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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

RedState Interviews Gov. Sarah Palin

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  November 17th, 2009 at 05:44 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I just had a terrific interview with Governor Sarah Palin this afternoon. Her new book, Going Rogue, came out today. I’d like to say we talked a lot about her book, but I did not get it until 10:00 a.m. and had family stuff to take care of. I gave it a quick thumbing through, but largely asked questions based on readers submissions via twitter etc.

Up front, I asked Governor Palin what she wanted people to take away from her book. She said policy should be a take away. She wants people to read about what she thinks should be done to get the country back on its feet and help “everyday ordinary Americans,” a group she referred to repeatedly during our time together.

We spent a lot of the conversation talking about various policy issues.


Read to Lead

One of the criticisms leveled by the right when Palin was chosen as McCain’s nominee is that she had not shown she’d done the reading to lead, i.e. read the Hayek, Friedman, Goldwater, Bastiat, to form her thoughts. She admitted she is a gut level conservative, but also said that criticism comes mostly from “shallow people who have not delved into [her] record.”

I did not want to sound like Katie Couric and ask what she’s read, but I broached the subject and she went right into mentioning Thomas Sowell and Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism. She said she has read some of the foundational stuff, but she sees no need to focus on the old writings. She likes “the modern stuff too.” Her preference is policy and application, focusing on writers who are not just following up on foundational conservative ideas, but applying those ideas too.

Nation Building

One of the issues that has divided the right lately is nation building. I asked her view and she said “I really do think America is blessed. We have taken a voluntary responsibility to assist other nations,” but we have to do our part at home first to build ourselves up. She said it didn’t do us any good to help lift up other countries if we weren’t lifting up ourselves. She cited “cutting taxes, helping employers, and building up our military” as examples.

China

With China in the news, I thought I’d ask her about that. She said China is a rising super power and we should treat it as such, but recognize there is an unbalanced trade situation right now complicated by our reliance on foreign energy sources at a time China has a voracious appetite for more and more energy of its own. “We should be selling energy to China,” Gov. Palin said.

While she wants good relations with China, she said our primary obligation must be to our existing allies. We need to make sure everyone knows we will absolutely stand by our allies and need to show our spine is still made of steel.

Domestic Policy

Domestically, Governor Palin said a lot of everyday ordinary Americans are frustrated because we’ve been trying to show the government it should trust us to lead our lives as we want, but we have a government bureaucracy filled with bureaucrats who think they know better. She wants to change that and free up people and small businesses.

New York 23 & Its Aftermath

I shifted gears to New York 23. “It is encouraging to see the race tighten even more,” she said. She too agrees NY-23 was a “real victory for conservatives.” “An independent with common sense really can make a difference outside the party establishment,” she said. “It shows an underdog can make a difference.”

About what I’ve called the “Spirit of New York 23″ that is now becoming apparent — people of both parties picking off incumbents and insisting on change — Governor Palin said she neither expects nor needs any sort of title to play a role in the rising effort to fix the country, but she does intend to play a role. “I’m not gonna sit down and shut. That’s why I resigned,” she said referring to her resignation as Governor of Alaska. Groups inside and outside Alaska were making it too difficult on her as governor, wife, and mom to work for improvements in Alaska and the nation. By resigning, she said she could “throw off the shackles” groups were putting in place to restrain her ability.

Wrap Up

It was a delightful conversation. Governor Palin is very gracious and personable. I would have loved to delve into the book a bit more, but time constrains and its late arrival meant I couldn’t. Nonetheless, I was pleased she was willing to go with a free for all in the questions — really shifting back and forth on topics.

You can buy Governor Palin’s book here at Amazon if you don’t already have a copy. Just from my quick page turning, I suspect you’ll be surprised by a lot of it.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

    Am looking forward to reading it..

    I really like Sarah Palin. And the folks I talk to in this red part of Illinois feel the same way. She’s one of us.

    She’s a normal, college-educated, church-going person who is raising family and has worked a variety of jobs, rather than having a career in one particular thing. We identify with that.

    She’s an unapologetic conservative, one of those hyper-organized
    super-moms using the tools at her disposal to advance the same general causes I want to advance. She’s being Alinskied by the other side.

    And I, for one, have got her back.

  • dhorowitz3

    I was so delighted when she catagorically rejected the global warming nonesense in an interview with Rush today. This is something that she was unable to do during the campaign because of McCain’s climate facisim views. This issue is one of the most important for me. Global warming facisim is the buggest threat to our liberty, prosperity, free markets, and way of life. Sarah is so far the only possible 2012 contender that holds this view. Don’t let Pawlenty’s 180 degree turnabout fool you.

  • mschmitt
  • jackbenimble

    Palin has been very tough to pin down on the illegal immigration issue. There are just a few quotes floating around which sound a lot like the same thin gruel that we got from Bush and McCain. Against amnesty but in favor of a path to citizenship which to many conservatives sounds like amnesty in disguise.

  • dhorowitz3

    Rush asked her about that in the interview. She said something like, “they are called illegal for a reason”. Unfortunately it was at the end of the segement so there was no time to delve into it further.

  • coatsies

    When it comes to nation-building. The United States, under Democratic and Republican rule, has a poor record over the last round-about half century. The last real success story when it comes to rebuilding nations in a way that is beneficial for a majority of its citizens was the Marshall Plan, which gave us the constitutions of Germany and Japan, and helped a great deal to create a social consciousness in post-war England.

