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November 07, 2008 04:54 PM UTC

Open Line Friday!

  • 72 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“What are they trying to do to Sarah Palin?  They’re scared to death that Sarah Palin will also run in 2012. That’s what this is all about. They’re trying to destroy her within the Republican Party. She was more popular than McCain. These people are not learning.”

–Rush Limbaugh

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72 thoughts on “Open Line Friday!”

  1. It would not surprise me one bit if, upon the resignation of Senator Stevens from the US Senate, that Sarah Palin nominates herself to fill his Senate Seat until a special election, an election she would win simply by being a Republican.

    That is, of course, provided that Stevens does indeed win his re-election. There are still 10,000 or so ballots to be counted.

    2. in the special election. They feel she would be the only Republican right now that could beat possibly beat Begich in a special election, since he has a full campaign in place and could hit the ground running for the seat.

      It would get her to DC on a very fast track, it would give her some experience (finally) and credibility to further her run in 2012. I mean, is anyone on either side of the aisle seriously suggesting she isn’t going to run for president in four years?  

      1. Everyone assumes she’ll be the same person in 4 years. If she can learn from her mistakes and develop her own philosophical approach to government – she could be formidible.

        But my guess is that she doesn’t have the desire to do the hard work involved in thinking things through and figuring out how all that plugs together in a way that she thinks works well.

        But time will tell…

        1. A formidible opponent of Barack Obama’s?  I don’t think she will be in the running, especially in 4 years.  The country in part rejected GWB in voting for Obama.  As Bill Maher said, Sarah Palin is GWB in drag.

      2. This is Alaska we’re talking about. A Republican winning a senate seat there is about as hard or surprising as a black Democrat getting Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district. I think NPR is wrong. Any Republican will win, it was only close because Stevens was in so much trouble. They could nominate a moose and win.

      3. In four years there will be absolutely no possibility of her being a serious contender for president.  Her entire wing of the party will be on the outside looking in.  In four years demographics will be even more against them than they are now. Since we’re talking about Alaska she could well be Senator but that will be Alaska’s problem, not ours.

        1. I would definitely put money on it. Adam B at DKos today wrote a brilliant front page diary about how many Democrats like you are just writing her off and how very wrong you are to do so. We’re not talking about what her party will be doing or where they will be. We are talking about her. You’re getting the two confused and that is a foolish error to make.

          Think Nixon. Then read Adam’s diary.

          Then make me a bet because I’m willing to put money on this one. In four to eight years, she will make a run for the White House.  

            1. remember, in the past century, there has never been a losing VP candidate coming back 4 years later to win the presidency.  And I don’t think there has been a losing VP candidate, other than Walter Mondale, who went on to receive their party’s nomination, 4 years later. And Mondale was the losing incumbent VP in 1980.

              Although maybe not overtly, there will be a concerted effort from the Romney/Palente forces to undermine Palin this next cycle.  And you have to admit that there are some things she has done to embarrass the GOP.  Then there are all those right wing pundits and politicians, whose own pride will probably not allow them to admit they were wrong about Palin 4 years ago.

              I’m not saying she couldn’t do it.  And we have just witnessed what can be done contrary to history.  But it would be my Intrade bet that she will not get the nod.

          2. What does Nixon have to do with it?  Like him or hate him he certainly wasn’t a joke candidate from his party’s fringe.  He was an intelligent experienced serious person.  

            Putting money on something four years down the road when we only know each other in cyber-space is kind of silly but if we ‘re all still blogging here I’ll be happy to say “I told you so”.  Palin will never matter in a serious way on the national scene again. She may try but she won’t  get anywhere near the GOP presidential nomination. Period

            Her wing of the party is losing to changing demographics.  Obama did better than Kerry in 2004 in EVERY demographic. He did better in all but a few parts of the south, even in places where he lost.  He lost by less.

            In four years and more so in eight years the Palin wing will be farther out of the main stream than it is today. In American politics, Palin is an evolutionary dead end.  

