Topic: Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin and the Politics of Elitism -- III Kathleen Parker and other elitists want the GOP to dump the values voters.by Phil Manger
(libertarian)
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Of all the dumb statements made about the recent presidential election, the absolute dumbest has to be the assertion that Sarah Palin cost John McCain the election.
Not only is there no evidence to support that conclusion, but the truth appears to be precisely the opposite: that McCain got more votes with Palin on the ticket than he would have received had he chosen someone else as his running mate.
Yes, I know, I know. There's the small matter of that CNN exit poll in which 60 percent of the respondents did not think Palin was qualified to be President. But what those who cite that statistic don't tell you is that, in the same poll, of the 60 percent of voters who said McCain's choice of Palin was a factor in their decision, 56 percent voted for the McCain-Palin ticket, while only 43 percent voted for Obama-Biden.
And if the exit polls aren't convincing, the history of the campaign should be. Going into the Republican convention, McCain was trailing Obama in the polls. After Palin gave her well-received speech at the GOP convention, McCain shot ahead of Obama and held that lead until it evaporated in the late-September subprime mortgage meltdown. McCain didn't help himself any with his erratic, bull-in-a-china-closet response to the economic crisis. Obama was as clueless as McCain, but his calm demeanor inspired voter confidence and propelled him to a lead that he held through election day.
True, Palin did not help McCain much, if at all, with "moderates" and independents, but, says Chris Cillizza, who writes "The Fix" political blog in The Washington Post, "just because Palin doesn't appear to have helped McCain move to the middle doesn't mean that picking her was the wrong move...It's hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain — even to the relatively limited extent that they did — without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain's loss could have been far worse."
Those who blame Sarah Palin for McCain's defeat are in most cases the same ones who blame social conservatives for the drubbings Republicans have taken in the last two elections. If the GOP would just throw the values voters under the bus and endorse unrestricted abortion, gay marriage, gun confiscation, and amnesty for illegal immigrants, they say, Republicans will once again be competitive in the Philadelphia suburbs and win national elections by huge margins.
We've heard all this before, usually from liberals who, if the truth be known, have no interest in Republicans winning national elections, or even winning in the Philadelphia suburbs, and from "moderate" Republicans who think the key to winning elections is transform the GOP into Democrat Lite. What's different this time is that some putative conservatives are now buying into this idiocy.
Since late September the syndicated conservative columnist Kathleen Parker has devoted her columns to scarcely anything else, alternately dissing Gov. Palin and trashing her own readers. Last Wednesday, she unloaded on both in a single column that, in its snarky put-downs of Palin and religious voters, betrays an elitist attitude that is almost breathtaking in its sheer arrogance. Here's a sample:
...the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh...Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we're setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
...the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.
"Oogedy-boogedy"? "Armband religion"? "lowest brows"? These slurs say a lot more about Parker and her prejudices than they do about the problems facing the Republican Party. Lest anyone misconstrue her message, the columnist disses Palin for saying, in response to a question from Fox's Greta van Susteren about her plans for 2012, that she would seek God's will in the matter. For Parker, it seems, just believing in God is enough to merit expulsion from the GOP.
Parker no doubt thinks she's being cute and clever. Unfortunately, she gets so caught up in her own cleverness that she fails to see the errors and contradictions that run through her entire argument. Parker and the "party intelligentsia" may not like social conservatives in general, and Christian conservatives in particular, but the notion that they are "hurting" the Republican Party is simply not supported by the evidence.
First, consider the issues. Those of particular concern to social conservatives are abortion, gay marriage and immigration. After years of Republican Congresses and Republican administrations, on the abortion issue the only thing social conservatives have to show for their fealty to the GOP is a ban on partial-birth abortion — a position that has consistently been supported by more than 70 percent of the electorate. The electorate has also agreed with the social conservative position on gay marriage, which has been voted down in every state — about 30 so far — in which the issue has appeared on the ballot. Even in liberal California, where Obama trounced McCain by 24 points, voters passed a constitutional amendment to restrict marriage to a man and a woman.
And on immigration, what is there to say? McCain was not only to the left of the base on this issue, he was to the left of the overwhelming majority of Americans, who strongly oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants. According to a recent Zogby poll, even among Obama supporters, less than a third favor amnesty.
So, on these "hot button" issues, at least, it seems the views of the general electorate are not far from those of the social conservatives. The best evidence for this comes from the Obama campaign, which came out against gay marriage and tried to downplay their candidate's previous support for late-term abortions.
The most important issue driving voters in this election — the issue cited by 63 percent of them in the CNN exit poll — was the economy. The next most important issue (10 percent) was the war in Iraq, followed by terrorism (nine percent), health care (nine percent) and energy policy (seven percent). None of these issues has much of anything to do with religious conservatives.
