What is it about Sarah Palin? This is a question that many of her opponents on both the left and the right. This question is wondered by so called conservatives such as David Frum and Kathleen Parker. Leftists like Matt Lauer and Wolf Blitzer ponder the same question. There is no doubt that Sarah Palin has had a very good week. First, she gave a stirring speech for Ronald Reagan’s son Michael Reagan, who in turn praised Sarah Palin is the new Reagan on the block. In upstate New York she drew a crowd of over 20,000 people. While she was at a baseball game with Rudy Guiliani she received great applause.  When a jealous GOP beltway establishment continued to invite and disinvite Sarah Palin at their fundraiser, Sarah was not to be outdone and she appeared on Sean Hannity’s show the very night of the GOP fundraiser. So whom did the GOP base see Sarah Palin or the fundraiser’s keynote speaker Newt Gingrich? I think you know the answer to this question. In Alaska Sarah Palin won a massive political victory in putting into place the Trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline.

        Now getting back to what is it about Sarah Palin that makes her a political star and a direct threat to Barak “Dumbo” Obama? First, she is a rock solid conservative and she never waivers from her conservative principles (as Reagan did not). Second, like Reagan she is a very charismatic speaker and she reaches into the hearts of the GOP base and many political independents. Third, she is a fierce fighter and is incredible bold in the face of political and media opposition (just like Reagan).  Fourth, like Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She is a populist because she comes from a tough middle class background and we know that she understands average Americans far better than some rich ivory league politician. In this regard she is like Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan. Sarah Palin is on the way to add her name to this list of famous U.S. Presidents.

   Ah, for those of you who doubt Sarah Palin’s political killing skills let me just give you one example as of today. The Republican National Congressional Caucus (RNCC) is having a little fundraiser tonight. Now originally they invited Sarah Palin to be the keynote speaker, but Sarah refused to commit until after the Alaskan Legislative session was over. The RNCC was impatient and withdrew their invitation to be the keynote speaker and offered us Newt Gingrich instead. Now do not get me wrong I love Newt but does anyone really believe that he is more popular than Sarah Palin? Just this weekend in the middle of NOWHERE in upstate New York she drew a crowd of over 20,000! Now when was the last time Newt drew a crowd of 20,000 people? Cannot remember, that’s okay because I cannot either.

   So the NRCC then re-invited Sarah Palin to be a speaker but not the keynote speaker, only to have them disinvite her yesterday which is the day before the event, a little short notice with no good reason for the disinvite (however rumors are that Newt thought Palin would steal his spotlight so he wanted her gone). Well, my friends Sarah Palin is one who is certainly not to be outdone by the RNCC, so what does Saracuda do? She is going to be on Sean Hannity’s show tonight for what looks like a lengthy interview. So who is going to get more coverage this week Sarah Palin or the RNCC? I think the answer is obvious, the conservative media (and most likely the liberals as well) will be all over Sarah’s interview during the next week, and the donations to her SarahPac will most likely go up, and the RNCC will be left in the dust. It has been stated by many who know Sarah Palin that no one should ever underestimate this woman’s political killing skills. Also, the congressional Republicans better learn that they need her for the 2010 elections in terms of endorsements and fundraising, and she does not need a damm thing from Republicans in congress for her political future.  

         I have noticed something recently on Townhall.com and this is the lack of coverage of Sarah Palin over the last week. On June 6 she gave an incredible speech when she introduced Ronald Reagan’s son Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan in turn stated how much Sarah Palin is the new Ronald Reagan. But where was the coverage of this on townhall.com? 

        Today Sarah Palin was in upstate New York and gave another great speech and here is the catch, are you ready? SARAH PALIN DREW A CROWD OF 20,000 PEOPLE! Now name a single Republican who has this kind of star power and has such a grip on the hearts of the GOP base. Where is this story covered on Townhall.com? Nowhere! Why is this the case? I believe it is because the GOP establishment despises this woman (and both Rush Limbaugh & Mark Levin agree with this position), and I believe that most of Townhall.com is siding with the GOP establishment over and against the GOP base once again. This is not new, because in both the 1976 and 1980 primaries the GOP establishment fiercely opposed Ronald Reagan. Thus is it any surprise that they would oppose the new Reagan on the block? No they are going to go for a weak Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney, or Tim Pawlenty, a Republican that the beltway GOP can control as they controlled George Bush and in the process destroyed the GOP and gave us Barak Obama as president. I am beginning to wonder if Townhall.com truly stands for Reagan Conservatism anymore. Why else would they ignore the most popular Republican on the planet right now? 