            1. Just for you, I read Adam B at DKos and was

              pretty underwhelmed.  Haven’t checked out Kos in ages because I find most of what’s  there pretty flaky. Naive.  Teddy Roosevelt in the same breath as Palin?  Nixon in the same breath as Palin?  Give me a break.  

            2. Wow. Just…wow. Talk about naive and flaky. I think you’re describing yourself here, buddy.

              Good luck with your naivety. That old saying is so very true, when it comes to folks like you: “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”

              1. I know that Nixon came back from a good beating to win the nomination and then the presidency but that’s where all similarities end.   Putting Palin on a par with an important historic  figure like Nixon is  I what I find so ridiculous as my post made clear.  

                But go ahead.  Believe the little twit will be as historic as Nixon or Teddy Roosevelt! We’ll check back on that in 2012.  I’m not worried.   Most of the writers on Kos are enthusiastic liberal ideologues, not particularly politically astute. Why I lost interest during the two year election season.

                1. I’m sure your insight is deeply missed at Dkos. I can’t imagine losing a moment of your brilliance here. That would be heartbreaking.

                  Talk to me in four when she runs…because she will. Will she win? Who fucking knows? But take a look at the latest post election poll showing her winning her party’s approval rating to run in 2012 by 60+%. Romney comes in second with 11%.

                  If you think Palin’s going away anytime soon, you are the one that is less than politically astute. But then again, I think some of your comments regarding this and other races have already provided ample proof of that.  

                  1. Just that she has no future as anything but  a niche figure.  Four years is a long way off and the landscape is changing fast. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. And my, you’re touchy! So I don’t set a lot of store by Daily Kos.  Excu-u-use me! At least I’ve never mistaken Palin for the second coming of Teddy fucking Roosevelt, for  God’s sake!

                    And how can my comments on something you think will happen in the future and I don’t prove anything.  We don’t know yet which one of us is right about Palin in 2012. Jeesh!

                    1. Nah. Just stunned at your political ineptitude.

                      Frankly, other than a few of the FPers, I don’t put much stock in Dkos these days. That’s an area I would agree with you about–most folks there are surprising naive. I guess I’m just surprised at the level of yours. I didn’t expect it from you.

                      So yeah. Agree to disagree and in four years, you’re buying me something pretty and shiny when she does, indeed, run for president. If she doesn’t make a move for higher office earlier than that…start saving your pennies. If I’m wrong, I’ll buy you something shiny. 🙂

                    2. But before you put too much stock in those polls,  political pundit extraordinaire, remember it was way WAY less than four years ago that polls showed Dems picking HRC and Rs picking Giuliani, mainly because they were both so famous. I’ll start window shopping.

  3. Well up here in Boulder they have finally counted 90% of the ballots. That’s right, they’re only counted 90% so far.

    But our local Clerk & Recorder – Hillary Hall – is a Democrat and therefore will get re-elected in 2 years. One-party rule allows incompetenst to continue in office – and is a large part of the reason term limits are needed.

    ps – For those that claim she’s doing her job by making sure the results are accurate – why can’t we have a clerk that is both fast & accurate – like every other county in the state?

    1. Isn’t it just as much the fault of the Republican Party or any other third party for not stepping up and making an appeal to Boulder voters?

      I think if the opposition can’t mount a decent campaign against incumbents, then they don’t deserve to be in power either.

    3. I live in Boulder, and the slow count (again!) is a disgrace.

      I suspect you’re right about Hall being re-elected, but maybe not.  HH defeated the incumbent Clerk (can’t recall her name) in the Dem primary last time based largely on the slow count in 2004!

    4. What are you going to do? They fixed the problem from 2004, and now it’s a new problem, and nobody yet knows why it happened.

      Hall won her election in a contested primary, so it’s not like Boulder Liberals ™ are immune to criticism.

        1. It’s not unusual, though. Look at New York: super-Democratic on the national level, and reliably Republican locally (at least since the mid-90s). And don’t forget those Californians…

          But I imagine if it weren’t for the vast number of true Boulder Liberals ™ like me, I imagine David would be a lot more of a partisan.

