not know the answer yet), and doing it in a chicken sh*t way. Erick God bless you for staying on top of this as we need to PURGE anyone and everyone behind this and take our party back before we all become irrelevant in a liberal Euro-America.

But after reading the comments, I have to ask… Why is any criticism of Mitt Romney promptly written off by his supporters as being anti-Mormon? IMO, this is akin to the way any criticism of Obama is dismissed by many of his own supporters as being racist in nature.

As far as religion goes, I consider anyone who believes in the God of Abraham and tries to do His will a kindred spirit, whether they be Christian (including LDS), Jew or whatever.

Personally, I believe Gov. Romney to be an ethical man of fine character. He wasn’t my candidate, and I had someproblems with his rather sudden embrace of conservative principles, but I would have preferred him over John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, and I would have supported him and voted for him in the general election. I’m not so sure, however, about some (some, mind you, not all) of his supporters. I guess I’ve never quite gotten over that “Phoney Fred” website and the rumors that Sen. Thompson was dropping out of the race well before he decided to do just that.

Nevertheless, this Palin-bashing all falls, not at Romney’s feet, but at McCain’s. Whatever candidate his staff people formerly worked for is not the problem. That McCain has not put a stop to the smearing of Sarah Palin by some, probably only a few of the people inside his campaign, is the problem.

McCain campaigned as someone who would always stand up for what is right and do the right thing. That he hasn’t done right by Sarah Palin is a stain on his reputation.

• JP

This time there were no true Reagan-type full spectrum conservatives running for the nomination. In 2012, their easily could be 4 viable Reaganities running (Jindal, Newt, Palin, Sanford). You will also have Mitt running as the candidate of the neo-libertarians (the Ficons and solib) and Huck and Pawlenty running for Social Democrats part of the base (FImods and Socons). Lets for simple math sake say the Republican Party is

60% Reaganites
20% Neo-Libertarian
20% Social Democrat

You could easily see Newt do in 2012 what he in 2008, toy with running, but come to the conclussion he cant win it all so decides not to run because he is better off doing what he doing now than being a losing Presidential candidate. Sanford could easily drop out because he wont be able to get traction with Palin and Jindal in the race. It now makes it a 5 person field (Huck, Jindal, Palin, Pawlenty, Romney). While Jindal and Palin are competing for the Reaganite vote and Huck and Pawlenty are doing the samwe with the sodem vote. That leaves the race looking like

Palin and Jindal 30%
Mitt 20%
Huck and Pawlenty 10

If Mitt can start to pick off 5% of the Reaganite vote and make a deal with solib to put Pawlenty on the ticket he can get that a good chunk of that coalition on his side as neither Huck and Pawlenty have a chance he can compete for the nomination. If Mitt has to head to head aganist a Reganite he loses, if he can against multiple Reganites he has a chance. Trashing Palin hurts Romney because her votes wont go to him, but to another Reaganite like Jindal.

I had my theory on this based on McCaslin reporting the plan weeks before the election…I had no idea about these other news sources corroborating my theory…

That being said…I reiterate…Romney, McCain, Huckabee, or any other potential candidate for political office need to find a microphone, Condemn this behavior and call for an end to it whether thjey are behind it or not!

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

Senate Conservatives Fund House Conservatives Fund Michael Williams for Senate

Marco 2010 Toomey US Senate SarahPAC

Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

just amazing….I am gonna guess whomever these “anonymous” sources are they have got to be a little OLDER than the average campaign worker because THEY don’t quite get how STUPID and easy it becomes to dimantle their arguments quite easily….LEPERS indeed!

Whoever has his enemy at his mercy &
does not destroy him is his own enemy

she stated she had spoken with McCain 2 hours prior, that they had discussed the attack on her, were both in agreement that it was untrue yet difficult to counter since the sources are anonymous. She went on to mildly criticize the media for allowing this to become such a huge story w/o disclosing their sources.

But, yeah, McCain definitely needs to speak out directly to the media about this in her behalf. Would go a long way towards discrediting these chikens*its who are spreading this gossip.

Think the interview was shown on FOX, but not sure - small people in my house are known to sometimes gain access to the remote and change the channel - sometimes to MSNBC - egads!

to the Eleventh Commandment by Ronaldus Magnus? Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican?

These anonymous staffers need to get with Robert Shrum. May he’ll hire them.