            We want him to be bold. We need him to be bold. Mr. Reagan, we need your voice to be loud and strong, and we appreciate him.  He doesn’t shy away from the tough issues and that is so good. He never lets anyone tell him to sit down and shut up, and I would hope Alaska our voice too will be heard across this nation.  I look forward to hearing from Michael Reagan tonight because America must learn from him, from his remarkable father, and that remarkable presidency.

        First, I think what we’re going to learn tonight via Michael is that Ronald Reagan’s ideas were the right ideas and all we have to do is look back at his record, his economic record and his national security record to know that his ideas were right.  It was common sense conservativism.  It was right then.  It’s right now.  Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan.  He said, regarding your dad Michael, he said that we need to learn from his example that courage and persistence are keys to historic achievement and with Reagan’s example, D.C. politicians calling the shots for our country, they had better rely on the good sense of the American people and bag their alliance on the entrenched beaurocrats and the elite self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington, and the liberal media that is imposing its will on Washington, embracing that status quo, that business as usual.  It’s not good for our country. But, we have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington.  He won the arguments by resonating with the American people.  Those of us so proud to be Americans, and willing to acknowledge that no, we’re not a perfect nation, but never, never do we have to apologize for being proud of our country. (applause)

        So Ronald Reagan spoke to us then with us here in our hearts is where he reached us, and that’s where he won the arguments and then, this was, this was the good part, we the American people  through him, we imposed our will on Washington, and that is the way it’s supposed to be. Our government is supposed to be working for us, we are not to be working for our government.  It’s our will to be imposed on them. (applause)  He captured our hearts so he could affect positive change by what he did.  He focused on our kids, on our children, on their future, on the future of America.  And when he fought socialism and any sort of tyranny that he knew would ruin us, he stood strong on his knowing that the framework through which he believed that positive change that framework for our kids, it was freedom.

        Today the things that some in Washington would do to take away our freedoms, it’s absolutely astounding, and we would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president - cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically.  Reagan knew that real change and real change requiring shaking things up and maybe takin’ off the entrenched interest thwarting the will of the people with their ignoring of our concerns about future peril caused by selfish short-sighted advocacy for growing government and digging more debt, and taking away individual and state’s rights and hampering opportunity to responsibly develop our resources, and coddling those who would seek to harm America and her allies.

        What Newt had written in this article, he wrote “remember how refreshing it was with his outrageous directness that Americans loved, and praised and deserved” that Reagan dealt with, with then the troublesome Soviet Union, remember this?  His vision for the Cold War?  We win, they lose. And with detente, speaking of detente, he used two words - “Evil Empire.”  He called it like he saw it, and now why today, I have to ask why today do we feel we have to pussyfoot around our troublesome foes, saying for example, the terrorists who still seek to kill Americans and destroy our allies.  They haven’t changed their tune.  Terrorists are still dead set against us, and are set on destroying Israel, and against our freedoms, against our security and I’ve got a kid over there fighting for our country and our country’s freedom right now.  It is war over there so it will not be war over here, and it had better still be our mission that we win, they lose! (applause)

Now, on the economy, remember Reagan used to remind us that America was built on freedom and free enterprise, reward for strong work ethic.  Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of the principles providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord.  Those principles that we teach our children and employ in our own businesses and our own households to balance our budgets , and live within our means and financially secure our futures, and it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here? It’s all really so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense when some of this new economic policy is explained? Does anyone remember life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness?  Because socialism; any kind of hint towards socialism, it takes away freedoms and opportunity and hope and then we do forget that life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness is inherent rights that God has provided us.

        I want to hit on one thing specific that I’m suggesting here and that’s with the stimulus package.  Alaskans have heard me talk a lot about this. You gotta ask yourself, what is this all about, the process even of creating the stimulus package?  Congress being expected to vote on it without even knowing what was in it, but conservatives and Republicans in Congress, they looked at this debt-ridden gargantuan government growth plan and they voted against it. They didn’t like it. They warned states that there were fat fat strings attached to these dollars, and there were strings, there are strings because that’s inherent in federal spending.  That’s the nature of the beast. Of course there are strings attached, and so there were lots of warnings given to all the states that hey, unless your state is ready to chuck the 10th amendment, and you’re going to hand over willingly more power control to big centralized government and to D.C. politicians who are going to tell you what to do in your state, the warning was, legislatures be careful with the temptation with the stimulus package dollars.  They didn’t like it then, but then when a bunch of us elected local officials we agreed with them, and you know we started seeing the press releases kinda braggin’ up the bacon that these hundreds of millions of billions of dollars, almost a trillion dollars total were going to bring into our states, the buckets of money, the borrowed money that would pour into the states. And let’s be honest states were made to look incompetent, almost unethical if they were staying consistent, and were still saying no to accepting some of those federal funds that don’t necessarily stimulate the economy or create private sector jobs, as was being fed to us as. These are short-term expectation-building new beaurocratic growth spurts, and legislatures ended up resolving to take the money which it was contributing to more dizzying national debt.

