Topic: 2012 election

[Thucydides]

Well, you heard it here first: Governor Sarah Palin has estabilshed a PAC, which is a pretty conclusive first step in sounding the waters for a Presidential bid.

http://www.sarahpac.com/

Sarah Palin's Official PAC

Dedicated to building America's future, supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation.

SarahPAC believes America's best days are ahead. Our country, founded on conservative principles and the fight for freedom, must confront the challenges of the 21st century with integrity, innovation, and determination.

SarahPAC believes energy independence is a cornerstone of the economic security and progress that every American family wants and deserves.

SarahPAC believes the Republican Party is at the threshold of an historic renaissance that will build a better future for all. Health care, education, and reform of government are among our key goals. Join us today!

[Infanteer]

My understanding was that she was an unqualified disaster for the Republican Party - like, yaaa!!!!  Better look somewhere else, GOP.

[boot12]

I think the GOP should just let her fade into obscurity, certainly not bring her out again in 2012.  That is, assuming they want to beat the Democrats.

Sure, she was popular with the "base", but she scared the hell out of all the moderates IMO.

[Thucydides]

Of course there is also the argument that without Governor Palin, the popular vote would not have been as close as it was (the President was elected with 52% of the popular vote, very similar to George W Bush's margins of victory in 200 and 2004). Being able to see the Governor without the MSM "filter" might prove very illuminating.

Lets let the market work its magic. If Governor Palin can provide the combination of policy and "salesmanship" to re energize the GOP and win the White house, then all power to her. OTOH, there are many other politicians who also will be trying to sell themselves and their ideas; may the best person win. 

[Mr.Newf]

My money is on Ron Paul.


But in all seriousness, does anyone think that Dr. Paul will run in 2012? That people may actually vote for him, or that he would be the 'black horse', and somehow get the GOP Nomination?

[NFLD Sapper]

Ross Perot 

[muskrat89]

My understanding was that she was an unqualified disaster for the Republican Party - like, yaaa!!!!  Better look somewhere else, GOP.

I keep hearing that, and reading it. But my discussions with voting Americans don't prove it out. Maybe I'm just nestled in the right (no pun intended) demographic, and my friends, relatives, co-workers etc. are too like-minded to provide a representative sample.

Of all the Republicans that I know, work with, talk to on message boards, etc - none of them think she is/was a "disaster"

[tomahawk6]

The only one's who think she was a disaster are the hypocrites in the democrat party and the RINO's in the GOP. She IS the only conservative politician that actually excites the folks. Maybe another charismatic pol may appear on the scene but right now she's it. Whether she can draw independents is a big question but right now she's the best of the field. She took everything the democrat controled media threw at her and she didnt implode. You're right if she hadnt been on the ticket McCain would have lost by a wider margin. McCain aimed his campaign at democrats and independents and didnt get enough of those and lost ground with the base. Like 06 people sat the election out.

[GAP]

She might be wise to sit out 2012.....if Obama does anywhere 1/2 decent, he'll get a second term easily.....all he has to do is not declare war on anybody...

[tomahawk6]

2010 will be the first referendum on the Obama administration. If the dem's lose one or both houses of Congress it will be bad news for Obama. If they retain control Obama will be good til 2012. I think the economy will sink Obama, his initiatives right now are not conducive for a recovery.With another Trillion dollars sloshing about the economy I am thinking 70's style inflation will hit by 2010. Another factor is the banking system.The first stimulus went to the banks,what if that doesnt work ? Where will the money come from for more money for the banks ? Print more ?

[Thucydides]

How you see governor Palin is probably a good indication of where you are on the politcal spectrum, rather than where she stands:

http://www.redstate.com/josh_painter/2009/01/28/sarah-palin-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/

Sarah Palin in the eye of the beholder

Posted by Josh Painter (Profile)

Wednesday, January 28th at 7:02PM EST

30 Comments
Since the debut of SarahPAC yesterday, there’s been renewed speculation that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin intends to make a run for the White House, perhaps as early as 2012. If such a run is indeed in the cards, where will the pundits place her on the political spectrum? The answer to that question depends on which pundit you choose to believe.


Former John McCain senior staffer John Weaver, as quoted by Washington Post political blogger Chris Cillizza:

“The Democrats and the far left will do all they can to grab electoral turf. And one sure way to do it is take some of the most controversial voices on the extreme right — like Limbaugh and [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin — and try to insist they speak for all members of the center/right movement.”