    The Chicago School of Economics, headed by the unfettered (cut-throat, corporate) capitalism of Milton Friedman, has done much to lower the quality of life of citizens worldwide, while enriching multi-national corporations.

    Chile, is a prime example. Radical free-trade economic policies were instituted under Pinochet, supported by the CIA, and literally manufactured by Chilean students trained at the University of Chicago. Pinochet auctioned off the country’s wealth (formerly nationalized companies and land belonging to the public) to ITT, Ford, and other MNCs. According to Milton Friedman, the man who would prove to be one of the most powerful and influential economic minds of the 20th century, institution of these free-market policies seems to work better under authoritarian rule than democratic rule–precisely because they do not benefit all (they as a matter of empirical fact, benefit only a few).

    In the late 1980s, as we were cracking into the Mexico market, we saw eleven plants with jobs paying a living wage close down in Flint, Michigan, and eleven open up in Mexico, where the workers were paid 70 cents a day. GM saw huge profits, we saw massive unemployment.

    Free trade and privatization, paired with allowing companies to ship our jobs overseas with no consequence, or compensation to the great country they are hurting, creates a massive increase in unemployment and stagnating wages for the U.S. and us. Cutting corporate taxes eliminates the safety net created to help the unemployed.

    stagnating wages with shipping jobs overseas for massive profit + mass unemployment + cutting the social programs that help people deal with these negative changes = an increase in crime, an increase in mortality rates, and an ever-increasing need for more prisons as people resort to desperate measures in desperate times.

    Do I have the solid-gold answer? Do I propose socialism, a different type of capitalism, or communism, or some other ism?

    I’ve come to a point where I try to stop thinking in isms, and only look at the practical results of policy.

    MY BOTTOM LINE:
    The practical results of the neoliberal (i.e. privatization, cutting corporate taxes, cutting government programs) economic policy instituted in full-force in the 1980s, have not resulted in promised economic prosperity for us all–it has harmed the majority of good, hardworking Americans and enriched a small few corporate monopolies.

    These monopolies are our new monarchs. I may not like the government telling me what to do (and I don’t), but I hate when corporations start limiting my freedom and pursuit of happiness.

    Patriotically Yours,
    –Stevo

  • leehazel

    “they are called illegal for a reason”.

    Sounds pretty unambiguous to me. They are illegal, they are not eligible to vote, they are not eligible for welfare, they are not eligible for free medical care, etc,etc etc.

    I am sure that Sheriff Joe Arpio in Phoenix AZ understands perfectly what she has said in this sentence.

    PC is Thought Control
    Lee

  • http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

    RUSH: Thirty seconds: Immigration. Can you do it in 30 seconds before we have to go?

    GOV. PALIN: I can’t do it in 30 seconds but just know that… You know, let me put it simply: Illegal immigrants are called “illegal” for a reason. We need to crack down on this. We need to listen to the border states where the governors there have some solutions and we need to get serious about that.

    That’s not very mccainy.

  • JadedByPolitics

    you totally ROCK and how absolutely KEWL that Sarah Palin should speak to the GRASSROOTS on Redstate through you! Thanks to both you!

  • mfarmer

    “These monopolies are our new monarchs. I may not like the government telling me what to do (and I don?t), but I hate when corporations start limiting my freedom and pursuit of happiness.”

    Stevo, without government protection, these corporations would be brought down to size by competition, so it’s not a matter of choosing between government intervention and corporate power — it’s a matter of attacking the problem at its roots by limiting government’s ability to provide protection to rent -seeking corporations.

  • pilgrim

    Cutting government programs? What planet do you live on? President Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, but there has been no cutting of any government programs in my lifetime by Rs or Ds. I would love to have lived with the results of cutting government programs. It never has happened.

  • Vegas_Rick

    If the market is free, government does not penalize corporations for running their businesses profitably unless such operations are illegal. It is not illegal to move your operation to a place with lower labor costs.

    Americans must someday realize that you can’t have high wages AND low prices. There has to be a balance. Walmart has low prices for a reason. If you want them to offer only American made products, expect prices to go up.

  • Richard Mullins

    sure, you think all you want but you seems to forget why we lose jobs, grubby little unions(UAW in particular). Your little ilk have move quite a lots of jobs overseas and want to work on making everyone in the US, just as poor as many other nations(as for Mexico, it could be a weathy nation if it’s government was dragging it down). I really think you need to think things over first Stevo before you keep going.

  • jackbenimble

    It may not be mccainy but it is not very forceful either.

    Ahlnold in California is a border State Governor who favors comprehensive reform. His predecessor Grey-out Davis was even worse. Richardson in New Mexico is a border state governor who favors comprehensive reform or probably, while he won’t admit it, wide open borders. Gov Goodhair Perry in Texas has made a career out of talking out both sides of his mouth on illegal immigration. Before elections he is invariably all for border security and talking tough. After elections, not so much. And then of course there was President GWB who was a former border state governor from Texas and we know where he stood.

    I don’t know much about the current Governor of Arizona but I have the impression he is OK. But before that they had Nappy who talked tough but repeatedly vetoed tough laws and only signed them when it was clear the voters were going to shove something tougher down her throat with a ballot initiative. Her best idea was the virtual fence and more Federal enforcement and so far, now that she is in a position to do those things, I have seen very little of either.

    Which border state governors does Palin want to listen to?

