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Sunday, July 05, 2009

SARAH PALIN GIVES UP GOVERNING ALASKA EARLY



Sarah Palin's resignation statement:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources… it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: “Sit down and shut up”, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”.

Nah, only dead fish “go with the flow”.

No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time… to BUILD UP.

And there is such a need to BUILD up and FIGHT for our state and our country. I choose to FIGHT for it! And I’ll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and LIFE… I’ll work for and campaign for those PROUD to be American, and those who are INSPIRED by our ideals and won’t deride them.

I WILL support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the RIGHT reasons, and I don’t care what party they’re in or no party at all. Inside Alaska – or Outside Alaska.

But I won’t do it from the Governor’s desk.

I’ve never believed that I, nor anyone else, needs a title to do this - to make a difference… to HELP people. So I choose, for my State and my family, more “freedom” to progress, all the way around… so that Alaska may progress… I will not seek re-election as Governor.

And so as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what it means for Alaska, I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks… travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade – as so many politicians do. And then I thought – that’s what’s wrong – many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and “milk it”. I’m not putting Alaska through that – I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? That’s not how I am wired. I am not wired to operate under the same old “politics as usual.” I promised that four years ago – and I meant it...

My choice is to take a stand and effect change ... we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities – and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans.

Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me – sports… basketball. I use it because you’re naïve if you don’t see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket… and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I’m doing that – keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities – smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it’s time to pass the ball – for victory.

... we can ALL learn from our selfless Troops… they’re bold, they don’t give up, they take a stand and know that LIFE is short so they choose to NOT waste time. They choose to be productive and to serve something greater than SELF… Now, despite this, I don’t want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this REAL “climate change” that began in August… no, we NEED hardworking, average Americans fighting for what’s right! And I will support you because we need YOU and YOU can effect change, and I can too on the outside.

We need those who will respect our Constitution where government’s supposed to serve from the BOTTOM UP, not move toward this TOP DOWN big government take-over… but rather, will be protectors of individual rights - who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it’s time so the team can win! And that is what I’m doing!

Remember Alaska… America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future....

In the words of General MacArthur said, “We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
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Well despite all the rubbish from the MSM (in Britain our fascist media talks about her with the sort of venom the NYT would use if the locals didn't know anything about her) that is not a woman giving up her chance to run for President that is a woman saying she has done the job in Alaska & she is going for broke.

Here are 3 comments I put on Belmont Club before I had read the full statement:

1 - Sounds to me that the “positive change outside government” remark does indeed mean establishing a movement & probably a think tank for new ideas. If so she is quite right to decide that she would not serve Alaska well by keeping the paycheck for that job. However it takes somebody with both integrity & guts to do it.

I think she does have to start campaigning early because with the media so uniformly hating her she has a much bigger wall to break through than other candidates - however once she has got through it & proven that (A) she has ideas that will work & (B) the MSM are scum who will tell any lie about her, then she is essentially fireproof against anything they throw.

I was very impressed when she said that a McCain/Palin Presidency would start building nuclear plants in January” & have no doubt that if that had been done & none of Obama’s silly spend & regulate bills gone through America would now be out of recession.

I expect the building of a genuine programme of new ideas, perhaps in combination with Newt, together with a running commentary on what Obama should have done instead of what he does. I also expect the building of a campaigning network, probably heavily using the blogsphere. I expect a programme containing a commitment to inexpensive nuclear power & relatively balanced budgets & hope for commitment to major cuts in bureaucracy (perhaps an Amendment allowing regulation to be challenged purely on the grounds that their cost is disproportionate to any benefit), a commitment to encouraging economic growth by the methods used in the fastest growing economies (low business taxes & economic freedom), a rational examination of evidence on global warming & substantial ongoing funding for an X-Prize Foundation.

In which case in 2012 she would walk it & deserve to.
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2 - One sign of how politically savvy she is is her looks. Ok as a cheerleader she was beautiful & she is still very good looking however she hasn’t let it hold her back. Beauty is not an advantage in politics because it makes it more difficult for people to empathise & this applies even moreso to women, particularly for the female vote.

So what is her most prominent feature - the one thing you could recognise in any cartoon?

