Right after the disasterous election of ’08, I joined RedState as a place where like minded people and I could exchange ideas and help each other through the difficult times ahead. I’d been lurking for some time but finally felt the urge to participate especially since, being a Sarah Palin supporter, I had found a place where that support would not be ridiculed.

Then came Christmas and the great downsizing. I lost my job in time for the holidays which was a shock but not totally unexpected. After that, it became a struggle to find work which took up a lot of my time. Over the last six months, I’ve pounded the pavement and done per diem work while looking for a position. The perseverence paid off and I did secure one about a month ago — a job which is much better than the one I left. Quite honestly, I discovered the benefits of unemployment insurance but believe I used it the way it was intended — not as a way to just sit on my ass and do nothing but as a way to survive while I actively looked for work.

Be that as it may, I come back and post this with a heavy heart although one that clings to hope. Sarah is resigning as governor and, if reports are to be believed, stepping off the national stage. Personally, I don’t believe it at all.

Unless the Feds have decided to indict her as a way to finally destroy her career due to their fear of her popularity, I can truly see this as a tactical move within a greater strategy for Sarah. It reminds me of Nixon’s famous “Last press conference” after losing the California gubernatorial race. Here was a man reviled and ridiculed by the press at every turn in the shadow of a pop icon President. Sounds familiar. If I were advising her in my lowly way, I would put her on a campaign to massage her image in the press and thereby with the public. Unfortunately, the media elites continue to be the conduit which funnels information to the masses and they long ago decided to trash Sarah Palin. My plan would be as follows:

• Get that book deal going. Now more than ever, especially after the resignation, she is in the news. Sarah needs to put out a book that’s a combination of life story (a couple of early chapters) and then a treatise on conservatism in the 21st Century. Forget the urge to “get back” at people, use it as a way to not only put out fresh ideas for the Republican Party and use it as a symbol that the politics of Sarah Palin are not the politics of the status quo of the GOP.
• Get out there in the media and schmooze, schmooze, schmooze. It may require some homework to avoid the “gotcha” questions but reporters love being treated like they are special and love being given one-on-one interviews where the interviewee is not watching the clock. Invite the reporter to your home to spend a day or two with the family. Let the reporter feel a part of the family for a while. They will feel important and you will have made a friend in the media. Trust me, the business I work in shows me that what Dale Carnegie wrote in the 1930s still holds true today. People, especially egotistical ones (like the liberal media types) are easily manipulated.
• Panel discussion and the Sunday news programs. This is the hard part because it requires Sarah to step aside from the girl-next-door persona that makes her unique and show herself as a serious thinker. It’s not tough because she can’t do it but tough because the media has painted her as, forgive me, dull witted. American history is full of people who were intellectuals that spoke in a manner that did not set them apart from the average person. Sarah has the ability to “wow” them with a command of facts but needs to be able to couch that knowledge in her speaking style.

So I hold out hope for Sarah Palin the way that I held out hope after I was fired. A couple of folks here who I’d struck up brief friendships with reached out to me to see how I was doing and I appreciated that. My situation got better due to my own sweat equity and so will Sarah’s. I am just paying it forward by reaching out in my very small way to her. I want to let her know that she has supporters out here who have not and will not forget her — people who see her as one of the bright shining lights in the GOP.

I am a Republican. The first vote I cast in a Presidential Election was for the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984 and I have not looked back since. The conservative message it puts forth speaks to the fundamental traditions that made America what it is today. We all know that mistakes were made by those people we entrusted to do our work in Washington, DC. We know that many of these folks lost their way and suffered the ignominious losses that politicians who are false deserve. But this party and its conservative message of values shall not be allowed to disappear from this nation. This is why I choose to fight.

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Since Election Day, an increasing number of conservatives and Republicans have written here and on other sites and publications of the need for a new direction. I believe that for our party to move into a new century, it needs to do so decisively and without hesitation. I believe that Governor Sarah Palin is the person to do that.

Whether indifferent or openly hostile towards him, there is no denying that Barak Obama has an undefinable quality about him – a quirk of personality that draws people to him and to his message. Whether we like it or not, personality, likability and magnetism play a large part in our interactions with others and especially in politics. It would be wonderful if the intellectual argument was enough to sway voters but, sadly, it is not. The Democrats remembered this (although some nearly made the mistake of choosing the unelectable Hillary Clinton) and it’s about time the Republican Party did as well.

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