    I’m not saying that Palin won’t be OK on the illegal immigration issue but I have not heard anything yet that makes me feel very comfortable either which is why I posted in the first place. Here is some stuff she said during the campaign. I understand that at that time she had to support McCain and this stuff sounds VERY mccainy.

    Sarah Palin on the Issues

    I’m hoping to hear something different now that she is a free agent and a rogue one at that. I’d really like to here some no bullshit policies that make it clear where she stands rather than vague platitudes. If she wants to lead then she should step up to the plate and lead. It sounds like this is going to be a big issue in the next few months so she will have a chance.

  • WarEagle01

    Are you high? Seriously. Put the crack pipe down and get back to DKos before you hurt yourself.

  • martellus

    I got it last night and read it today. It is a good read. She keeps her thoughts well connected and she writes in a style that is easy to read without talking down to her audience. It is worth the price and I am glad I bought it.

    I have sent it to a friend so she can read it. By the end of the week that book will be read by 5 people. I believe Gov Palin would be OK with that.

    She is a force if she chooses to be that.

  • Section9

    I’m disappointed.

    Still, I hold out hope that she will wake up one day and think to herself, “Goldurnit, If I’m goin’ to be President, I’m goin’ to need a good Black Bag Man! Now where’d Art Chance go to….”

  • NeoKong

    Did she ask about me.?

  • Achance

    There is some, especially from Asia, and the canneries/fish processors have been known to import a few Mexicans, but ICE does a few ritual raids every year and it stays under control. Most illegals come from places that don’t find Alaska very attractive. We do have a fair number of taxi drivers with distinctly Eastern European accents that might not be able to produce a green card. But then, there are a lot of Alaskans who wouldn’t want too much prying into their background. It is sometimes said that everybody here was running from something or to something.

    She knows where her base is, so she’ll have the “right” position on immigration if asked hard questions.

  • Scope

    and great questions for Gov. Palin. Thank you for asking policy issues rather than fluff questions. It will be interesting what the anti-Palin commentors here have to say, if anything.

  • Scope

    and great questions for Gov. Palin. Thank you for asking policy issues rather than fluff questions. It will be interesting what the anti-Palin commentors here have to say, if anything.

  • Achance

    Actually some of my friends are; the Murkowski Administration official who went on to be a lobbyist for Exxon that she coplains about is a friend and former boss. He’s the one who got sent by the Administration to see what her problem was with Randy Ruedrich, the Party Chair, and she blew him off then played kiss and tell with the Anchorage Daily Worker. Hard to forget and forgive things like that.

  • Scope

    today, with the release of Palin’s book, and, her media blitz, that there is little to nothing being said about Palin, her book or anything. There can be no question that the few anti-Palins here have all but banned any proPalin opinions. Who wants to be called idiots, stupid, unintelligent for posting in favor of Palin.

  • Scope

    today, with the release of Palin’s book, and, her media blitz, that there is little to nothing being said about Palin, her book or anything. There can be no question that the few anti-Palins here have all but banned any proPalin opinions. Who wants to be called idiots, stupid, unintelligent for posting in favor of Palin.

  • redneck_hippie
  • jackbenimble

    You are right that Alaska does not have much of an illegal alien problem. That is why I didn’t bother to mention that she herself was a border state governor along with a whole bunch of others that border Canada.

    Bush knew where his base was but he repeatedly jammed his thumb in their eye on this particular issue. There are plenty of Republicans including some conservatives that are pretty squishy on this issue.

    I’ll pass judgement when I actually hear some words that have some substance. I expect I will here them during the upcoming immigration debate that The One, Nappy, Harry and Chuckie are promising for early 2010.

  • ciscoguy

    I’m not sticking up for him, per se, but I too once thought AGW was accepted fact and Republicans were silly to try and argue about it. (If everyone accepts it as truth, you gotta be nuts to question it, right?)

    It wasn’t until I learned about how all the scientific dissenters were shut out of the discussion, much like Fox at the White House. Oh yeah, and then I learned that the Earth has been cooling off the last 10 years. Oh, and then I started thinking about ~150 years of data for a planet 4.5 billion years old. Truthfully, it wasn’t until cap ‘n tax entered the discussion that I started to really give it much thought.

    Anyway, point being, I’d be more inclined to believe Pawlenty now about AGW than I would that Romney had some sort of revelation about when human life begins. On the other hand, I did just see a former Planned Parenthood worker now turned right-to-life activist on TV the other day, so conversions do happen. (Her ephiphany was a sonogram-guided abortion.)

  • ciscoguy

    .

  • http://xmmlbchat.blogspot.com katesmith

    It should be obvious to any man or woman there is no global warming, forget cap and trade, recognize who and what illegal immigration involves (the poorest of the poor), America and her defense first, energy needs can and must be satisfied within our own shores. Rush said the fact that any men around can’t get it together to articulate basic ideas is a biproduct of the feminist movement. Men have been encouraged to sound weak. What the left describes as ‘hard right’ sounds like the only choice you have should survival be your interest. I know, it’s selfish.

  • Section9

    1. Gold is headed north of 1500.00 US

    2. Oil will be at $150.00 bbl within two years, easy.

    This is your chance to handle the Purges.

  • Section9

    …and at a huge clip.

    I would expect Rahm and Axelrod to softpedal the Immigration Reform thing to save some butts.

    I just don’t think that the WH understands how frightened Congressional moderates are.