Self-described conservative Paul Mulshine, in his New Jersey Star Ledger column:

If anyone can think of a reason Palin qualifies as a conservative, please let me know. The truth is that Palin is a project of the so-called “neo” conservatives, who are actually a bunch of moony-eyed leftists masquerading as conservatives.

Patrick J. Buchanan, in an opinion piece for Chronicles magazine:

Make no mistake. Sarah Palin is no neocon. She did not come by her beliefs by studying Leo Strauss. She is a traditionalist whose values are those of family, faith, community and country, not some utopian ideology.

Michelle Goldberg, writing in the left wing magazine The Nation:

She has not always governed as a zealot; in fact, she’s a bit of a cipher, with scant record of speeches or writings on social issues or foreign policy. Nevertheless, several people who’ve dealt with her say that those concerned about church-state separation should be chilled by the idea of a Palin presidency. “To understand Sarah Palin, you have to realize that she is a religious fundamentalist,” said Howard Bess, a retired liberal Baptist minister living in Palmer. “The structure of her understanding of life is no different from a Muslim fundamentalist.”

Professional Palin critic Dan Fagan in a post on his Alaska Standard blog:

It is indisputable the governor has leaned strongly to the left with her policies in her first two years as governor.

Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi in a RealClearPolitics op-ed:

In contrast to any national candidate in recent memory, Palin is the one that exudes the economic and cultural sensibilities of a geniune Western-style libertarian.

Christopher Orr, in a diary on TNR’s blog, The Plank:

The beauty pageant queen is an enormously talented populist in a year that is ripe for populism.

The certifiably inane Joe Conason, in a Salon.com diatribe:

Palin’s phony populism is as insulting to working- and middle-class Americans as it is to American women.

A quote in an article in USA Today:

“She has governed from the center,” says Rebecca Braun, author of Alaska Budget Report, a non-partisan political newsletter. “She has in some small ways supported her religious views — for example, proposing money to continue the office of faith-based and community initiatives — but she has actually been conspicuously absent on social issues.”

The unhinged Marjorie Cohn in a post on the nutroots site AfterDowningStreet.org:

Palin is a radical right-wing fundamentalist Christian who would love to create a theocracy.

Michael Reagan, writing in Human Events:

“Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he’s a she… Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us.”

So, is Sarah Palin the right wing extremist McCain staffers and leftists believe her to be? Is she the fundie theocrat secular leftists say she is?  Is she the “neocon” portrayed by careless conservatives? Is she a populist, as some liberals claim? If the governor is a populist, is that populism as disingenuous as the looser cannons on the left insist it is? Is she a leftist, as Big Oil’s useful idiots would have us believe? Is she the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan that his own elder son sees? Or is Gov. Palin a centrist, as the Alaskan pundit says she has governed? Did Pat Buchanan hit it closest to the mark of all the pundits quoted here, calling her a traditionalist?

All of those pundits can’t be right, as their perceptions of the former vice presidential candidate are diverse and often in conflict with one another. Sarah Palin certainly is no liberal, nor is she the ultraconservative perceived by the loony left. They consider anyone to the right of Gerald Ford to be an extreme right winger, for Pete’s sake. Though she had the opportunity to do so, Gov. Palin did not govern as a theocrat. She not a Paulist libertarian, nor is she purely populist. And she is not Ronald Reagan reborn as a woman, though she clearly has taken more than a enough pages from his book to be described as a Reagan conservative.

The governor was conservative enough for Human Events magazine to award her her its Conservative of the Year honors. Yet she was libertarian enough for Libertarian Repulican to name her Libertarian of the Year because:

No single individual has done more to promote limited government, individualism and free enterprise this year than Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin is what I consider an across-the-board conservative. That doesn’t mean that she has a conservative position on every political issue. It means that on most issues, she takes a conservative stance. The governor meets or exceeds the conservative threshold on social, fiscal, federalist and security issues. Single-issue zealots will not understand, nor will those so far out in left field that they wouldn’t recognize a real conservative if the ghost of Ronald Reagan were to suddenly appear before them and softly say, “Boo!”