        The mixed messages then the confusion and now frustration, disenchantment with the disenchantment from our own government, and look what happened when here in Alaska my administration, I vetoed the stimulus package, some of the dollars with obvious big government strings attached, and shoot, I just about got run out of town by some.  Friends, we need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and of fearful lawmakers being led to believe that big government is the answer to bail out the private sector because then government gets to get in there and control it and, mark my words, this is going to happen next I fear, bail out next debt-ridden states, then government gets to get in there and control the people, and watch what happens there.  Michael, maybe you want to talk about your home state California.  We’ll see what happens there, but for the love of God you’ve got to ask yourself where we got off track?

        Michael Reagan’s going to talk about getting on the right track.  He knows, we know here in Alaska that America is the greatest nation on earth because our foundation is freedom and it’s in God we trust, it’s not in big government that we trust.  (applause) So I encourage Michael just to keep on speaking up, and for me….you know me….  Before my Franco Sarto red high heels even get off the stage and touch the floor my critics, they’re going to be loaded for bear and they’re going to start unloading because, because  I dared speak up.

        But you, you here tonight I know that you understand.  Some though, they’re empowered by national figures and some in the press who, who want to put not just me, but anybody who dares speak up it seems nowadays right back down in their place if one dares speak their mind nowadays, and here in Alaska it’s kind of like this new normal it’s a little bit being accepted it seems like that we’re dealing in, but so be it. I think things here that have so drastically changed these past months…some want to forbid others from speaking up and it’s been through lawsuits, been ethics violation charges, media distortions…by the way today we won that 14th ethics charge.  And only Alaskans can appreciate this one.  We won the one where I show up at the Iron Dog because it’s freezing cold and I’m wearing my warm Arctic Cat coat, and a charge is levied against me for wearing the logo on the coat, but we won so that’s cool.  And those are the folks that want to tell me, want to tell you to siddown and shuddup. We will not do so. I just can’t because I love my state, I love my country, and I need you, we need Michael Reagan to  keep on fighting for our freedoms, for our country and what we’re being fed today, it seems, is a steady diet of selected misrepresented news.  So we need the Reagans of the world today to remind us of truth.

        Let me ask you why is it considering how fast the world is spinning and world changing events that go on all over the globe that do affect our lives, world changing events, thousands of them every day, why do you suppose that it’s the same big three supposedly competing networks that have the same news content every night and virtually the same exact viewpoint being spewed night after night after night.  We’ve gotta ask those questions.

        So I join you in speaking up and asking the questions and taking action, and here at home in my beloved Alaska I just  say, politically speaking, if I die, I die.  I’ll know that I have spoken up and I will speak up to thank people like Mr. Reagan as we honor his dad, to encourage you too, Alaskans, to do the same and don’t just hang in there and go along to get along but stand up and speak up, and be bold and demand that Washington be prudent with our public monies and prioritize for America’s  security, and forget the political correctness that makes one guard your conversation, and couch our words so cautiously that they lose meaning, and we lose effectiveness, and then we lose hope because we start thinking that politicians are only worried about their poll numbers and attracting campaign contributions for their next bid so that they can hold on to some title and some position. Noooo, let’s remind them, those that we elect, that we expect them to be bold and so they are to be representing the will of the people to defend our constitution and to win our wars and obviously, me not being, in fact not many of us here tonight are not in that political financial academic elite center of power.  We’re not there.  And it’s kind of refreshing to be outside of that to tell you the truth.  I am just a mom.  I am a proud Alaskan hockey mom, and I love my country, and I’m concerned about my kids’ future and your kids’ future and because I was raised where it is rugged, and you kinda gotta be tough, and with dogged determination in order to survive sometimes.  Well not many of us in Alaska are inclined to just sit down and shut up, and I thank Michael Reagan for honoring Alaska, being here tonight, continuing to lead a cause for a better America! Let’s hear it for Michael Reagan!