  • Richard Mullins

    when she could have made a deal with either El Paso Corp or Exxon-Mobil, but she was on an anti-Texas campaign at the time. It come no surprise that Trans-Canada is really big in Pipelines, much bigger than Exxon-Mobil on this.

  • redtillimdead

    You lucky bastard!

  • Achance

    If called upon to serve my Country, I’ll answer the call – as long as the money’s right, the conditions are the way I want them, and I rig the parachute. Put not your faith in Princes – or Princesses.

  • Achance

    Neither Alaska nor Exxon have covered themselves in glory in the aftermath of Exxon Valdez, so it is easy to yank those populist strings by being anti-Exxon here. Notice she went out of her way to call out the Exxon lobbyist who had been in the Murkowski administration. There’s a lot more to that story.

  • Richard Mullins

    I mean I understand the Anti-Exxon part but she could have looked for a pipeline company that was just as big and still based in the US.

  • Lisa in Maryland

    You notice no one ever really criticizes about policy. They want to talk trash about her kids, give Levi Johnston as many avenues as they can just to bash her. They just don’t realize that is what people do when they are loosing the argument. When they have no real argument. I’m going to get her book this week and see what she has to say. I hope she does well and is the superstar of the Republican party in 2012.

  • aesthete

    http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html

    Read this, then get back to us on how free trade is Sending Our Jobs Overseas? and Screwing Over The Little Guy For Multi-Nationals?. The only ones who benefit from anti free-trade policies are those domestic producers who are now free to charge higher prices for their goods, in some way or other.

    And I’m not even going to touch Chile’s demonstrable increase in GDP and $/capita, except to tell you to look up Argentina’s GDP relative to other nations in the early 1900s, and its later record under Peron (a socialist, fascist, and totalitarian whathaveyou).

  • Tbone

    I need it to judge if you have a valid concern about Palin’s views.

  • Tbone

    Republican party. It’s a shame that we don’t have a single, viable male worth a bucket of spit.

  • aesthete

    I, for one, would be interested in reading it. TBH, I’m not too impressed by what seem to be very general answers; I’m hoping that she went more in-depth in person than what was summarized here. (I liked her speech in Hong Kong, and thought it was pretty good, myself.) At any rate, it’s cool to see further evidence that RS has garnered some influence!

  • aesthete

    That is all :)

    Still, Sarah’s definitely a fighter on the rhetorical front, and we could definitely use more like her.

  • andysmith

    Did the UAW NOT have hand in making the cost of the automobiles increase thanks to their whacked out stipulations and the backing of Washington politicians?
    Did doing business in the state of Michigan NOT get more expensive thanks to tax increases?
    Look, I want to see Michigan thrive again. But what did Michigan do to keep those jobs there? Everyone wants to blame GM (which is now run by the federal government like everyone wanted, and notice how they still haven’t rebounded) and those “evil” corporate types, but you can’t expect them to stay by raising taxes and letting the unions thug them around.

  • aesthete

    of Granholm’s horrible economic policies (besides her raising of taxes). Off the top of my head, her min. wage raises were ridiculous, and her environmental policy was also far too demanding on businesses without doing much for the environment.

  • Tbone

    I would have supported Fred if he would have exhibited more than a passing interest in the job.

  • attitudesandmedia

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  • discerningconservative

    The Democrat party doesn’t have any viable males worth a bucket of spit, either. So, we aren’t behind in that race.

  • Third Street

    That answer about “listening to border state governors” raises a red flag for me, as well. At least until Napolitano left to join the D.C. Politburo, all of the border-state governors were either sympathetic to illegals or out-and-out pro-amnesty to one degree or another (I don’t know where Jan Brewer stands). Now, anyone who’s paid close attention to the immigration debate over the last several years (especially during the last amnesty battle) knows this, so why would Palin make a statement like that? I really wish she’d had more time to talk about this, because I’m long past the point of accepting rhetoric about “solutions” when the real solution (that is, to build a 2,000 mile fence and then see to it that all illegals are made to find themselves on the right side of it) is pretty damned obvious. Bush wanted to “crack down” on illegal aliens too, after all, but his “solution” was to legalize them all.

    This once again demonstrates the problem of a potential Presidential candidate with a paper-thin resume, whom nobody outside of Alaska had ever heard of until last summer. Sure, we like her; sure, she reminds us of us; but we really don’t know what she’ll do in office because her main claim to fame in her 2.5 years as governor was that she ran off other Republicans.

    Having to run around echoing John McCain in 2008 did her no favors, either. Yes, that is unfair, because we all know that as the VP candidate, Palin was basically obligated to either muzzle or adapt any views that ran contrary to those of Senator Queeg. But the damage-by-association factor was the danger for any conservative who might have hopped on board a ticket headed by a guy like McCain. That she was an almost-complete unknown prior to the campaign increased the damage done to Palin, because we don’t have very much by which to compare the Maverick-y bullcrap she was forced to spout.

  • The_Gadfly

    I saw that if I read the whole coatsies post it was going to take a while. Your responses make it clear that I don’t need to regret not taking the time.

  • nod90

    I think the idea may have been to hook into the Canadian natural gas pipeline system and use their spare capacity to move Alaska’s gas south. That gives you a shorter and cheaper pipeline. It cuts at least 1000 miles off the distance. Also, the Alberta tar sands are huge gas users and potential customers for Alaskan gas. Palin may well have thought that working with the Canadians was her best shot at getting the line built. It’s not necessarily evidence of corruption.