Then there's the demographics. Parker seems to think they're running against the GOP, but are they? In the CNN exit poll, 26 percent of the sample were white voters who described themselves as "evangelical/born-again". Of these, 74 percent voted for McCain. Although this was about five points below President Bush's white evangelical vote, that's still a lot of oogedy-boogedies. Another key Republican constituency is gun owners. In the CNN poll, 42 percent of the voters lived in a household in which at least one member owns a gun. McCain received the votes of 62 percent of that group. Of course, there's some overlap between these two groups, but that's still a lot of voters.
One fact often cited by those who want to toss the values voters out of the GOP is that Obama overwhelmed McCain among African-American and women voters. This is true — McCain only received four percent of the black vote, while women voted 56 - 43 percent for Obama. But you'd think these people had never seen a Venn diagram. The set of women in the sample includes a lot of non-white women. If you just look at white women, McCain won that group 53 - 46 percent.
However, their point is well-taken. Republicans don't do very well with African-Americans, and need to reach out to them. But reach out with what? The major area of common ground between African-Americans and the GOP is on precisely those issues that are of most concern to evangelical voters. In California, where 95 percent of blacks voted for Obama, 70 percent voted to restrict marriage to a man and a woman. And black voters — as well as Hispanics — have traditionally been more conservative than white voters on issues such as abortion and school choice. If the Republican Party won't reach out to minorities with social issues such as these, what issues will it use? Increasing the H-1B quota? Doubling ethanol subsidies? Or maybe the GOP could just embrace complete socialism and outflank Democrats on the left.
The GOP can purge itself of the oogedy-boogedies easily enough. All it has to do is take positions on their core issues that are anathema to them and nominate candidates who think like Kathleen Parker. Of course, the party shouldn't expect to win many elections.
The fact is, the Republican Party needs the social conservatives, and needs them badly. The party cannot win elections without them. Certainly, a conservative cannot be elected to the Presidency without them. Sarah Palin resonates with these voters — which is why 64 percent of Republican voters told the Rasmussen Poll that she is their first choice for the party's nomination in 2012. If Kathleen Parker is so anxious to be rid of 64 percent of GOP voters, she had better have some plan for replacing them.
The late Murray Rothbard understood that the cause of liberty will not be advanced by dismissing the values voters. He knew that these are the people who live out there where life is lived, who ultimately must pay, sometimes with their lives or the lives of their children, for the disastrous policies that are dreamed up by the elites in the Washington think tanks. That is one of the reasons he left the Libertarian Party in 1992 and supported Pat Buchanan's candidacy for the Republican nomination.
But Rothbard understood more. He understood that, while they might not have the polish and sophistication and Ivy League degrees of the elites, social conservatives' instincts are fundamentally sound.
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I just finished reading all three of your articles defending Palin against elitists. I also saw that you earlier wrote favoring Ron Paul. So, on the one hand you supported a scholarly individual who has carefully studied out the root cause of our financial maliaise, but on the other you support someone who seems hopelessly ignorant and proud of it. An amazing contradiction.
I also must reject your characterizations of those "millions" who screamed their support for Palin as "value voters." My experience with the religious right types is that they are extremely judgmental, mean-spirited, and have no values apart from their particular brand of biblical interpretation. They are for the most part the most non-thinking ignorant people in this country.
The fact that there may be millions of them is unfortunate, but their numbers cannot hide the inanity of their alleged value positions.
They are the most fearful and the easiest to manipulate by shameless political leaders. They cause millions of other Americans to shudder less these mindless monkeys should ever predominate.
McCain and Palin had no chemistry. He was a bad pick for the GOP but I don't think they really wanted to win this one. There was no way any Republican could make a good situation out of the mess that Bush/Cheney made of things. Only towards the end of the campaign did McCain seem to really want to win. As the Obama administration is turning out to be basically the center-right regime many on the left had been predicting, it's time to get over the 2008 election and find something else to freak out about. Palin is an idiot and all well-educated Americans were opposed to her. She only got the Stupid people's vote (i.e uneducated). Because the Presidential/Vice Presidential election in this country is basically a popularity contest a la high school student council elections. Obama won because he had much better style than anything the Repubs could come up with. Likewise that's basically what they had over Gore and Kerry, but Clinton had better style than either Bush Sr. or Dole. Sad, but true, it's all about aesthetics. But that's how we roll in USA.
Religion ruins everything. The Christian right in this country has been fed lies the last generation that our founding fathers were CHRISTIAN, and the truth is that they were predominantly DEIST and did not believe that the bible was the word of God. When Americans believe that we are on a mission from God, we are no different than the Islamist extremists who believe THEY are on a mission from God. Sarah Palin is BAD for America because of her religious convictions as well as her willingness to spout opinions with no education. We need to continue to hammer away at this woman to protect ourselves from religious nut cases taking over Washington D.C. Keep GOD out of Washington, DC! I, for one, am tired of the religious right preaching hate and intolerance.
