On August 28, Adam Brickley, the person who started the push to Draft Palin for VP, had a somewhat cryptic post that those of us supporting Sarah Palin would be celebrating, very soon.
My Role In The Story
In August, 2007 I received an email from Stephen Maloney, who wanted to know if I'd heard of Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska. I had not. Stephen was working with Adam Brickley, at Draft Palin for VP. They needed someone to do an article or two and help promote Sarah Palin as VP. Would I be interested? At that time Adam and Stephen were the only people who were promoting Sarah Palin. They were the first to see the potential in Sarah Palin.
My first article, on Blogcritics, appeared on August 17, 2007. At that time there were a half dozen local profile pieces about Palin, and one serious piece by Fred Barnes, but that's about it. Finding decent material about Sarah Palin was almost impossible. Very little was known about her at that time. After I wrote the Blogcritics piece I began following her at my blog, The Pink Flamingo. During the past year, I have written a number of pieces about her. I've also been writing about the growing "bandwagon" effect, and how her original supporters are being steam-rolled as more and more "important" entities come aboard the wagon.
In March I wrote a piece for Blogcritics answering the critics who felt she would not be a good choice for VP because she would be a "new mommy".
Who Had the Story First?
Very early this morning, around 1am or so, I received an email from one of the two top Palin supporters, Adam Brickley being the first (literally). Stephen Maloney (the second) let me know that his sources were telling him “IT” was Sarah Palin. The moment I noticed he had a post up on his Campaign2008VictoryA site, I ran with it at my blog, I then checked the site Race 42008, where some fascinating research into planes and automobiles convinced me that Stephen was on to something.
Once Stephen was able to calm down enough to type, he forwarded this information to me:
...My political buddy Sharon Caliendo of Norman, OK, broke the Palin Story last night shortly before 3 a.m., and I took a chance on put it on my blogs. Much more will be on there today and tomorrow about a thoroughly remarkable human being, Sarah Heath Palin. If you want to have fun, go over to a truly ecstatic web site, Adam Brickley's at Draft Palin. Adam has been in total managerial charge of the national Draft Palin for VP effort. Adam just turned 21...
This is the "true" story about how Sarah Palin rose to national attention. Never underestimate the role Adam Brickley and Stephen Maloney played. The one (and only) national pundit who has been following her career from day one is Fred Barnes.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Joanne Huspek
Thanks for your article and the links.
I find it interesting that people are bringing up her lack of experience. Does anyone remember that Obama was a senator only 142 days before announcing his run for Presidency? As one local news talk personality indicated yesterday, he has bottles of catsup in his refrigerator older than that.
2 - Clavos
Joanne,
Good point on the experience issue; the Dems are shooting themselves in the foot with it on two fronts: Palin actually has more executive experience than Obama, and by trying to diminish Palin as a candidate by harping on her so-called lack of it, they are only highlighting Obama's own lack in the minds of the voters.
3 - Gina
BREAK THE GLASS CEILING !!!
WOW ... What a great pick!!! America should elect
McCain & Palin for the Whitehouse in November,
for a return to wholesome American values.
An experienced Governor for V.P. vs. a
community organizer for President ... I pick Palin.
No Wright, no Farrakahn, no Ayers, no Rezko,
no mean Michelle, NOBAMA
4 - Zedd
Hey all,
Am I the only one who is thinking the Red Bull guy (the one who flies off) as Secretary of Energy. Shoe in!!! No brainer!!!
5 - Deano
It's ironic and laughable to watch all the various commentors who, the previous week, were lambasting Obama's lack of experience as a critical factor in the election, now frantically twisting themselves into a frenzy re-working their arguments to allow that Palin is actually really very experienced, despite less then two years as governer of a state of less than 700,000 people.
Give it up. The mayor of Austin, Texas has a bigger constituency. Hell, the Premier of Newfoundland has a bigger constituency...
Face it, she is NOT very experienced, in particular at the national stage, "executive" level or not, and spinning it madly with talking points won't make her any more experienced.
She was not selected for that reason. She was selected because she was a woman, young and dynamic, plain-spoken, with an untarnished reputation, who also had the bonfides to pull back in the evangelical right of the GOP and reassure hard-core Republicans who dislike McCain that the party wasn't going to veer madly to the centre if elected. She is meant to add excitement andluster to the McCain campaign and she has done so... for the brief news period everyone gets excited about.
Whether that can be sustained and turned into votes is the primary question and from what I've read I don't sense the Democrats at the top level are unduly fussed by this turn of events, whatever the commenters on the various blogs claim. My best guess is that McCain will get a bit of a bounce leading into the GOP convention, and a little bounce from the convention itself, and then as the debates happen, the long, slow slide will start until election day.