Sarah Barracuda does have a populist streak, but she’s more conservative than populist. OnTheIssues.org, a nonpartisan website which rates candidates based on their records and their responses to their 20-item VoteMatch issues questionnaire, describes Gov. Palin as a populist-leaning conservative. Whether she is seen as a libertarian-leaning conservative or a populist-leaning one, such a political animal may well be just what the country will be looking for after four years of Jimmy Carter-style liberalism from Barack Obama and a Democrat congress.

- JP

 

[D3]

IF I was a Democratic PAC I would not have to go any farther than Youtube to sink her.  Imagine the radio prank with the Quebec DJs on the air...  Run her all you want, this should be amusing.  Bobby Jindal on the other hand has what it takes

[Retired AF Guy]

IF I was a Democratic PAC I would not have to go any farther than Youtube to sink her.  Imagine the radio prank with the Quebec DJs on the air... 

Then why is Nickolas Sarkozy still President of France??

[dapaterson]

Palin should have been given a national platform and exposure in 2008; brought to the Senate for greater breadth of experience, then run as part of a ticket in 2012.

What some pundits ignore is that you don't need a polarizing figure who only attracts your base - to win, youi need to appeal to the central, undecided voter.  News flash:  despite popular mythology, the US is a largerly urban society.  Sarah's appeal was primarily to core rural Republican voters - who weren't going to vote Democrat under any conditions.

Urban voters saw a small town, white trash family with a knocked-up teenage daughter and her redneck high-school drop-out boyfriend.  Not inspirational.

[muskrat89]

News flash:  despite popular mythology, the US is a largerly urban society.  Sarah's appeal was primarily to core rural Republican voters - who weren't going to vote Democrat under any conditions.

Urban voters saw a small town, white trash family with a knocked-up teenage daughter and her redneck high-school drop-out boyfriend.  Not inspirational.

I agree with your reasoning but see my comments above. My personal experience doesn't prove that out - and I live/work in one of the largest cities in the US.

[tomahawk6]

White trash ? Give me a break !

[dapaterson]

From Wikipedia:

White trash is a term referring to lower social class white people with poor prospects and/or low levels of education. It originated as a pejorative. To call someone white trash was to accuse a white person of being economically, educationally and/or culturally bankrupt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_trash

A pregnant seventeen year-old daughter, with an eighteen year old self-declared f---in' redneck, high-school dropout boyfriend (whose mother gets arrested for selling OxyContin) would qualify in most circles as white trash.

[Kirkhill]

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_trash

A pregnant seventeen year-old daughter, with an eighteen year old self-declared f---in' redneck, high-school dropout boyfriend (whose mother gets arrested for selling OxyContin) would qualify in most circles as white trash.

If ever I saw a suck-back opportunity......

I trust that you are talking about the community's perception of Sarah Palin and not your own.

[GAP]

Gee, I guess that makes me and mine white trash too......son of a gun, who woulda thought that a couple kids playing around too early to lead to such a dismal end for us all................................

[tomahawk6]

Pretty arrogant remark and one that offends me. Kids having kids isnt unique to folks who live in small towns, but is just as common at all levels of society:rich,poor and middle class. Had Palin been a democrat she would have been given rock star treatment. Alot of hypocrisy amongst our libs. Last week the democrat Mayor of Portland lied about having sex with an 18 year old male intern. No calls for him to resign among the MSM like the Republican Congressman in 06 that had inappropriate emails with a House page.

http://www.katu.com/news/37848109.html

[ltmaverick25]

Dont feel so bad, there is alot of hypocricy with our libs too. 

[Retired AF Guy]

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_trash

A pregnant seventeen year-old daughter, with an eighteen year old self-declared f---in' redneck, high-school dropout boyfriend (whose mother gets arrested for selling OxyContin) would qualify in most circles as white trash.

Actually, the Palin's would not qualify 'as white trash."  According to the link you provided "white trash" refers to, "lower social class white people with poor prospects and/or low levels of education. ... To call someone white trash was to accuse a white person of being economically, educationally and/or culturally bankrupt." (My emphasis)

Whatever you may think about the Sarah Palin and her family, they, most assuredly, do not fall into any of the above categories.