    However, giving Trans-Canada $500 million with no strings attached wasn’t the brightest thing she ever did. I think she was inexperienced and too enthusiastic about the project. If she had stayed on as Governor it would have been interesting to see if she could have found a way to renegotiate the deal.

  • Achance

    had gotten cross-threaded with Murkowski’s administration, especially the Department of Natural Resources managers who quit over Murkowski’s gas line deal. She brought them back in to head her DNR without regard to their ties to TransCanada, and when AGIA went up, they really could have saved paper by just letting the proposal documents say, “Are you TransCanada?” Murkowski’s people wanted me to do some opp research on those ties after I left the Administration in July ’06, but I decided that if I jumped in that s%^thouse, I wasn’t likely to come out smelling like a rose, so I didn’t do it. Anyway, typical Sarah; broad strokes, bright colors, and no details.

  • Achance

    there are four, five sorta, places to get into Alaska from Canada, so we’re a border state only in a technical sense. There ain’t gonna be no alien hordes coming down over the Juneau Icefield to invade my neighborhood.

    Really bad guys with the resources could use Alaska as a way to get in and avoid a lot of TSA and ICE hassle, but that’s a different game altogether. Anyway, people are expendable enough to that sort that they’d just take their chances fly into Miami, Atlanta, or NYC.

  • OccamsRazor

    It isn’t everything, but it does exist and played a large role in the past election.

    I realize it wasn’t meant, but your statement came across as misogynist.

    Unfortunately, for now, _only_ a woman can carry the Conservative Flag (for now) as opposed to the most merited candidate (despite their sex or color), until the groundswell flows instead of ebbs. I expect this to be brief, and when it does, I expect Sarah to perform fantastically as always. :)

  • nod90

    …she also seems to be a lousy administrator. It’s a real pity that she never learned to hire people who could do the administration for her.

    Maybe she is suited for the US Senate? She could promote Alaska without actually having to run anything.

  • Rod_Patrick

    Congrats, EE.

    Seems like a nice and productive chat with the former Governor.

    Just one major criticism on this diary:

    NO PICTURE? Even a small one? Ha! So unfair of you, EE.

  • Achance

    She’s an almost surefire winner and can take things from there.

    It really is a long, hard grind to become a sucessful policy level manager, especially a policy level public sector manager and there are far more failures than sucesses. She has her time at Wasilla, which was a Helluva bunch les than demanding and not without controversy. Her AOGCC time wasn’t really a management job. And she didn’t cover herself with glory on the management side of being Governor.

    And just to keep it honest since I worked in the same system; I was a pretty good manager at a policy level, but I was a lousy supervisor and even worse at playing well with others; who needs charm and persuasion when you have power?

  • Achance

    were even remotely informed, they wouldn’t have gotten that treatment. Hagiographies are kind of a medieval thing and require a medieval level of ignorance and superstition.

    She’s a talented politician and poltical celebrity. She ain’t the Second Coming of Reagan. Reagan was already a seasoned political operative, deep and wide political thinker, and skilled political manager BEFORE he ran for the CA governship. By the time he ran for President he was among the most experienced people who have sought the office in modern times. Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska and mayors of small towns in Alaska don’t have much to do except call their legislator or the governor when they need something.

  • pollux

    About the economy:

    “”I would start cutting taxes and allowing our small businesses to keep more of what they are earning, more of what they are producing, more of what they own and earn so that they could start reinvesting in their businesses and expand and hire more people,” Palin told Walters. “Not punishing them by forcing health care reform down their throats; by forcing an energy policy down their throats that ultimately will tax them more and cost them more to stay in business. Those are back(donkey)ward ways of trying to fix the economy.”

    (didn’t know if I could use the word she did so I said back(donkey)ward :)

    Amen! Go Sarah Go you rock! Great interview EE!

  • mschmitt

    As one of the ignorant ones, let me try to explain…

    She’s got “it”.

    As a sports fan, you may think it’s silly, but you know what I’m talking about. I call it the Tim Tebow effect: you manage to convince yourself that, “sure, he’s great in college, but he’ll suck in the NFL”. It’s nothing more than hope, really — if he kicked your teams rumpus, at least you can run with that.

    “Sure, he destroyed us this year… And last… But you know he’s not going to be any good at the next level — a second string fullback! Undrafted! Undrafted bust!”

    Well, maybe — but he sure seems to have “it” to anybody who isn’t a fan of a team that was beaten down. As with Tebow; most of the venom directed at Palin are derived from either A) getting stepped on, or B) getting sick of other people fawning. Hey, I really can’t help you with that second point — I certainly try to minimize fawning.

    I freely admit that I am not “remotely informed” about Sarah Palin. Of course, I did lobby for her selection as McCain’s VP because of what I saw in her (before this whole cult of personality nonsense was successfully deflected away from the altar of Obama), but that’s entirely besides the point. More important than my ignorance of the relevant hagiography is my ignorance about why I should hate her (note: no need to explain, I know very well why YOU hate her).

  • mschmitt

    The usual beltway reasons for hating her: C) elitism and D) fear of an articulate conservative leader emerging.

  • jackbenimble

    No amnesty and nothing that smells like amnesty. “Pay back taxes (low wage earners don’t owe any taxes, learn English and pay a token fine and get to the back of the lines (I thought that line was outside of our borders) has the stench of amnesty.

    I favor a comprehensive solution that includes enforcement at our borders, in our interior and at our ports of entry.