As I've stated before, this election is really for the Democrats to lose. If they can avoid shooting themselves in the foot through arrant stupidity or getting caught with a dead hooker, they will win the election tidily.
If.
6 - Cannonshop
Deano, experience is more than time-in-office, it's also "What did you do while you were there"?
Palin's done a bunch of stuff, including negotiating with the Canadians, dismantling party machine politicians, vetoing a bill that would have refused rights to same-sex domestic partners, and reducing the state's dependence on Federal money/Federal controls. She's been to Iraq to visit "Her" national guard troops, and Germany to visit the wounded (trips Senator Obama didn't take, even though he's got more leisure time to take them), sold off state-owned luxuries and shut down state owned boondoggles that were costing Alaskan Taxpayers money that could have been spent on education or disaster preparedness.
In other words, in two years as governor of Alaska, she's done more than Obama has in his entire political career, and likely done things with longer lasting positive impacts than Obama has in his entire career up to this point.
Now, someone is sure to bring up how small the State of Alaska's population is...and the counter argument to that is pretty simple.
the population is small, because the environment is dangerous. Screwing up as governor of Arkansas or New York, or Utah costs money. Screwing up in Alaska kills people. The margins for error are exponentially tighter, and the consequences of bad decision making for both leaders, and citizens, are far, far higher on the Darwin scale. Since the population is small, the political environment is much tighter, and more insular-Palin came in as an outsider, which means a bit more when the Insiders know and like one another and don't like outsiders-in other words, she has had to overcome serious resistance, not only from the opposing party, but from within her own.
And someone is going to bring up the Mommy argument. This is a pretty stupid one. Yes, Palin has kids, including one on the way. Her oldest is an adult-he's joining the military with the intent of going to Iraq.
What I think (and it's only my opinion) the Left has a problem with, is that Gov. Palin is the REAL DEAL. Feminists for decades have said that a woman can do anything a man can do-plus do it backwards, in high heels. Sarah Palin proves this isn't a false assertion. The problem they have, is that they can't produce a single woman on the Left that demonstrates this is true, instead, we have Hillary (whose main accomplishment was marrying well), and similar in congress and the senate-women who Don't accomplish much, don't run up against serious opposition, and don't have a record of handling serious responsibilities. Our lady-senators here in Washington are basically party-platform automatons and deeply reliant on the party machine, boxer and feinstein are the same, Gov. Gregoire wouldn't be in office without the Seattle machine at all, and her 'accomplishments' are essentially "More of the Same" in a state with a friendly legislature, press, and establishment and a huge margin for screwing up before your career is toast.
This scares the shop-window feminists, because someone like Palin raises the bar. It isn't just enough to get elected, you have to actually DO THINGS that WORK, and you can't blame your failures on sexism when it doesn't.
7 - Dan Miller
Cannonshop,
Amen.
Dan(Miller)
8 - Clavos
Cannon,
Where do you get the idea Palin is pregnant? I can find norhing on that; as far as I know, she's not.
9 - Dr Dreadful
"The Obama campaign is criticizing Governor Palin for having no foreign policy experience. I remember the same comments back in 2000 when the "inexperienced" governor of Texas was running against the "experienced" Vice President. One of the major Democratic talking points against this inexperienced governor was that he knew nothing about foreign policy."
Ummm... SJ...
...what's your point?
;-)
10 - Cannonshop
Damn, Clavos, I have fallen for an internet myth! (actually there was a thread that isn't there anymore about "New Mom Sarah Palin". I guess it was 86'd...)
11 - Clavos
No, it's still here, but was written and published over a year ago.
The thread is still very much alive...
12 - Cannonshop
ah. thanks. I thought I'd dreamed it. (Need to check the dates on things more carefully...)
13 - Deano
Re: Cannonshop: "experience is more than time-in-office"
Agreed, no question. So why does Obama's experience somehow miraculously not count? Palin is obviously competent, somewhat intelligent and politically adroit or she never would have succeeded....neither would Obama. My point is that all the pundit hot air and windy BC commenters who are now tapdancing madly around the "experience factor" are bluntly full of shit, as your own dismissive catagorizations of all female Democrats as "party-platform automatons" and "shop-window feminists", particularly ironic in that you just spent multiple paragraphs extolling the virtues of Palin's experience.
It is partisanship dressed up with a rhetorical two-step, unfortunately typical of the easy, dismissive and partisan stupidity that tends to float around in comments.
14 - Cannonshop
Deano, I'll counter your point with this question:
"What has he actually DONE?"