The glasses. Most women would choose contact lenses & be thought pretty but not to be taken seriously. She went for glasses & not just any glasses but big, black, intelligent looking, intimidating glasses.

That woman is smart & self confident & competent & determined & doesn’t think the world owes her a living (as “leftist wimmen” usually do) & wants to do something rather than to be something. If any American politician can save western civilisation it is her
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3 - Regarding mentions of the possibility of Palin getting an Oprah like TV slot. This need not be necessary. Remember the unknown British politician, Danial Hannan who got millions of hits when he put his speech to Gordon Brown about how incompetent he was on Facebook

Imagine Palin doing that - weekly. She can say anything she wants, the advertising will pay for the rest of her campaign, she will get 10s of millions of viewers almost all supporters & even the NYT couldn’t ignore it (they famously refused an op-ed piece from McCain but not Obama).
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Having read her words & highlighted the bits I thought particularly important I find not only my expectations but most of my hopes justified. Note the joke about "real" global warming :-) which is rather further than she has gone before. The only thing not covered is the X-Prize Foundation which is hardly a a major issue in Alaska. She has also implied that she will be working to support favoured candidates in the 2011 Congress race, something not practical if she had remained Governor. And not necessarily all Republicans which would help getting swing votes in the Presidential race.

Talking of X-Prizes brings me to Newt Gingrich who is in favour of such prizes & has recently proven the most effective Republican in Congress. Newt has ideas, by the bucketload. He may well also be setting his cap at the White house in 2012 but I think they are both people who are more interested in achieving things than in having job titles. He certainly has Washington experience she lacks, though holding any sort of top job, as she has, is a sort of experience you can only get one way.

If they were to have an agreed programme running for President & Vice-President I almost don't think it would matter who had the top job (& after all that is what primaries are for).

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Comments:
Congratulations on the cheesecake Neil, it almost make syour site worth visiting. As to Ms Palin's political cred, I pefer the Financial Times' obituary today:

"Palin’s demise and the Republican fall

Her rambling statement offered no rationale for this strange decision [to resign]. The lack of coherent organising logic behind her actions and words has given rise to suspicions that this move could be a gambit to head off fresh scandal. At this point, only one thing is clear; if this was a calculated first move in a run for the presidency in 2012, it was a stunningly bad one.

This latest stunt demonstrates a lack of basic political professionalism and skill, adding support to the notion, first disseminated by Republican officials during the 2008 campaign, that she is an unreliable diva. She will now enter the 2012 campaign season with little more experience that she had prior to the last one...

...Ms Palin has demonstrated a disturbing comfort in her own ignorance, an unnerving lack of curiosity and a fractious relationship with the truth."


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/622286d8-698c-11de-bc9f-00144feabdc0.html
 
I'm sure you do Norman but isn't that the point. You prefer the Times interpretation & I prefer what she actually said.

Reading her Statement, one gets a different view than from the snide remarks of the MSM.

Glad you liked the cheesecake - not to old for you then? Do keep forcing yourself to visit & repond - I thank you for making such a sacrifice.
 
FT wrote...

The lack of coherent organising logic behind her actions and words has given rise to suspicions that this move could be a gambit to head off fresh scandal.

What scandal? Whenever you oppose the Left there are always "questions" and "scandals", many of which the supposed participant has never even heard of.

Just the scandals that come out of the People's Republic of Massachusetts are enough to get a man thrown out of politics - if he is a Republican.

I have become convinced that the reason the Republican party recycles presidential and vice presidential candidates is that the only way to get a rightist politicians name out there is to have him campaign. For Palin this meant that even if she was underprepared she would campaign anyway to get her ready for her next run. If Juan McAmnesty won then she could be trained on the job. If he lost she could prepare and meet all of the people she needs to know for her next run.

I would love it if Palin turns out to be like Queen Elizabeth I, and leads us to safety from the onrushing Communist/Mestizo Armada.
 
Neil, do you think the movie Braveheart has contributed to the leftism in Scotland?
 
I forgot to add, fu*k Newt.

I would like it if that man would retire and leave politics entirely.
 
