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Alaskan Conservatives Need to Stand Up for Gov. Palin.

By: Josh LeGuern (Diary)  |  May 7th, 2009 at 11:58 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

A new poll from McClatchy shows Gov. Sarah Palin’s approval rating is now at 54% this is down from nearly 90% before she was chosen as John McCain’s running mate. I am sure there are good conservatives up there in Alaska who support her and stand by her, but the effort needs to become more organized.

If Gov. Palin looses re-election in 2010, her chances of going any further in politics–either to the senate or to The White House–will be severely hampered. The fact is, we need Gov. Palin on the national stage, she is one of the most effective voices for conservatism and one of the people who has the ability to lead us back to victory.

What can be done? What can those of us in the Lower 48 do for Gov. Palin aside from donating to her re-election campaign? (Which, we’ll undoubtadley do) Is there any Democrat who poses a threat to her re-election chances?

If we’re going to be successful we’ve got to be more organized and stand up against the hit jobs taken against our best people.

COMMENTS

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  • Section9

    Yeah, I know there was a scheduling conflct with her daughter’s graduation, but someone in her staff led the NRA to believe that it would be okay for them to ramp up a press release stating that she would be speaking at an NRA function and accepting and M-15 rifle.

    Yes, I know now that she told them several weeks ago she couldn’t show, but others in her staff apparently didn’t get the word. So now the NRA has had to make an embarrassing climb down.

    Anywhere in politics, this is bad mojo, a point I’ve tried to make over at C4P.

    People like Wayne La Pierre want to support Palin, but they need a signal from her that that support is appreciated, not this embarrassing bit of crossed signals.

    Lastly, I will say this again as I’ve said over at C4P, her national political operation needs Adult Supervision. Right now, it has none. I’ll support her till the cows come home, but she’s blowing a good opportunity to positively affect the future of the Party by contributing to a narrative of incompetence. She needs to get this right or stay home and leave this game to the adults.

    Hate to be harsh, but Obama’s reelect effort will have a billion dollars to finance it. You don’t fight that by finding a way NOT to accept the support of people, like the NRA, who want to support you.

    • Maggie_in_Indiana

      I know being a governor is a time consuming job,but her staff seems to drop the ball all too often. Or that’s what it looks like anyway.
      Maybe she should clean house there as well.

      • Mike gamecock DeVine

        if she comes to a meeting? That smacks of identity, petty politics. Issues are what matters and Palin is right on them all.

        • mom2oneson

          Apart from illness or a family member being ill it shows a lack of consideration not to show up.

          • Mike gamecock DeVine

            shows up because a staff person forgot her conflict with her child’s graduation or a person that attends their child’s graduation, all else being equal?

            I choose the latter, but my main point here is a larger point about what really matters when it comes to politicians. The main impact of politicians is the laws they support, not how they make us feel. Palin would oppose unreasonable gun control. Her positions on the issues that the NRA cares about is probably 100% the same. That is what matters.

            Like my barber. I care about how he cuts my hair, not the “consideration” he shows to me to make me feel good.

            For feeling good, I look to God and family and friends, not polls and barbers.

            see my point?

            plus, it was her daughter’s graduation….duh?

            no brainer

          • aesthete

            Or at least coordinate better with them. I agree that her daughter’s graduation was more important, but had her staff been more competent, this scheduling conflict wouldn’t have occurred in the first place. It’s bad form for her staff to suggest that she will attend, only to have it rescinded because of her daughter’s graduation.

            Though I agree that not supporting Gov. Palin for this would be petty, this sort of stuff does add up, and the mystery behind her schedule doesn’t do anyone any good. It’s much like what happened with Bush: aside from spending (an issue that I won’t get into), what got him in trouble was the perceived (and in some cases, real) incompetence of the Bush Administration. It should be remembered that our current President was elected based on a feeling of perceived competence and less government spending relative to McCain.

            My take on it: there are some real procrastinators in charge of Gov. Palin’s scheduling, at least on national issues. Almost every major conservative event that I can think of has the question of whether Gov. Palin will be attending lingering in the air. If she’s serious about her national prospects, which I suspect she is, some heads are gonna have to roll in her scheduling staff.

            To extend the Barber analogy, this would be the equivalent of your barber having a great philosophy behind his haircutting, but never getting around to advertising it, or his being a phenomenal haircutter, but dressing himself in a shirt with yesterday’s pizza stains. It’s simply unprofessional, and as much of a clich? as the phrase is, the simple things count.