I'm inclined to doubt the accuracy of that report since Jeb Bush was probably the best governor Florida ever had, and one who clung ferociously to the Republican principles exemplified by my father, Ronald Reagan.

Even if he did say something silly like that, my argument with him and Mitt Romney and the other participants in the so-called listening tour is not about my dad, but about the absurdity of a listening tour designed to tutor Republican bigwigs on what the public really wants from government,

My short answer to that question is that I want the government to get the hell out of our way and let us act like the free people our founding fathers wanted us to be, and not like subjects of an all-knowing, all-powerful federal government.

The listening tour is nothing but Republican gimmickry. The reality is that had they been listening over the past four years of the Bush presidency they would have seen the disaster of 2006 coming and they would have seen the catastrophe of 2008 coming.

Instead, they turned a deaf ear to the Republican conservatives not only on Capitol Hill, but to those out across America.

They lost in 2006 and 2008 because they stopped listening to the "nostalgia" for the conservative principles which guided my dad's administrations.

They receded backwards to the principle of losing elections, a habit that gripped the GOP until Newt Gingrich came along and showed them how to win congressional elections by standing for something, and my dad showed them how to win gubernatorial and presidential elections by championing the principles that made us the wealthiest and most-powerful nation in world history.

The lesson they taught was that you don't win elections by saying "me too," and trying to substitute a Republican version of big-government, wild-spending quasi-socialist agenda for a Democrat big-government, wild-spending quasi-socialist agenda.

Democrats know how to be socialists, Republicans don't. They can only try to imitate the real thing, so you end up as Benito Mussolini, half-socialist and half-capitalist, and not as Joe Stalin, socialist all the way to the death camps of Siberia.

If the GOP listeners want to know what the conservative majority among voters want and are thinking about, all they need to do is listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and -- in all modesty -- Mike Reagan.

Our voices are the voice of the majority of Republican voters and open-minded independents. We don't have tens of millions of listeners every day because we have a message that contradicts the opinion of our audience -- we have such a vast army of listeners because they recognize that we are echoing their own opinions and telling them they are right in thinking as they do.

They recognize gimmicky when they see it. Watching TV this morning, I saw a pornography star who is running for the United States Senate announcing that she is on -- guess what -- a "listening tour," to learn if voters want her to make the run for Capitol Hill. It seems Republicans aren't the only ones using gimmickry these days.

If Republicans had really been listening, they'd still be in control of the House and Senate and there would be a Republican in the White House.

They didn't listen then, and they aren't listening now. If they start listening, what they'll hear is a demand that the Republican Party get back to the principles and beliefs embodied by Ronald Reagan, and get back to the principles of genuine conservatism which echo Thomas Jefferson's sage advice that a people who fear government cannot be free, but a government that fears the people is a government where the people are the masters and the state is their servant.

Is Sarah Palin in a political dilemma? Josh Painter from Redstate.com has written the following:

The Anchorage Daily News pretends to be confused about Gov. Sarah Palin’s travel plans. It asks whether the governor will going to New York City and Washington, D.C., this weekend:

The Chicago Tribune’s political blog and others are reporting as fact that the governor is going to be Fox News’ guest at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

But it’s not clear if that’s true.

ADN quotes Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton:

“The governor may be on the East Coast this weekend to attend state events and meetings. If she is there, the governor may accept one of the standing invitations for dinner.”

The left-leaning McClatchy newspaper then asks whether Gov. Palin will appear at New York’s Alaska House for an Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute event there and take part in NCNA listening tours across the lower 48. Again, Stapleton responds:

“If there is something that she can do that benefits Alaskans or Alaska or allows her to keep Alaskans first, she’ll participate.”

Whenever there is an event which would require the governor to leave the state, we are treated to this sort of political theater. The actors know their parts well and don’t even need to rehearse their lines, so often have they repeated them.

The drive-by media opens Act I by asking whether the governor will attend some event the organizers have - either by leak or outright promotion - let it be known Gov. Palin is invited to attend.

In Act II, her political enemies, those strange bedfellows that are the Democrats as well as the Republicans she has stood up to, whine that Palin is more interested in her national political opportunities than she is in doing the job the voters hired her to do.