[Thucydides]

Now that everyone has exposed their political and idiological bias through their reaction to Governor Palin, here is one of the "Uber issues" that needs to be discussed and debated by politicians of all stripes leading up to 2012. The Democrat Party has already indicated by word and deed their aim is the expansion of State power and politicization of the economy, anyone arguing the opposite needs to start here:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_25-2009_01_31.shtml#1233381066

Why the Size of Government Matters:

In his inaugural address, President Obama said that "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works." This is a commonly heard argument in response to concerns about the growth of government. Who could possibly be against government when it "works"? Why not instead consider each proposed expansion of the state on a case by case basis, supporting those that "work" and opposing any that don't?

Taken seriously, this argument leads to the rejection of any systematic constraints on government power. Why should we have a general presumption against government regulation of speech or religion? Why not instead support censorship when it "works" by improving the marketplace of ideas, and oppose it when it doesn't? Think of all the misleading speech and religious charlatans that government regulation could potentially save us from! The answer, of course, is that government regulation of speech and religion has systematic dangers that are not unique to any one particular regulation. Given those systematic flaws, it makes sense to have a general presumption against it.

The same holds true for government intervention more generally, including in the economy. It too has systematic flaws that justify a presumption against it. Three of those flaws are particularly relevant to current policy debates.

First, government officials have poor incentives relative to the private sector. Because the resources they spend are not their own money, they are more likely to waste them or divert them to favored interest groups. These poor incentives are visible in almost every major government spending bill, where large amounts of money are spent on porkbarrel projects and the like. The current stimulus bill is no exception, with its handouts for a variety of interest groups.

Second, as I have often emphasized in my academic work and on this blog, the quality of government policy is severely compromised by widespread voter ignorance. The majority of voters know very little about public policy and make poor use of the information they do have. Voter ignorance and irrationality are perfectly rational, because the chance that any one voter's knowledge will make a difference is infinitesmally small. Still, they routinely result in voters supporting flawed policies and doing a poor job of evaluating the performance of elected officials. For example, they blame politicians for bad weather, and routinely support protectionism despite the overwhelming evidence against it. The dangers of voter ignorance are likely to increase as government grows. The bigger government gets, the more of it there is for voters to monitor, and the more difficult it will be for them to have even a superficial knowledge of all its functions.

Third, even relatively well-informed voters and well-intentioned government officials will often lack the information they need to allocate resources more effectively than the market would in their place. As F.A. Hayek argued in his classic essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," government planners lacks the kind of information that the price system routinely provides to market participants. Thus, they usually have no way of knowing whether the projects they want to spend tax money on will yield benefits that outweigh their costs.

These systematic shortcomings of government are particularly dangerous in times of crisis, like the present. Given widespread voter ignorance and their own perverse incentives, government officials often use crises to justify harmful expansions of government power by selling them as emergency measures - even if they have little or no real connection to the emergency in question. This is why White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says that "[y]ou never want a serious crisis to go to waste" because it is "an opportunity to do things you could not do before."

The current spending bill before Congress is no exception. It is being marketed as a "stimulus." Yet only 8% of the new spending will occur this year, and only 41% in the next two years - too late to provide stimulus while the recession is still ongoing. This suggests that most of the new spending isn't really about stimulus and has more to do with other policy priorities that are being misleadingly sold as emergency measures.

These points don't prove that all government interventions are undesirable. It is possible for them to be outweighed by other considerations in any given case. They do, however, show that there is reason for systematic concern about the size of government, and for a strong but not insuperable presumption against its expansion. In the same way, we have good reason for a presumption against government regulation of speech and religion, even though that presumption cannot be absolute. We can, for example, ban shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, yet still have a general rule against censorship.

To put it in Obama's terms, our society will "work" a lot better if we can prevent government from getting too big. And that requires paying a lot more attention to the state's rapidly expanding waistline than the president wants us to.

UPDATE: I should have noted that the 8% figure is for the percentage of spending in the current fiscal year (which ends September 30), rather than calendar year. I don't think this difference of three months is critical, but I do want to correct the error.

[tomahawk6]

The democrat controlled Congress is working on a bill that would crush any car/SUV that doesnt get better than 18mph. Big government on the move and will only get worse.

http://www.sema.org/Main/Artic...aspx?contentID=61134

[S.M.A.]