          • Mike gamecock DeVine

            Esp as relates to this statement:

            “It should be remembered that our current President was elected based on a feeling of perceived competence and less government spending relative to McCain.”

            See, I don’t think either of the above had a thing to do with Obama’s victory.

            McCain had sterling schedulers.

            smile

          • aesthete

            But I do disagree with the notion that such things are irrelevant. I don’t think that any of these scheduling conflicts on their own merit the disqualification or blacklisting of a potentially great candidate, or even that all of the scheduling mysteries she’s had so far merit said treatment, but philosophy without competent and effective implementation and advocacy in the real world is a luxury that only bloggers and political activists can afford ;) Part of this involves having good staff, and though I like the good Governor, she can’t do everything, which leads us back to the main point: it matters not what we think should be, but what is, and I think that, given that personal issues and other non-ideological reasons can hinder groups from collaborating as often as philosophical disagreements, it can’t all be about philosophy, so we do need to look at both.

            I’d also disagree with you on what got Obama elected; certainly, the main narratives of his campaign were competence and the economy (particularly his “tax cut”), and it wasn’t so much McCain as the Ghost of Bush who was the Republican nominee for President, at least as far as the voters are concerned :)

          • gekster

            I do say this because I have a bias against them, as they have banned me from thier site for saying Nobama instead of Christ in some of my comments on thier site.
            As for free speech on a Liberal site,go figure.
            As for this poll I can only ask as to what questions were asked of the respondets, thier location and status in this country, as in economic status, wich coast, and then of course politicle party.
            I know that certain questions can and will be asked to obtain certain answers from certain people.
            I also know that as with any poll, who I ask and where that person is in relationship to this country will also have an impact on the results.
            And then there’s gender and age.
            Most but not all pollsters are out to get a certain responses so as to push thier paychecks agenda.
            Who are the people and where were the people and what percentage of what were asked.
            Tell me this first, and I might consider the poll.
            I am just asking for the internals from McClatchy,
            It would be nice.
            I looked at thier poll on thier site. I need more.

          • gekster

            again with the notee

          • gekster

            go here
            http://www.haysresearch.com/OC031309.htm

            this is from 400 people.
            what percent of Alaskans is that of the total population?

          • Karina

            I took statistics in college and I seem to remember that a poll of less that 2000 people is going to give you skewed results. 400 polled out of how many millions? I agree that it’s easy to get poll results that you want. That was the biggest thing I took from that class. (And still remember after all these years!) That’s the thing that frustrates me about polls in general. You have no idea what the demographics of the people being polled are. Opinion can swing in opposite directions depending on just where they live.

          • gekster

            I got the population of alaska for 2007 from here:
            http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?-ds_name=PEP_2007_EST&-mt_name=PEP_2007_EST_GCTT1R_US9S&-format=US-9&-tree_id=806&-geo_id=&-CONTEXT=gct
            It says alaska has
            683473 people as of 2007
            400 people were in this servey, so that means that one person spoke for 1,708.7 people. Rounded off.
            Thats a 1,708.7/1 ratio.
            Tell me how these 400 people know what the other 683473 people are thinking.

          • Section9

            Don’t blow a poll off just because it is McClatchy.

            Look, it was reasonable to expect that after the last six months, Palin was going to lose support. She had a very rough legislative session and she has a state party that isn’t behind her.

            She has good reelect prospects, but she has a decision to make.

            Obama, btw, will have a billion dollar war chest. Can Sarah match that? I have my doubts.

          • Section9

            I will bet you dimes, dollars, to doughnuts that this was a Campaign Solutions appointment that Sarah had to turn down because her Washington Office and her Juneau Office weren’t on the same page.

            So the NRA had to back off, and everyone has egg on their faces. Thsi just looks bad. And this is an outfit that WANTS to support Palin in the worst way.

            If you people think that Wayne LaPierre and his crowd want to give money to Mitt Romney, you need to think again.

          • aesthete

            I was under the impression that the NRA had snubbed Gov. Palin, or that something of that nature had transpired. I shouldn’t have assumed that that was the case.

    • 6eorge Jetson

      Do they want a gun supporter with clout or do they want to get even over a no show?

  • Achance

    that she cleaned up. Remember? A politician should always remember to dance with who brung ‘em. The NPs and the Democrats “brung” Gov. Palin to power.