Oh dear. Salon is being snide about Ms Palin too:

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/07/07/tomo/index.html?source=rss&aim=/comics/tomo
 
1 - I must admit that is pretty good - there is no scandal & almost certainly none there because they have already dug so deep, but that lack need not prevent them imagining one & blaming her for that.

2 - I think she certainly has the potential to be America's hatcher.

3 - I don't think I can accuse Braveheart of leftism, merely of being propaganda instead of history (though actually it is heavily derived from an early Scottish history which was also intended to reinforce nationalism). If anything it is rightist in that Gibson is fighting for freedom not income equalisation. In the same way & more blatantly 300 is history as the Greeks would have liked it to be rather than as it was & "rightest". It is approved of by the Scottish National Party who are "left" but I think what this shows is how wrong it is to force everything into a left/right straitjacket (or even a liberty/totalitarian corset.

4 - I firmly disagree with you about Newt. He is the only prominent politician to have endorsed X-Prizes & is generally a laboratory of new ideas - something politics in both our countries desperately needs. I also think, like Palin, he is much more concerned about doing something than having the job title. I think he & Sarah can work together.

5 - Yep & it is very silly. Expect much more & expect her to address the issues - she needs time for that to work but she has got it.
 
#2 At this point I don't want a Thatcher. I have a comfortable life, but I want to see the long term threat to my country thwarted.

I want you to look at this map showing which members of the House of Representatives voted. If you look at their districts you will notice the reps that voted for cap-and-trade fall into three broad groups.

The first group to vote for this nonsense are the Northern states that share a border with Soviet Canuckistan. The strongest Northern support of all was in New England, which has abundant hydropower near the coast and imports hydropower from Quebec. The second group, spread across the southeastern part of the country consists of Black majority districts that are historically allied with the Northerners, and relocated Northerners in the case of North Carolina, Atlanta and a few other states.

The third group consists of districts near the border that consist of the Catholic descendants of illegal immigrants that Ted Kennedy and the Catholic church have managed to turn into citizens.

Most of the North is culturally Catholic as well, so the vise is tightening on the Whites in Dixie, the last truly conservative group in the US.

#3 Let me rephrase my question, would you say that Braveheart has contributed to anti-English feeling in Scotland, and therefore to the fortunes of the Labor party?
 
2 - Thatcher is like an operation - you don't get one because you want one but because you know you need one. Both our countries are in the process of decivilising.

Saw the map. It may be an argument for dissolving the USA & letting states that can use Canadian electricity do so without dictating to the others. If some states worked & some went bust it would bring up the average.

3 - Braveheart certainly contributed to anti-Englishism, though only in the sort of way soccer does (I don't know if American football gets interstate fights). However the Labour party are a UK party & anti-Englishism works to the benefit of the SNP & harm of Labour.
 
Neil, I want you to click on my username and download the book I have linked to in the section where I am supposed to describe myself. The book is called Civil War 2 by Thomas W. Chittum. CW2 is an amateur effort, but it explains in great detail why the US may break up anyway, without the common consent of the people.

Please, read the book.

After reading it I want you to remember that in the US there is only one group that votes Republican, conservative White Protestants, most of whom are located in the interior and in the Southeast. Every other group, from White Catholics, to atheists, to all colored groups vote Democratic. As far as I know no immigrant group, even if White votes Republican.

The most amazing thing about these conservative White Protestants (mostly Evangelicals) is that they are not only the backbone of the Republican Party, but have also formed the Constitution and Libertarian parties.

Essentially, I foresee the US either having a Catholic-communist majority or breaking up and having the one conservative region being overrun by Mexicans.

Really, I think conservatism on this continent is over, but I could be wrong.

But please, click on my name and read the book.
 
I'll look at it. From the chapter headings & indeed the title it looks like a more violent break up than I envisaged. That doesn't mean it is right or wrong but the break up of Czechoslovakia & Sweden/Norway & the British Empire's Dominions were accomplished without violence.

I think Yugoslavia could also have been divided without significant violence if everybody (by which I mean NATO's Nazi friends) had been willing to accept division without trying to grab anybody else's land.

Any advantage from a few miles of territory are far less than the economic (let alone human) benefits of peace.
 
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