I don't consider myself a religious person now, or ever, but I like Sarah Palin. My wife, son and daughter, all of whom regularly vote Democratic, voted Republican this year, at least in part, due to Palin being on the ticket. None of them can be labeled as religious voters. Palin's primary attraction is not her religious beliefs, which she didn't really mention on the campaign trail, it is the fact that she is not a lawyer, she is not from the DC cesspool, she is seen as honest, something unusual in a politician, and she actually has convictions which she stands by, also unusual for a politician. Her chosing to have a Downs Syndrome child is evidence of that, and people respect her for that. She may not be a foreign policy wonk, but then that is not the job of a VP, that is the Department of State's function. Those who hate Palin, primarily do so precisely because she lives her convictions, she likes to hunt, and fish, and makes no bones about it, and she doesn't believe in abortion, period. Those, like Kelly Parker, above, who want to "hammer away at this woman..." fear people who have inner strength, and actually live their convictions, how sad for them.
Me again. Point made - the very rules for the use of this web site are Christian in content; no trashing anyone else, no scamming, playing by the rules, etc. Certainly not from that other set of values used by Muhammad to trash much of the globe he managed to pillage. Dave.
I beg to differ with those who dis Palin supporters as ignorant, out-of touch, etc. I'm 65yo,have an earned Masters Degree, worked for the state of Ohio 10 yrs., regularly read wnd, attend a fundamental Bible church, believe in a Biblical worldview, and think BHO et al got a free ride from MSM, the voters dredged up by ACORN, and assorted politicians (R and D alike). A brief perusal of bloggers id's them as products of the secular humanist schools, ignorant of early American history, deaf to common sense (who really believes 0 plus time = intricate design?), and totally indiscriminate between the God of the Bible and Allah of the Quran. Fascinating to see (and hear) those preaching tolerance, love, getting along, exhibit their intolerance, hatred and elitism. All one needs to see is the little old lady with the styrofoam cross being harrassed by those "tolerant, loving, purveyors of physical and emotional free love", who populate ER's, drug clinics, and morgues. Equally fascinating is to contemplate the "tweeners" (those moderate Muslims, educated Blacks, emerging church attenders) who silently observe the last great hope for this globe go down the drain! Do they think (or feel) Islam is going to be "loving, tolerant, understanding" - the 7th Century belief that women are property subject to "honor killing", that "we have no homosexuals!", and that the entire globe should be under Shariah Law? NO? Check out the courts of England, the streets of Orissa, the former countries of any number of beliefs now totally Muslim. Read Tortured for Christ, substitute the word Muslim Brotherhood or any other similiar label for the word "terrorists". Be thank ful the founders of this country (read Pilgrims, Puritans, etc. [www.1776americandream.com, www.worldviewweekend.com, etc) were those who "turned the other cheek", gave a hand to the less fortunate, loved their neighbor, etc. (You won't find these ideas in the Quran)! Dave.
Before I knew anything about the canidates this election I read their records. I was lucky to read Gov. Palin's before the media had its way with the facts. Gov. Palin's record unfiltered by the media is very impressive. It is easy to see why she is the most popular gov. in america. Like her or hate her she does work for the people and she is unapologetic about it. She has a self confidence unseen in women and this scares people. If the media ever settled on this woman's record instead of things like her legs she would have won this election. It is sad that people didn't and haven't taken the time to look at what she has done and even how she has had to do it. While the media tells us about her huge ego no one metioned that she walked away from a 100,000 plus job because the people of Alaska were being taken to the cleaners. So please show me one other politician that would walk away from the money for the people. Wait, Barak Obama did to become a community organizer. So maybe with younger people coming through the ranks we will be better off.
I have a voting philosophy. I will vote for any candidate of any party who can convince me that they believe the most important things an office holder should pursue are individual liberty, limited government, and free markets. And I will not vote for anyone who doesn't hold these values sacrosanct. So rarely do I have anyone to vote for except the Libertarian.
This year I actually switched from independant to Republican to be able to vote Ron Paul in the CT primary. And this year Bob Barr was (illegally) kicked off the CT ballot in the general election. In lookin over the ballot I did see one candidate who holds my beliefs, Gov. Palin. Of course in order to vote for her I had to vote for McCain, but at least I voted consistant with my beliefs. It 's extremely rare that a democrat or a republican can provide that for me.
Commenter Ed calls supporting both Ron Paul and Sarah Palin "an amazing contradiction". He is amazingly wrong. While its true that Dr. Paul is more erudite than Gov. Palin, she is a far more skilled politician than he is. But they both share the same core beliefs. I view Palin as the young new charismaticly talented politician who can inherit the cause of the Ron Paul Revolution. And if she happens to bring the religious right along with her, that's all to the better. Although she is a religious person herself, I have seen nothing in her to indicate that she would govern from those values, as someone like Mike Huckabee would.
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