From what I've been able to dig out of the internet, he voted 100 times "Present" in the Illinois Legislature, he was a Senator for approximately 142 days prior to announcing his candidacy for the Presidency. while a Community Organizer, did conditions in Chicago improve, and is there a tangible link between his activities and such improvement?
What about his time running the Annenberg programme? did Schools involved in that project show significant improvement in quality commensurate to the sixty million dollars spent?
What Obama-sponsored Legislation (either in Illinois, or the U.S. Senate) has passed, and what benefit did it render to (insert Illinois, Nation, depending on venue)?
Did he visit the military hospital, and the wounded soldiers therein, during his tour of Europe?
Did he visit soldiers from Illinois in the Gulf during his time in the legislature?
How many countries has Obama dealt with in a productive capacity (see, Palin dealt with Canada on a pipeline and a railway, what comparable accomplishments does your candidate have)?
Obama runs as a candidate of "change". What actions has he initiated to deal with corrupt practices either in Illinois, or the U.S. Senate?
Was he successful, even marginally, in such activities?
How many times has he gone against his own political party for the benefit of his voters? (Palin's record is long on this one).
See, intentions and promises are NOT EXPERIENCE.
15 - Deano
Cannonshop,
Two quick things -
a). he's not "my candidate".
b). I'm not Obama's biographer and bluntly am not going to spend my time parsing his record (feel free to do your own research). Wikipedia is only a click away...
My point is that for the last several months I've been hearing endless reams of pundits and commenters extolling to the skies the virtues of McCain's 178-odd years of experience...and how utterly vital that is to the presidency.
So I'm calling bulls**t.
You can't, by any remote stretch of the imagination, claim that Palin's relative experience as governer is any "better" than Obama's tenure in the Senate.
If experience is the be-all, end-all for presidential office, then neither should probably be on the ticket, but we both know that experience counts for far less then savvy media sense, deep pockets, party backing, and good sound bites.
To quote a famous British legislator - "everyone here knows the difference between a live horse and a dead one, so pray stop flogging the latter."
16 - Clavos
I'm not Obama's biographer and bluntly am not going to spend my time parsing his record (feel free to do your own research). Wikipedia is only a click away...
He obviously already has. Like a good lawyer questioning a witness in court, he already knows the answer to every question he asked.
You can't, by any remote stretch of the imagination, claim that Palin's relative experience as governer is any "better" than Obama's tenure in the Senate.
Let's see. She actually RAN a government with a $6.6 billion budget, she successfully negotiated deals with a foreign government, she rooted out corrupt officials, successfully had them prosecuted and forced to resign, including the state chairman of her own party.
That record, compared with Obama's sitting on his ass in a chamber full of gasbags whose most important duty is to vote for or against legislation and who only voted "present" to avoid commitment?
Damn straight hers is better.
17 - Cannonshop
Deano (*because I'm stupid, ask Pablo) I'll try and lay it out for you in terms even a simpleton can understand.
Imagine you're a Superintendent, and you have two job applications from a pair of Apprentices looking to work a dangerous site.
One apprentice has two years working IN THE FIELD, in which that apprentice accomplished several examples of the kind of work (though smaller scale) that you're looking for.
The other one, sat in all the right classes, but spent the same time mostly applying for another job or just showing up, he talks a good game, but he's never played. He's never successfully held a position even similar to the one he is applying for.
Who are you going to hire?
finding what Sarah Palin has done-that is, looking at results of her work, and the quality of that work, is pretty easy.
So far, other than talking a lot, Barak Obama has NO work to examine, only lots of talking, a few books, and a stint at the Harvard Law Review that is the least quoted in twenty years.
If Obama played as good as he talks, hell, even "I" might vote for him, but he's asking for the job "On spec" with no resume. Palin's done good work, her prior employers (the people of the state of Alaska) appear to be satisfied with her work. She has references we can check outside of training, and has done a solid job of work at her prior assignment.
it's the difference between a Carpenter, and a guy who TALKS about carpentry. Who're you going to hire to remodel your house?
18 - handyguy
Clavos, you were talking about voting for Obama as recently as March. His resume/background/experience were identical then.
What it boils down to for you, Cannonshop and several others on here is this: Obama is a liberal, and you won't support a liberal. The experience issue is basically an unprovable assertion, a red herring.
But I think the liberal tag, with regard to the economy and other issues, is a caricature, an oversimplification. Anyone who actually wants to explore this should read "Obamanomics", an article by the NY Times's excellent economics columnist. A couple of excerpts that may catch your interest:
John McCain’s economic vision, as he has laid it out during the campaign, amounts to a slightly altered version of Republican orthodoxy, with tax cuts at the core. Obama, on the other hand, has more-detailed proposals but a less obvious ideology.