        2. Seriously, are we supposed to just say no big deal that every election there’s “something” that leads to Boulder taking days to count? I know you take the route of all Dems are perfect – but I don’t think that serves our party well.

          2. …you admitted that your principles are flexible in this context.  You said that you criticized Udall loudly ONLY when you were sure he would win.  When the race was close, you piped down.  

  4. Who’s lining up in CD Four? Who’s going into the Obama cabinet? When will Mike Coffman realize that he will spend the next two years caucusing with Doug Lamborn?

  8. It’s really interesting to watch you all trash Gov Palin on here the last couple days.  A lot of the “info” coming out of the rubble of the McCain camp sounds like sour grapes.  Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not.  But I would keep a couple things in mind.

    One, she’s got two years to rehab her image before starting her own campaign for president.  If Obama proves to be a success, she may not even run in 2012 and she’s got 6 years to work on her national image.

    Two, remember what happened to the last republican folks of your political bent underestimated.  Democrats called him a rube, an idiot, unqualified, stupid…and now we call him president Bush…

    You guys won this election by 6% or so.  It took the most unpopular president (almost?) ever, one of the worst campaigns by McCain ever, a truly great campaign by Obama, a 3-1 (?) spending advantage, and a toxic environment for anyone with an “R” after their name.  All of that and it was still a 6 point game.  From my perspective, things could have been a lot worse.

    1. But we had a black candidate who many people thought was a Muslim terrorist. So McCain’s douchiness was kind of canceled out by that.

      Also, everyone seems to forget that McCain was incredibly popular before he pissed it all away in a desperate power-grab. Anyone who’s read part of a newspaper knew his name, knew he was a “maverick,” and held him in much higher esteem than an average Republican. If we were running against Jeb Bush, it might have been a 20-point margin, but McCain ended up much more popular than George W. Bush.

      As for Obama’s spending advantage, that was an effect, not a cause. His popularity came first.

      Finally, how much of a margin would we have needed to get to turn you into a Democrat? If the question is unanswerable, then why should we care what the margin was? We won clean and won big.

      1. is that is was a lot closer than it could have been.

        The folks that thought…and still probably think…Obama is a Muslim terrorist probably wouldn’t have voted Dem in the election anyway.  I don’t personally know any, but I find it hard to believe anyone that dumb would vote for Hillary or any other Dem.

        In terms of Obama’s spending advantage, do you think he still wins by the same margin if he doesn’t outspend McCain by such a large margin?  He probably still wins, but by significantly less, IMO.

        1. Though I’d been predicting big numbers, I really felt at 7:00 Tuesday that we’d lost, based on what looked liked disappointing turnout in Boulder. And this wasn’t a 51-49 margin either, nor a 286-252 margin. It was decisive, in a country where that looked impossible five years ago. (Remember the “permanent Republican majority”?)

          Would Obama-haters have voted for Clinton? Well, yeah. Look at Appalachia. Bill Clinton won many of those states, and Hillary Clinton would probably have won at least Arkansas, possibly Kentucky, etc.

          Would Obama have won without the spending advantage? Hard to say, since without the enormous spending advantage, McCain might not have gone completely out of his mind, with his desperate changing of strategies three times a week. A reasonable McCain would have been a much bigger threat.

        2. It was a fine decisive win, rainydave. Your guys got clobbered. He won in every region, improved on Kerry’s and Gore’s performance with just about every demographic. Bush was claiming a mandate on nothing close.

          I’m so sick of hearing Republican sour grapes about how Obama (still hard to believe America elected a guy named Barack Hussein Obama, isn’t it?) should have won by more.   In 2004 GW was bragging about his capital on much, much less, both in terms of popular (which he lost in 2000) and electoral and I didn’t hear any Rs contradicting him.  

          1. Where am I complaining?  Oh that’s right, I’m not.  Try again.

            We only got clobbered if you have zero perspective on what a landslide actually is.  Carter got “clobbered.”  Mondale got “clobbered.”  McGovern got “clobbered.”  Goldwater got “clobbered.”  It was a fine victory, but you can’t act like improving on two losing candidates (Kerry and Gore) is some sort of striking triumph.  You won the election and swung the country 8 points.  As I said before, it could have been worse for us.