If Palin wants to seriously consider running again, she has to get this cleared up first. And no, this allegation doesn't mean she was previously tapped for Obama' s cabinet like those other nominated officials.

http://www.adn.com/palin/story/693695.html

Palin owes tax on per diem, state says
EXPENSES: Governor received meal money while living in Wasilla.

By LISA DEMER
ldemer@adn.com

Published: February 17th, 2009 09:53 PM
Last Modified: February 18th, 2009 10:39 AM

Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials.


The governor's office wouldn't say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.
"The amount of taxes owed is a private matter," Sharon Leighow, Palin's spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "If the governor collects future per diem, those documents would be a matter of public record."

The revelation about Palin comes as U.S. senators, including Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, are under scrutiny over back taxes. A survey by the political newspaper and Web site Politico (www.politico.com) found that Begich was one of seven senators who acknowledged having paid back taxes.

Some other state employees also owe back income taxes for travel payments and will be getting revised tax forms, Annette Kreitzer, state administration commissioner, said in an e-mail.

She wouldn't say which, or how many, employees will be receiving the notifications.

The payments became a touchy issue for Palin last fall when she was running for vice president and campaigned as a budget watchdog.

The Washington Post published a story in mid-September that said she had charged the state almost $17,000 for meals and incidentals while staying in her own home.

The state considers Juneau, where she lives in the Governor's Mansion, to be Palin's official duty station.

Palin billed the state for 312 nights spent in her Wasilla home during her first 19 months in office, according to the Washington Post. She received $60 a day tax free, money intended to cover meals and incidentals, while traveling on state business, her travel forms show.

"Last fall we raised questions about longstanding practices within the Department of Administration regarding tax treatment of per diem payments," Kreitzer wrote in an exchange of e-mails over the past few days with the Daily News.

"At the Governor's request, we reviewed the situation to determine whether we were in full compliance with the pertinent Internal Revenue Service regulations," Kreitzer wrote. "As a result of this review, we determined that per diem needs to be treated as income, requiring a revision of W-2 forms for any affected employees."

The new determination by administration officials won't affect state lawmakers, said Pam Varni, director of the Legislative Affairs agency.

Under IRS guidelines, legislators receive tax-free payments to help with living expenses while in Juneau for the legislative session -- if their home is at least 50 miles away, Varni said.

The current rate, set by the U.S. Department of Defense, is $189 a day. That goes to everyone except the three Juneau-based legislators, who get smaller payments that are taxed as compensation.

Legislators can also charge the state $150 a day for time spent on state business when the Legislature is not in session, but those payments are taxed as income, Varni said.

Begich's situation came to light through a political survey released last week by Politico about senators and their taxes.

Fifty-five senators, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, didn't answer the questions, and a few others owed money but didn't consider it "back taxes" for one reason or another.

On his way out of a meeting with veterans on Monday, Begich answered a few questions about the back taxes he paid on a vehicle provided to him by the city when he was mayor.

"I refused the car the first 10 or 12 months," Begich said. "I didn't want the car.

"Then they told me I had to have it because of liability and a need and security and blah, blah, blah. So I ended up getting a used car. The first time a mayor has gotten a used car." It was a former police SUV.

The tax obligation came to his attention in late 2007, as he remembers it, after a regular IRS audit of city issues. The city then sent him revised tax statements.

"They gave me a letter and said you got to pay taxes on it. So they revised my W-2s." He wouldn't say how much he owed. "It's irrelevant," Begich said.

Generally, people are supposed to pay income taxes on the value of an employer-provided vehicle that is for personal use. Police vehicles are among the exceptions -- officers can drive them home and not be taxed on the value of the commute.

There's no specific exception in the law for mayors or governors. Palin has had a state Chevy Suburban.

Begich said a mayor is always on the job. No other Anchorage mayor ever had to pay income taxes on a city vehicle, he said.

"That's the point. I'm always on call. Always. ... And I think that's what the city's view was, for the city manager and me, was that we were always on call," Begich said. "But the IRS viewed it differently."

"After that issue came up, I got rid of the car," Begich said. He was in a downtown parking lot getting into the Toyota Highlander hybrid he bought in late 2007 to replace the city rig.

The Politico story about the survey said his situation echoed that of Tom Daschle, who had to step down as President Barack Obama's pick for health secretary after revelations about back taxes, including taxes owed for a limo and driver.

"For Politico to say it's the same as Daschle -- that's bunk," Begich said.