Obama’s agenda starts not with raising taxes to reduce the deficit, as Clinton’s ended up doing, but with changing the tax code so that families making more than $250,000 a year pay more taxes and nearly everyone else pays less.
For the bottom 80 percent of the population â€" those households making $118,000 or less â€" McCain’s various tax cuts would mean a net savings of about $200 a year on average. Obama’s proposals would bring $900 a year in savings. So for most people, Obama is the tax cutter in this campaign.
The income tax doesn’t take the biggest bite out of most families’ annual tax bill. The payroll tax does. Obama’s second-most-expensive proposal, after his health-care plan, is the equivalent of a $500 cut in the payroll tax for most workers. For most workers, it would be the first significant cut in the payroll tax in decades, if not ever.
[a quote from Obama]: "Reagan’s central insight â€" that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing that pie â€" contained a good deal of truth. Reagan ushered in an era that reasserted the marketplace and freedom. He made people aware of the cost involved of government regulation or at least a command-and-control-style regulation regime.
"And George Bush took Ronald Reagan’s insight and ran it over a cliff. When Bill Clinton said the era of big government is over, he wasn’t arguing for an era of no government.
"So what we need to bring about is the end of the era of unresponsive and inefficient government and short-term thinking in government, so that the government is laying the groundwork, the framework, the foundation for the market to operate effectively and for every single individual to be able to be connected with that market and to succeed in that market."
19 - handyguy
One other point on executive experience: Obama has been running a very successful presidential campaign for about 18 months. Currently his campaign has 2500 employees. McCain's operation may have improved lately, but it had more than a few meltdowns along the way...possibly as a result of faulty management?
20 - Clavos
I really can't remember my exact words, handy (and am too lazy to go back and look to verify). I do recall being impressed by him (and still am to some degree-his announcement about the Bristol Palin pregnancy flap was very classy), but I don't recall actually saying I would vote for him.
You're right, it's his liberal viewpoints that I don't care for; I'm not a one-issue voter, and I read the NYT article you cite about a week ago. Obama's economic plans in toto are not particularly worrisome to me, although in principle, I am opposed to using the tax code for wealth re-distribution, and not being a subscriber to the theories of the anthropogenic origins of global warming, I don't believe we should be burdening our economy with the costs of mitigating them, particularly not unilaterally, leaving countries like China and India off the hook.
But, that's not just an economic issue. Stipulating, for the sake of the discussion, to the need to mitigate carbon emissions, I'm strongly opposed to cap-and-trade schemes such as that proposed by Obama. I think they will do little to reduce emissions and will upset market balances by favoring large polluters over small. I think a much more effective means of reducing carbon emissions would be an across-the-board, volume-based, straightforward carbon tax; the higher your emissions, the higher your tax.
But, overall, as I said before, I agree that his economic ideas aren't all that radical. He at least gives lip service to the Chicago school, and in any case we haven't ever had a real laissez-faire economy; the government has always had its inept, grubby fingers in it to one degree or another.
I like that, unlike Hillary, his health plan wouldn't be mandatory.
On that point (and speaking of the government's inept fingers), I recognize that we must do something about the health care mess, but, having more than three years' experience as a heavy consumer of Medicare (because of my wife's illnesses), I'm seriously concerned about the government's ability to handle an even larger program. From a recent investigation of Medicare fraud by the Miami Herald, I learned actual numbers for what I had already figured out from my wife's account: Medicare fraud nationwide (with many Medicare administrators and staff involved and complicit) amounts to $7 million dollars a day, every day nationwide.
One reason I don't want to see a liberal in the WH is SCOTUS. I'm sure I don't have to elaborate any further on that point.
All that said, I like the way he speechifies, though I think one point his detractors make has some merit: his speeches soar and flow; they invoke pretty images and stir emotions, but he really doesn't say much. In that regard, they're a little like chinese food; wonderful while partaking, but an hour later, you're hungry again.
Anyway, handy, you asked me a fair question. This isn't a complete answer, but it's getting late, and tomorrow, I have to use the frontloader I rented today to begin to scoop up the trash that's accumulated in the house, for my wife, after more than six months in the hospital, is finally coming home on Wednesday.
21 - Cannonshop
Two points-first your mention of his campaign as "Executive Experience". Is Obama serving as Obama's campaign manager? Otherwise, he's just the Client of someone doing the executive work.. and 2500 vs. even Palin's hometown average of 9000? Over a single year?
okay, so he can make pretty speeches that really don't say a lot, and he looks good, and he's hired a good campaign manager (or had one loaned by the Daly machine, or the DNC, or whatever)-that makes him a pretty good salesman.