    At the border there should be a real fence, a lot more manpower (I’d rather have our troops on our borders rather than South Korea’s borders), and whatever technology is required to stop the flow.

    In the interior, E-verify should be mandatory and it should be improved. In addition to Social Security Cards, employees should be showing some sort of ID that includes a picture and some assurance that it is not bogus. I like REAL ID but I’m negotiable. (I also think these IDs should be required for people when they vote.) We should have raids and while the focus should be on making sure employers follow the law, we should also deport any illegal that happens to be picked up. Employers should have a safe harbor from prosecution if they are using E-verify and following the law but otherwise they should face ruinous sanctions. We should also greatly expand 287G and make it very easy for local police departments to access Federal databases that have information about illegal aliens. And there should be revenue penalties for illegal alien sanctuary cities that defy Federal Law and particularly those that encourage illegal aliens to come by handing out welfare freebies.

    At the ports of entry, the VISA Entry/Exit program which was mandated by Congress a decade ago should finally be implemented so we know who has come and when they left. 40% of illegals are visa overstays.

    Basically I want our government to finally get serious about doing its job.

    I might be open to a temporary guestworker program but it would need to be designed so that employers could not use it to shaft American workers by flooding the market with cheap labor. Guest workers should have costs associated with them that made them more expensive than domestic labor so they were the workers of last resort. Society should rightfully be compensated for the costs of hosting these workers like healthcare, justice and schools (if the guests were allowed to bring families). With 10 to 20% unemployment, I think any talk of a guestworker program is basically going to be a non-starter.

  • again

    illegals already get free health care every time they show up at the emergency room. Besides letting them die in the street, do you have a better idea. Taxpayers are already paying the bill. That also goes for every person who does not have insurance. We are already paying for it. The system is broken.

  • jackbenimble

    I sort of understand Alaska’s unique geography. I’ve read some really amazing accounts of the gold miners trying to get out of Alaska to Dawson City, Canada through the Klondike. It was not easy. The Mounties made them carry a ton of food each through themountain passes.

    But Palin is no longer Governor of Alaska. She is now on the national stage and she has been for more than a year. Here in the lower-48 illegal immigration is a real problem and a hot button issue. If Palin wants to be a national politician than I think I have the right to know where she stands on this issue.

    In my experience, politicians that are with pro-enforcement conservatives on the illegal immigration issue are happy to speak up about it because it is a very popular, red-meat kind of position. On the otherhand, politicians who favor amnesty (euphamistically framed as comprehensive reform) are very hesitant to speak up. I’m not saying that is necessarily the case with Sarah Palin but I am definately concerned about it.

    Sarah Palin is getting plenty of face time. It is time for her to take a few minutes and explain to us where she stands.

  • Tbone

    “I might be open to a temporary guestworker program but it would need to be designed so that employers could not use it to shaft American workers by flooding the market with cheap labor. Guest workers should have costs associated with them that made them more expensive than domestic labor so they were the workers of last resort.”

    How would you like to pay for vegetables picked at $24.00 per hour, fully loaded?

  • mschmitt

    They show up in emergency rooms, their kids go to school, etc. At least this way, you have a choice of whether you want to pay it or not. Just saying…

  • Scope

    n/t

  • aesthete

    That’s not including union incompetence.

    Generally speaking, protectionist crap is pushed by unionists who can only survive in an environment where they don’t have to compete with anyone else.

  • mom2oneson

    when they have their anchor babies here. They should be treated but a report should be made and it should be followed up with an invetigation. That would stop the practice very quickly. The same thing goes for schools, public preschools and public assitance.
    In FL when they get SCHIP for their kids there is a special provision not to give out any information that provide to immigration. The idea that they need to stay here because they have an anchor baby is ridiculous because legally the child can’t petition for them until they are 18 AND they must show income over the poverty level. It’s misplaced compassion and we are helping them commit a crime.

  • aesthete

    made many speeches on the subject, kept himself informed, and hired an all-star team to help formulate policy in keeping with his aims to definitively win the Cold War. Besides that, considering that he ran on a platform of winning the Cold War, a dramatic departure from his contemporaries which required an enormous amount of planning, forethought, and intellectual and political wherewithal to withstand attacks from the keepers of foreign policy orthodoxy, it is difficult to say that he rested on his laurels until the 80′s WRT his views on foreign policy.

    Palin, OTOH, has seemingly done little on this front to either educate herself or to distinguish herself from the pack, and has spoken mostly in platitudes on the issue. That’s normal and rather in keeping with many other Presidential candidates (Bill Clinton certainly wasn’t experienced in foreign policy!), but it comes nowhere close to the level of Pres. Reagan.

  • Scope

    on foreign, or that he didn’t stay abreast of the foreign issues of the day. What I said was that he didn’t have foreign policy “experience.” Ragan was coming from being Governor of a state, which usually doesn’t include being involved in policy decisions of a national administration with all of the information at hand. Reagan was not a VP or Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, where one would gain that experience. Don’t get me wrong, I am in awe of Reagan every time I hear yet another of his speeches that could apply as much to today as they did back then, because he applied good judgement and common sense to his policy. You can argue that Palin doesn’t say what you would like to hear from her, but, that is a whole other discussion than one of foreign policy experience. Palin also could put together a top notch team of foreign policy experts that could also accomplish strong national security and foreign policy successes.

  • Tbone

    Now we are paying for it both ways. Get rid of the anchor baby rules and put in a guest worker program that leaves the wives and kids behind in the country of origin.