    • azaeroprof

      (that’s a collective ‘your’):

      1. Continue to oppose her, and end up with a Dem governor in 2010.
      2. Swallow your pride, make nice (hopefully she does, too), get her re-elected in 2010 and bolster the national conservative morale going forward.
      3. Defeat her in the Rep primary in 2010 (Stevens?), leaving a further demoralized national conservative movement.

      IMHO, only one of those options is good for the country as a whole. Also, while I generally partially agree with your premise that the NPs and Dems HELPED bring her to power and that she did walk over some Reps to get there, I’m guessing that the majority of AK Reps are still behind her. You certainly don’t get a 90% approval rating without them, and I’m guessing that virtually all the support she has lost SINCE the ’08 campaign are Dems and some Inds.

      • Achance

        is Palin or someone else. Since we’ve closed the primary and they don’t have an annointee, we won’t get some off the wall candidate that the Ds like; they’ll have to vote in their primary, though NPs can still vote in the R primary.

        The real issue is will she run for Governor? As I’ve discussed before, second terms have been unkind to Alaska governors, and absent some instability spiking oil prices, Alaska has hard, hard budget choices to make in the next few years. The Permanent Fund is untouchable; the citizenry will see the government shut down and all services cease before they’ll give up their tickets to Mexico/Hawaii or that flat screen. Most citizens here think they actually pay for the stuff around them with their property and sales taxes and license and user fees – and they think they’re too high. This year there shouldn’t be a Dividend at all because market losses have eaten into the corpus of the fund, but neither the Governor nor the Legislature are feeling suicidal. You can do most anything in Alaska politically except threaten that Dividend.

        The Ds don’t really have anyone poised, both Berkowitz and Croft have now lost big races and they were the up and comers. Unfortunately, the Rs don’t have too much on the horizon either. I don’t think Stevens will do it, but he’ll let it hang over her as payback for kicking him to the curb. The new Republican mayor of ANC needs to be mayor for awhile and do some good Republican organization there; ANC has been a Democrat/Union playground for too long.

        She gives no indication of wanting any help from the Party or wanting to much be associated with the Party. Making nice to Lisa Murkowski is just practical politics; too much chance of Lisa turning on her as payback for what she did to the old man. I don’t know what I’ll do in the R Primary, but come the General, I’ll ride for the brand.

        • azaeroprof

          #1 is not really a viable option. So there would also be an option #4 that I did not include originally, which would be that she chooses not to run for re-election in 2010 (I didn’t include that originally since it’s not a choice that Art can make). There could be two paths after that: a) she decides not to go for national office and basically fades away, or b) she starts a national campaign, either a short-term one for 2012 or a more gradual one for 2016.

          I’m guessing your choice would be 4a. 4b COULD be a viable option as long as she isn’t seen as being forced to NOT run for re-election because she couldn’t win. That would be just as bad as #’s 1 or 3.

          • Josh

            The Dems will do anything to defeat Palin in 2010 to make her completely untouchable in 2012. If she wins and if she runs for President, she’d also be splitting alot of duties with Sean Parnell (assuming he’s her running mate) as she’d start campaigning for President in early ’11.

            Like it or not, Sarah Palin is the most visible conservative voice out there right now and whatever her national aspirations, her defeat would be a devastating blow to the conservative movement.

          • Achance

            her best move is to become a famous Republican out speaking and raising money in ’10 rather than seek re-election. She’s led a charmed life so far, but her numbers aren’t in the statosphere anymore, and I don’t think it is because of the D/Lefty hammering. Most of that comes from Outside and makes people, even me, defend her. The one who are political activists R and D who don’t like her are the same ones who haven’t ever liked her. She’s losing ground in the lumpen proletariat that used to just love her and that’s over Alaska issues.

          • azaeroprof

            but she’s got to get her numbers back up first so she can’t be painted as running away from reelection. How can she do that if, as you say, it’s the ‘lumpen proletariat’ that are causing her numbers to drop?