            And why is it hard to believe Barack Hussein Obama got elected?

            1. yeah right, Mr. Colbert.  Rs sure hoped it would be enough to get him defeated. HRC and Edwards both sure thought his “unelectability” would be enough to defeat him. Sarah Palin thought his not being quite like the rest of us, whoever “we” are, was a  great talking point.

              Electing a Black guy with a Muslim/African name?  Piece of cake.  Obama must have run a really lousy campaign to have “only” won by as little as he did, right? Gee what an unimpressive campaign!

              1. We wanted Hillary to win.  We wanted no part of Obama.  Most of us though Hillary would be a weaker candidate.  R’s in Pennsylvania and Indiana weren’t crossing over to vote for Obama.  They were doing it for Hillary.

                And who’s saying Obama ran a lousy campaign?  Again, not me.  In fact, I said the opposite.

                Anyone who ran a campaign as good as Obama’s would have beat McCain…”Muslim/African name” or not.

                1. As for Hillary I was clearly referring to what she (and Edwards) thought would be effective in beating Obama in the primaries, the same kind of things later apparently thought useful by the Rs to use against  Obama.  

                  We all know  the Clintons have long been the R’s favored scary couple for energizing the troops and when Obama came along instead it was time to make HIM the scary other. But never mind. Have a nice day.

      1. It’s the liberal wing of the blogosphere that’s going nuts.

        There’s nothing wrong with that…just a reminder of what happened to the last “dumb” candidate democrats underestimated.

        2. is just people laughing at all the stuff coming out. Most on the left now consider her a joke. A minority (including me) consider her potentially a very strong candidate.

          But as Ralphie said, the trashing is all coming from the right. We’re just enjoying the show.

    3. I would answer that I found it interesting that the ‘pubs were the ones doing the trash talking. I’m inclined to believe it because the journalists reporting it (Fox News, remember, not MSNBC or the NYT) were inside the campaign and might even have seen some of it themselves.

      Now, I do think she’s more formidable than many of my fellow liberals. I saw how she mobilized the GOP base simply by being there. And you’re absolutely right – given who our last president is, you underestimate someone like Palin at your own peril.

      Still, I think she can be overestimated as well. If the reports about her are true, I think she doesn’t possess the will to improve. She can work on her image. She can try to be prepared for interviews. She can learn not to wink annoyingly in debate. But it seems she was a poor student in school, and if she did in fact make it this far in life without learning who Canada’s PM is (something the Governor of any state on the north border should know) or that Africa is a continent, then she has a bad habit of not being studious that will be difficult to overcome.

      Now, I’m not saying it’s impossible, but people typically don’t learn how to dig into the details in middle age.

      But I think, in terms of her chances in 2012, that the decisive factor is going to be how she strayed from the McCain campaign during the last few weeks. I suspect that the power players of the GOP aren’t likely to forgive that, and won’t throw their support behind her. There are other evangelical conservatives in the GOP; if they decide to go that route they’ll back one of them instead.

  10. please immediately contact your local authorities. He is believed to be armed and batshit crazy.

    Most recently, he has claimed that this is like this.

    Thought I’d stop reading conservative blogs after the election, but they just keep surprising me.

      1. The dude wrote a post about Obama’s national service proposal using the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei.”

        I thought calling Obama a Nazi was a little premature three days after the election.

  11. .

    I might remember this wrong, but my recollection is that Barry McCaffrey was insulted by Clinton staffers at the White House, and he got promoted – twice – to make amends.  It was not a friendly place for vets of the US military.  

    Then “blood and guts” Bush followed into the oval office, and similarly disrespected actual vets of the US military, as opposed to pretend vets like Bush himself.  

    Don’t try to use Powell as a counterexample.  While he was a legit war hero in Vietnam, he turned into a politician as soon as he got a White House fellowship in 1969.

    After 16 years as hostile territory, will an Obama White House once again welcome and respect military service ?

    .  

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