    This crap about taking jobs American’s want is just that, crap. Either that or I’m just getting to Home Depot AFTER all the white and black American day laborers have been picked up and all is left are the hispanics.

  • Achance

    Those white and black native “workers” are far more comfortable at home doing and dealing dope and making babies on welfare.

    As to picking strawberries, just as was the case when the Great Society made it far more comfortable to be on welfare than picking cotton and cropping tobacco for Blacks, automation will solve the fruit and vegetable cropping problem when the growers no longer have the cheap labor.

  • Achance

    she’s never had any reason to think about it. Wait and see what she says. I assure you that the last year and change is the first time Sarah Palin has thought about a lot of things.

  • Tbone

    but like changing sheets at Motel 6, some ag harvesting can’t be automated.

  • aesthete

    However, she has so far shown little interest in the nuts and bolts of government and policy, and it would come as a surprise to me if she acquired an affinity for said pragmatism when she is no longer in a position to do much about it. I’m not saying that Palin is dumb; rather, I’m guessing that she’s just taking advantage of the persona that she established and doesn’t feel a need to go beyond popcorn-fluff conservatism, a la Hannity (though Hanny’s about 10000x worse than her in that regard, IMO). I leave myself open to being pleasantly surprised (I thought her speech in Hong Kong was solid), but so far, the more I look, the less there is.

    Regardless, I was just pointing out that Ronald Reagan and she are not anywhere near comparable in terms of foreign policy, if only because she holds the “default” opinion (i.e., the one that is fortunately dominant among the general public), while Reagan’s views were a distinct and marginalized minority at the time that he was advocating for them. Even if you don’t consider Reagan’s copious amounts of time educating himself and being a part of the foreign policy discussion as foreign policy, this alone makes Reagan head and shoulders above virtually any modern politician in therms of foreign policy.

  • jackbenimble

    No strawberries but from the summer after 7th grade through the summer after my second year in college I lived in a bunkhouse on a local ranch and worked 7 days a week usually stacking hay for about $13 per day plus room and board and a third of a day extra if we worked after supper until dark. It definately qualified as hard agricultural work so I know what it is all about.

    I live in Wyoming and agriculture is an important part of our economy. Other important and booming sectors are coal mining and oil and gas and because these industries pay better they get first pick of the qualified labor force. Agriculture gets the dregs of the labor force. But agriculture is still getting by and the ranchers are not importing large numbers of cheap illegal labor. Mainly they are getting more efficient. They now derisively call the 75 to 100 lb hay bales that I stacked as a kid “idiot cubes”. Now most of them use 1000 lb to 1500 lb round bales and one man (or woman or even a kid) can do the same work that took a 10 person hay crew when I was a kid. And they do it in air conditioned comfort too.

    I’ve never studied the strawberry industry but I have done some reading on the raisin industry. It turns out that the Australian raisin industry is about 1000% more labor efficient then the American raisin industry because they have largely automated it.

    Cheap labor is often a curse that prevents capital investment. It is no accident that the best places to live in the world all have tight labor markets and relatively well paid workers and all of the worst places in the world all have abundant cheap labor. Tight labor markets force people to invest in productivity enhancing capital and high productivty and a high standard of living are directly related.

    If strawberries are too expensive I’ll plant a strawberry patch. They are dead simple to grow.

  • Achance

    becoming a commodity. Other than unskilled/semi-skilled agricultural labor, America had always been a high wage, labor short economy. The massive industrilalization that accompanied and followed the Civil War was marked by increasing standardization of designs and interchangeablilty of parts. The 1842 Springfield musket was the first mass produced weapon with interchangeable parts. In what was probably the first transfer of technology from the New World back to Europe, the Royal Armoury recruited “engineers” and pattern makers with Springieldexperience and produced the P1853 Rifled Musket using American technology and largely interchangeable parts.

    The standardization that marked the arms industry by the Civil War transferred into all aspects of American manufacture. The consequence of standardization is that semi-skilled labor can do the assembly. The War, opening the West, and burgeoning cities began an agricultural labor diaspora, many of whom wound up in railroads and factories where they were in competition with the large numbers of immigrants coming into the Country in the last third of the 19th Century. In the new mass production labor environment, little skill was required and the contracts that had been common with skilled trades, craftsmen, and guilds largely fell away into a system of “at will” employment at the lowest wage that would attract labor and at the least expensive conditions that the labor would tolerate.

    Unionization and burgeoning growth dramatically improved the lot of labor in the north and west by the end of the first quarter of the 20th Century but The South with its huge overabundance of illiterate, unskilled agricultural labor resisted all attempts to improve standards of living. The major thrust of the New Deal’s agricultural and labor policies was to do something about that “one third of a nation” largely in The South and Appalachia that lived in an unrelenting poverty of both the body and mind. Tthe vestiges of that surplus agricultural labor, still almost a third of the Nation, still bedevil our politics and our economics.

  • asafsb

    Palins stand on Illegal aliens isn’t clear yet. I will give her time for that. For consideration, Peter Jennings, news propagandist for the Democratic Party for over 30 years, WASN’T EVEN AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. Night after night that Canadian Communist lectured Americans on how “evil” they were. How, for over 30 years, did this America hater, work in this country and not become a U.S. citizen until just before his death? To avoid Canadian Taxes? Probably. How many other foreigner’s are on T.V. and radio badmouthing America? Point is we need to watch our northern border as well as the southern border for people who will plunder this country. Palin is capable of organizing conservatives and independants and that scares the Hell out of the Marxists in the Democratic party.