Act III is that part of the play where the governor’s spokesperson says that if the governor travels beyond the state lines, it will be in Alaska’s best interests, as Sarah Palin is well-known for talking up Alaska as a source of energy, a producer of seafood and other products and as a place of scenic wonders not to be missed by passengers on the cruise ships.

In Act IV, Gov. Palin either skips the event, citing pressing state business, or attends and makes an Alaska sales presentation a key part of her visit. If she does not attend, the drive-by media, who we remember from Act I, crows that the governor’s aides are incompetent and there are communication problems between her staff in Alaska and her PAC in Washington, D.C. If she does attend and then returns home, Palin is roundly criticized by her enemies for abandoning the state, and some even go so far as to file frivolous “ethics” complaints against her for having the temerity to actually think that as an American citizen, she has the right to freely travel around the country. The drive-by media types then reprise their role as publicity agents for these enemies of Gov. Palin by pretending to take their ridiculous compalints seriously and amplifying them. The play ends on a suspensful note, as the drive-by chorus asks the snoozing audience members whether the governor can survive. The curtain falls.

And so the governor’s enemies and the media play off of each other to keep Sarah Palin on a leash. She cannot go anywhere outside of Alaska or do anything without having to justify the excursion as something which will greatly benefit the 49th State. She and her spokespersons have to be non-committal to keep from providing her enemies with a surplus of ammunition to be used against her.

Some have opined that Mother Nature keeps her close to home by threatening one  natural disaster or another, but this is the 21st Century, where all sorts of electronic marvels allow the governor to stay in touch with state officials and direct operations from any place on the globe just as well as if she were in Juneau or Anchorage. It’s all about perceptions. If she is out of state and Redoubt blows its top, the media and the anti-Palin forces will blame every potential death, injury or dollar lost on her, when in reality it would make no difference one way or another whether she were in the state or beyond its borders if and when the incident occurred.

Having had some success tethering Sarah Palin to Alaska, the Democrat wing of the anti-Palin axis has reported to DNC headquarters, and now the tactic is being used against Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal. If it’s successful in the Bayou State, look for it to be adopted in any state with a Republican governor who has a shot at a leadership role in the GOP. In other words, this pitiful play is likely coming to a state capitol near you.

It’s the modern version of “Much Ado About Nothing” and a remake that’s pointless to anyone who isn’t a Democrat activist. The stagecraft is really getting tiresome. The same chorus which sings its sad lament seems to collectively forget its lines every time Barack Obama jets to Hawaii or a Democrat governor goes to another state to campaign for a fellow party member running for public office. But hypocrisy has always been the core value of the party of the Braying As*.

At Conservatives4palin.com there is a youtube.com post from Rush Limbaugh who today commented on the GOP establishment’s dissing of both Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan by Republicans who are on a national “Listen to America Tour”. Some of the worst comments came from JEB Bush and especially Mitt Romney. What this tells me is that the GOP establishment is still clueless as to why it has been losing elections. The big government Neo-Conservatives who control the GOP absolutely refuse to accept any responsibility for the election defeats of 2006 & 2008. Also, the last thing they want is another Ronald Reagan in the White House, and this would explain their attacks on Sarah Palin who is the first  national candidate to be most like Ronald Reagan in both political philosophy & style since Reagan left office in 1988. Sarah Palin is the candidate of the rank and file GOP base, she is the candidate of the “Tea Parties”. Sarah Palin is the candidate of Mark Levin’s bestselling book “Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto”. Folks I have said this before and I will say it again, the Neo-Conservatives have to be booted out of power. Their big pro-growth government ideology has been a disaster for the GOP and has now been rejected by the American voters in the last two elections. The Neo-Conservatives are nothing more than “Democrat Lite”. Who are the Neo-Cons? These would be people like both Bush presidents, John Mccain, Lindsey Graham, JEB Bush, Mitt Romney, George Will, Bill Crystal, Walter Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, and the whole damm Weekly Standard.    

One of the things that is going on is a revolt by many in the GOP against Neo-Conservatism. This revolt can be heard from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and can be seen both in Sarah Palin’s immense popularity with the GOP base and recently in the national “Tea Parties”. Conservatives are sick of big government and having to choose in elections between a Democratic socialist and a phony pseudo-conservative who loves big government. I believe the game is up, people are sick of GOP politics as usual. The GOP base is now demanding a new Ronald Reagan for president or they will stay home on election day once again. The Neo-Conservatives has yet to get the memo which reads, “Get lost, we want true conservatives in office!” Hence Lord willing we will have Sarah Palin in 2012.