          • Achance

            Understanding that she can’t rule by fiat and that there is a Legislature to be considered. They were all scared to even be seen together while the FBI was in full cry here, so she could run roughshod over them. That’s over and they can feel the weaknesses in her Adminstration. There’s also some fearsome desire for payback on the part of some powerful Republcan legislators, so it will take some fearsome making nice. She never had any support much in Juneau, but our new Republican Legislator tried to work with her with little success on a new State office building here. She’s made implacable foes of the Republican legislators in the rest of Southeast Alaska by acting like Southeast isn’t even a part of the State. That doesn’t change because it plays well in Wasilla to hate Southeast though nobody there has ever been here. The WAR appointment alienated what little support she had in rural/Native Alaska and making it without any real consultation with Republican legislators didn’t help her relations with them. That was a first; no gubernatorial cabinet level appointment has EVER been turned down before. She’ll never see 80-90% approval numbers again, but that was unrealistic anyway. She got a holiday from the ADN, something no Republcan had ever gotten before and that ended the day she accepted the VP slot and will never return. They did do a halfa@#ed criticism of all the Ethics Act complaints on the lead editorial the other day though, but those had reached the point where they were making the Ds look silly. So, she gets to be a real world governor dealing with real world things and her superstar days here are over, but she can mend some fences. The question is, will she?

          • Section9

            Her problem is that to be a serious national candidate, she needs rank as Governor precisely because of who she is and the fact that she is a she.

            IMHO, no one will take her seriously unless she is a Governor.

            She made a good call recently in turning down a trip East to deal with the river slide issue.

            She gets a pass from National Conservatives because they are desperate for someone to take the shine off Teh Won. But she must reconcile with her state party for her to go forward-which means she has to make some serious concessions to some folks down the Railbelt.

            She may look weak in the beginnig for doing so, but it will pay dividends to her in the long run.

          • Achance

            that couldn’t have been done long distance. Breakup river floods are an annual occurance; whip out the boilerplate from the last disaster declaration, sign it, and turn it over to the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs which houses our FEMA analog. If she wanted to show some daring leadership, she’d tell the villages that this is the last time the State spends a dime on flood relief beyond life saving measures; move the village to higher ground or suffer the consequences on your own. Nobody in the rest of the State cares that you don’t want to walk too far to the river.

            The Democrats who were howling for her to come out to poor, flooded Eagle when they thought she was going to NY would have been the first to say she was just exploiting the situation if she had said she was going to Eagle first. Really, there’s not much she could do to get them to like her in rural Alaska, suffice it to say that a mixed Native/White family is not an asset in much of rural Alaska and many of the “leaders” are Democrats and sovereignty advocates before anything else.

  • A_Texan

    She needs to get her national team staightened out, consistent message, etc.

    She has time, but by 2010, she should have a coherent message, both for her re-election campaign, as well as any national aspirations.

    • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

      If she doesn’t get reelected as governor or does, as far as the national stage.

      She’s got the perfect campaign slogan:

      Palin for President because the media hates her.

      *****

      2012 is a long way off. If we don’t keep our eyes on what is happening now, 2012 ain’t gonna mean much, not with Congress and Obama busy nullifying the Constitution. I can see them repealing the amendment for term limits and, given ACORN’s prowess at delivering a win to the Democratic nominee, well, like I said…

      • Josh

        Dems were lining up behind Obama for President after his flipping speech in 2004, even before he won the senate seat.

        We DO need to focus on 2010 (as the Dems focused on 2006 after their 2004 defeat) but there is nothing wrong with checking out our White House prospects for 2012.

        • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

          In spite of it being a joke, think about what is going on right now, not with the Republican Party but with the public. The public hates the media now. The public feels “had” by the media, not just the conservative wing of Americans.

          The more the media hates on Palin, the better she looks to the electorate.

          By 2012, I believe we’re going to have a whole almost new set of politicians to eyeball, including Palin. The Rockefeller Republicans just aren’t getting the public and the public is blowing them off.

  • investedinterest

    Please, Get the kids out of the national airwaves. It doesn’t help palin to have these screw ups on national tv. I am not sure if this was Bristol’s or Palin’s idea.but..It seems like Bristol wanted to help her mom so she accepted this assignment, however this situation does more harm than good.

    2. Get the hell out of Alaska, The people who don’t take you seriously won’t change their minds simply because you win a second term in alaska. Get out of the state, Join a thinktank, hire a speech coach, and go on a book tour… Build your campaign for 2012 or 2016…

    • mom2oneson

      Her daughter’s work is not my business but I don’t think it was too wise to have her make those statements. This is part of what I’m talking about with opening herself up. Even saying she couldn’t go to the NRA due to the daughter’s graduation was unwise. If she refused to attend say something like due to a schedule conflict. Now the left is going to bash her for this thing with Bristol and pregnancy and we can talk about how bad the MSM is, which they are but she is opening up herself unecessarily to their attacks. I don’t know why she isn’t more careful.