The well-known comment

“Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan.”

popularized by John F. Kennedy following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, applies here.

That Fox News, or anyone else, treats as news the fact the some members of our so-called “team” are not really “team players” is very disappointing.

If our team had won, everyone would be claiming credit for Governor Palin’s contributions.

Again, why is this news?

AS a proud operative of both OP CHAOS and OP LEPER, I say once we clean the DC/Beltway elites out of the Republican Party, Sarah will be someday leading the Party and I hope she runs in 2012. Until then I, and my cohorts, will keep these backstabbers and low-lifes square in our sights.
PALIN/2012

We’ll probably never find out who leaked this story,but I doubt that it was Mitt Romney. So the question then becomes,who had the most to gain by this leak? Let’s see,the story makes Palin look like a dummy who doesn’t know anything about geography. It immediately casts suspicion on Romney, making him look like a sleaze ball. And it tarnishes the reputation of John McCain since the anonymous sources are supposed to be his aides. With one simple stroke the three leading Republicans are tarnished. Who would do such a thing? Who would love to destroy these three so they are not serious contenders in 2012? I’ll give you a hint. His initials are BHO. I expect more of these leaks in the months to come.

Somewhere along the line, Noonan decided that Palin wasn’t a member of her tribe.

The “tribe” is the Georgetown cocktail party set. It doesn’t matter if it’s Noonan or Brooks or Hume or Browkaw or Stephanopolis. Political party is secondary to the importance of preserving their rights as card-carrying members of the Georgetown Social Club to elect our Presidents. The media and its sychophants are the most corrosive force in American politics.

I would also point out that that it is no coincidence that the two political figures most savagely beaten by the media are strong women. And, that the attacks all has sexist undertones: cackling, the claws come out, periodically, shopping “sprees”, wearing a towel to answer the door, and IMO the most disgusting attack I’ve ever seen — the attack on Governor Palin for carrying her baby to full term.

The idiots selling Palin out are just currying favor to insure continued invites to proper Georgetown cocktail parties and, as a corallary to that, status as beltway pundits.

This is not about John McCain and what he explains. This is not about Mitt Romney and what Rombots might or might not have been involved external to the McCain campaign. Likewise with Mike Huckabee and anyone else.

This is McCain staffers who sabotaged his campaign by pushing slander about Sarah Palin. I consider this to be an almost unforgivable preach of trust, as anyone on a Republican campaign must be committed to that campaign and to the things which help that campaign and the party. If you attempt to sabotage Governor Palin, you attempt to sabotage the party and are useless to the party. If the GOP is to regain electoral statue, the offenders must never again be associated with the Republican Party.

Let them write books. I’m sure there is a big contract out there for the embellished details of the offending stunt. The offender could be an instant hero to the nutroots. And why not? It’s all about the glory and the money, obviously.

You still don’t get it, do you?Let me give you a little history lesson of what happened to your sister party in the UK. 1997 Blair came along & did to the Tory party what Obama did to the G.O.P, & the rump that was left whimpered that the ‘TRUE’ cause had been deserted. ‘We need to get back to true conservative principles’ was the cry, & learched to the right. Guess what, 4 years later they lost. This same rump (didn’t gain a single new seat in parliament), foaming at the mouth, stated they didn’t articulate these conservative principles clearly enough, & so they pushed the parties platform even further to the right…& low & behold they lost again! Still, you know best?????

The person I don’t trust is Mike Hucakabee. I saw him speak twice in the past month both times presumably for John McCain and in both speeches he never mentioned John McCain by name. Not even once nor Sarah Palin. Huckabee is all over the news though saying how hard he worked for McCain.

How do you give a speech to praise someone and not mention their name? You spend the entire time talking about yourself and how someone with your credentials would be good for the country. He is not to be trusted.

I agree all the way around that these kinds of attacks on Palin need to be condemned by ALL the GOP players in this year’s election. The 11th Commandment needs to be respected. These people are cowards and McCain needs to take the lead and put an end to this. Until someone takes the reins, he is the de facto leader of this party (let’s hope for not much longer). He needed to speak up days ago.

Secondly, we absolutely need to smoke these people out and ensure all future candidates know who the snakes are (and the political cognescenti so we know who to distrust and not support).