  • AHALgal

    next week, I promise to vomit all over my keyboard.

  • AHALgal

    You make Georgia proud.

  • Spartan4Life

    I find myself having some mixed emotions about Ms. Palin. While I think there is much to like about her and she is attractive, I am not sure I am sold on her as being the national leader of a conservative renewal. Just not sure she is slick enough to go much beyond the base. Whether we like it or not, a certain amount of “slickness” is required to be a national candidate.

    As a Senator, she would be literally free to wreak havoc on that good old boy network. I would love nothing more than watching Sarah kickee her some Chuck Schumer butt.

    And, I think 2020 would be perfect for Ms. Palin’s coming out party.

  • nessa

    I would never have guessed. Most people don’t deal well with someone who is BLUF, Bottom Line Up Front. Your picture is next to the word Curmudgeon, in Websters after all…

  • mbecker908

    How to get his name in the paper. He doesn’t care if it’s “good” press or “bad” press as long as it’s page one and runs for days.

  • proudmarinemom

    I was unimpressed with Palin after the novelty and intrigue of her debut had worn off. I thought she did poorly in interviews and I quickly tired of the tabloid drama that seemed to define her family life (not her fault, but tiresome nonetheless).

    All of that has changed in the past two days. I think she is handling this round of interviews with grace and poise and she clearly is not the bimbo she is portrayed to be by the MSM.

    It is her firm position on support for the military that will get my vote (if she runs for anything). I am sick and tired of worrying about whether my son, a Marine machine gunner, will be provided the resources he deserves as he embarks — voluntarily and with my support — on his third deployment. The first two were in Ramadi and Baghdad and this one will be to Afghanistan. I demand some sign from the C-in-C soon that he gives a damn.

  • nessa

    its a sh!thole. Your son will be in my prayers. God Bless him for the job he is doing, there are few things finer than a machine gunner when the chips are down and you need some support.

  • bsquared

    AHALgal, redtillimdead, redneck_hippie, pollux, Rod_Patrick, Lisa In Maryland, mschmitt–
    GREAT job Erick. First I’ve been dubbed “uninformed” and noticed an ugly division on RS…hmmm…
    SP in 12 babeeeee!

  • jayburd

    Where are the original ideas? She’s destined to become another rock-thrower like Rush and the rest of them. Always behind the curve. Reacting to the Other party.
    The biggest danger of illegal immigration is the same principle in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair( he got a free pass for lying in a deposition). The rule of law was ignored for political reasons. It’s not really about jobs or border security. ITS ABOUT THE BREAKDOWN OF THE RULE OF LAW FOR POLITICAL REASONS! If the government chooses to selectively enforce laws then all laws become meaningless. A direct result of having too many laws.
    If you have to fight a war, fight it to win. Overwhelming force. NO EXCEPTIONS!
    Douglas MacArthur was the last successful nation builder. Why not use his model? Let the Marines run Afghanistan for a few years.
    As far as I know communists are still our sworn enemy. How can you have “good relations” with a country that wants to conquer you? I could never understand why policy towards China was different than policy towards the Soviets or even Cuba.
    Conspicuously absent from this “terrific interview” is mention of perhaps the most important issue of all, the debt. That is one issue Palin didn’t have to worry to much about here in Alaska. There are always plenty of ideas on ways to increase it but to few on reducing it. Or at least too few heard. Whatdaya say we bring the Grace Commission back? Oh if only The Great Reagan would have pushed it harder. Now it seems the only way to reduce Government is to forcibly starve it. Maybe China will do it for us.

  • martyinaz

    Guest worker passes are a good idea. I came from the hospitality industry B4 I retired. Interestingly out of a crew of 23 housekeepers, only two were White females. How many women do you know that would stick their hand down somebody elses toilet bowl to clean it? Our housekeepers were the hardest working employees on the hotel property. And, they were paid the least. They all had green cards but were almost all tax dodgers. They would claim eight dependents on their W4. Some were only 22 years old. There were no health care benifits offered, so they would go to the free clinic or emergency room. Aguesty card program that is properly monitored would be fine with me.

    Like a spider, socialism spins its sticky web then holds powerless its victims before it devouers them.

  • sbowers3

    >illegals already get free health care every time they show up at the emergency room. Besides letting them die in the street, do you have a better idea. Taxpayers are already paying the bill. That also goes for every person who does not have insurance. We are already paying for it. The system is broken.

    - If they don’t pay, then arrest them and deport them. Publicize this loudly. Then probably they’ll come with money to pay their bills.

    - When they arrive at the emergency room, take their fingerprints and run them through a national database. If they show up as deadbeats who haven’t paid previous bills, call the cops.

    - Allow doctors to decide whether the symptoms really qualify as emergency. If not, tell them to go to a regular clinic. Don’t let doctors be sued if they make a reasonable diagnosis of non-emergency. Many/most ER visits are non-emergencies and will not result in “people dying in the streets” if treatment is refused for non-payment.

    - There are many people without insurance who do pay their bills. I am one of them. I have a regular doctor and make appointments like anyone else. When I leave I pay with my debit card. I don’t go to emergency rooms except in case of genuine emergencies (twice in my adult life). When I needed an MRI or needed a surgeon’s opinion I paid for those visits. And the doctors got paid without any paperwork and faster than if they had had to wait for an insurance company.