A salesman is not an executive. That would be "Marketing".
Slick marketing is largely how we've all gotten into this mess in the first place. For that matter, it's why thousands of people took on mortgages they didn't have a prayer of paying, and sunk their families into massive debt over the last few years with credit-cards.
again, it goes back to the carpenter thing-are you going to hire a no-name with a slick business card, or a person you know is a Carpenter to remodel your house?
Obama promises what? Change. Change We Can Believe In.
Approach it with skepticism-who's more likely to deliver Change-someone whose entire career has been (in actions) serving the party, or someone who's already brought the head of the party in their own state to his knees, and put some of the corrupt, "Immune" actors into court...
From Her Own Party. (caps for emphasis.) Handyguy, if Obama had the record that matched his rhetoric, I'd be in his corner. He doesn't, I'm not. Palin has the record that matches more closely to Obama's rhetoric. She's put her own desires aside for the good of her state on more than one occasion-including veto'ing a bill that would have refused benefits to gay couples, an action directly against her own ideals, but in service to the greater good of her State. This indicates a personality that will put aside petty desires and even strong personal beliefs to serve the Public and do her damn job.
Obama talks, Palin does the walk, she actually has done the walk. There maybe were and are better choices, but damn few and far between, and in two years, she's managed to do more solid work than many professional pols have done in twenty. Obama, in six years, has done roughly as much as most pols do in six months.
DOING matters. There comes a point where you have to stop paying the consultants to study the problem, and address the goddamned thing. Palin seems to understand this, Obama shows no sign of actually getting it. The fact that he's drunk the carbon-trading Kool-Aid doesn't help matters-I mean, really, isn't anyone but me tired of faith-based initiatives blowing up in our faces? Isn't anyone else tired of knowing that every time you drive or ride the bus to work, money is going to people that are buying murder aimed at Western Culture? isn't anyone else sick of the threat that OPEC might paralyze our economy again like they did in the seventies? Doesn't the existence of monopolies in the energy field, and the spectre of another Enron scam nag at you?
Palin has taken on the Oil companies through their proxies in her state government and WON. Palin has shut down 400 million dollars in an earmarked bridge to nowhere, and defied her party bosses for the good of her state and the Nation.
Obama just doesn't match up. Sorry, he's a guy with a nice voice, and some good intentions, but he's not the guy for the job.
22 - Dave Nalle
Isn't Obama's campaign manager David Axelrod? I wouldn't trust Axelrod to wipe his own ass. He's a terrible liar and just all-out creepy.
And Cannon, Palin isn't perfect. Part of what she did to the oil companies was raise their taxes through a very dubious windfall profits tax which may shut down a lot of alaskan drilling as unprofitable.
Dave
23 - bliffle
But Clavos, don't you understand that EVERY tax system redistributes income?
"...I am opposed to using the tax code for wealth re-distribution, ..."
So people favored by the tax support it, and people un-favored by the tax oppose it.
Inevitably, every tax results in wealth re-distribution.
24 - Clavos
Of course I do, bliff, but I object to deliberate manipulation of the tax system to enhance that aspect of taxation and fulfill a political agenda by targeting one group, especially when I'm in the targeted group.
That's why I like the concept of the FairTax, which is consumption, rather than income, based.
25 - bliffle
Talking about experience...IMO none of the 4 principles in this campaign has the kind of solid business experience that paleo-conservatives used to require in a candidate. All of them have been on the public payroll for most of their adult lives, none has built a substantial business, and none has battled in markets to meet a payroll. The payroll that senators and other politicians meet is provided by the government.
What is seldom mentioned is how thin McCains useful experience is to a chief executive. Once you pass the POW experience (that he and his supporters keep yammering about, to the exclusion of useful info) there is precious little. Apparently, he had some little success reforming a ragtag flying squadron after Vietnam, but that's just a straw-boss job. Mule skinner, we used to call that. No profit/loss responsibility, no payroll responsibility. Just crack the whip over some poky flyboys.
McCain, like his father and grandfather before him, has always been on the public payroll. I don't think he knows squat about business.
If he had at least picked Romney he'd have really beefed up the campaign and lured some business people back into the republican fold. But, as it is, you find as many business guys (especially modern guys with a good grip on the subtle parameters of modern business management, which would NOT include anyone I've seen on BC yet) going for Obama whose econ principles resonate better with modern econ mechanics than McCains antiquated ideological notions.
So, we have to assess these peoples aptitude for management by looking at their campaigns, where the clear winner is Obama.