Thirdly, I like the idea of Sarah Palin as standard bearer, but I am not convinced, yet. I defend her to those less enamored of her (to say the best) as a national neophyte, who obviously has tremendous retail political skills and a great back story. But, I admit a little uneasiness at her speaking style (which drives me crazy) and I don’t think she has made herself conversant enough on key national issues to avoid caricature.

She has a decision to make. If she wants to pursue national office, she needs to take what I think is her considerable intelligence, and apply that to crafting Conservative opinions, and marketing them clearly to the American people. I hope she will do that. I have 100% confidence that Bobby Jindal can (and will). It would be great to have multiple good, fresh, conservative choices in 2012 and 2016 (God forbid).

But, for me, Sarah Palin is not ready for prime time just yet. I still found her a great, inspired choice for #2, but she faced a massive learning curve.

Maybe it would be good to make of list of people exonerated too. If you have good information they weren’t part of the smears, they should be named as well so they are not tainted by having worked on the McCain campaign (well, no more than anyone else should for working on his campaign).

If people want to know why the Republican party went down in flames this election, its due to “staffers” like these who instead of saying NOTHING and moving on, instead they come out without coming out like the jerks that they are and bash someone who energized the base, drew in MORE crowds then I have ever seen, even more crowds then John McCain, I saw almost every Sarah Palin rally, and the ones that she had with McCain, I saw with my very own eyes after she was done talking they would LEAVE, yeah actually LEAVE, they weren’t even interested in hearing McCain talk, now why, he is the one running for President, well, it was because they came to see HER, not HIM. Look, I respect John for what he did for this country, he is a war hero and from what I have seen(until proven otherwise) he a pretty decent guy, but I voted for Sarah Palin, NOT John McCain, if he had not chosen her, I would have stayed home. I voted for Hillary Clinton during the primary, saw her being screwed over by the Democratic party and decided to switched to the Republican party, I thought only democrats could be this evil, I see even the GOP are full of snakes. The GOP has to be cleaned out, these kinds of “people” don’t need to represent the Republican party. Sarah is the future of the party hands down. She is OUR Ronny Reagan, and if it is Mitt Romney’s people, or whoever, they are slime balls, because Sarah busted her ass day and night for this campaign and the fact that she went “rogue” and brought up Wright and Ayers, GOOD FOR HER!! It’s what McCain should have done a long time ago. No, instead he had to be Mr. Nice Guy to Obama and kiss his butt, what did that get McCain, nothing, maybe if he had spent less time being nice and more time attacking he would have won. Without Sarah, he would have lost by a landslide, and I mean winning only a few states, Sarah brought this party together and now the GOP is trying to tear her apart. Unbelievable, no wonder good people don’t get into politics, because of evil like THIS. Sarah is my President, in 2012 when she runs, she WILL win because she is REAL, AUTHENTIC, and LEGIT and not afraid to speak the TRUTH. It’s a shame the Republican party doesn’t have more Sarah’s out there representing their cause, they just might have won if they did.

that neither McCain, Huckabee, or Romney had anything to do with the attempts to disgrace Sarah Palin.

This seems obvious to me that it was the work of the liberal Republicans (yes, NeoCons) that were working for McCain. After all, McCain attracted the most liberal of Republicans for his staff and you have to know they hated the idea of a Conservative lady for the VP position. This actually should be very obvious to anyone here at RedState especially…

This will even continue for the next year or so to ensure that she has to respectable place in the party. The thing is though - she is considered one of ours and one of the top prospects so they, liberal fake Republicans, can take a hike!

Their urge to tap down the Conservative base of the Republican Party after this loss is undeniable. I can see no other option other than these same losing Republican members attempting to squash Conservative up and coming possibilities.

That the silence is deafening. No one, NO ONE, has come to Sarah Palin’s defence. She did the one thing that the tried and true standard bearers couldn’t do, she brought out the base in huge numbers wherever she went. And this has all of them worried about their own future. I say their future not that of the Republican party or even the country. They don’t see themselves supporting anyone but themselves. If she hadn’t been on the ticket, McCain=McGovern.

This is precisely why we lost the election. The irony is that the Democrats, who are much more prone to this problem, were able to overcome their internal divisions and focus on the goal for just long enough to win. They are already going back to the internal sniping and backbiting.

I have to echo Rush here,”Conservative issues win elections every time they are tried.”

It may be true that the Big Shots didn’t specifically order the hit. But they are certainly complicit with their silence. My personal “Leper List” is quite lengthy.