Jeb Bush Wants to Pitch the "Big Tent" on a Swamp

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has written a piece for the National Review in which he offers his thoughts for the Republican party. However, his post is long on rhetoric and short on principled conservatism. In his piece, he poses the idea of the GOP being the "Grand Solutions Party". Sure that sounds reasonable enough, right? Not really. Fashioning the GOP has the party of solutions inherently means that government must be the entity at work to solve America's problems. In reality, government is too often the inhibiting factor. It's the American people who solve our problems when government gets out of our way--de-regulates and spends and taxes less. While Governor Bush does touch on the idea of individual freedom, he only does so by prefacing the concept on a squishy idea of governance in which he notes:

The animating force of this governance is diversity and creativity of thinking. And that is how the Republican party should always be. We are broad thinkers and confident believers in America. We are serious about finding solutions for the problems we face in our communities. And we will not limit the ideas we consider in helping America reach for greatness. 

If I hadn't read the byline and the word "Republican" wasn't in there, this could easily pass as something off of President Obama's teleprompter. Yes, government indeed has a role to play--providing an environment for Americans to solve our own problems. As Reagan, whom Bush has very little respect for, notes, "government is not the solution; government in the problem". Yes, we want government officials to be believers in America, but we don't want them to believe that they are our saviors.

The two paragraphs following the aforementioned paragraph do indeed touch appropriately on the idea of individual liberty and limited government. Bush goes on to note that principles shouldn't be abandoned and that we should be "guided meaningfully by the first principles of our nation". This is, of course, true, but the remaining paragraphs negate his claims of the importance of principle by suggesting that we should abandon it:

But to make sure that we do not lose the advantage of that clear difference, we must not layer onto our fundamental beliefs thick black lines of ideology — black lines that we do not allow ourselves to cross. Those black lines can be comforting, I understand. They provide certainty and stability and ideological purity. But they also restrict the way we think about problems, and make more difficult the kind of reform-minded free thinking that has defined the conservative movement for the last 50 years. 

Thick black lines of ideology are good at keeping people in, but they are also good at keeping people out. And our party can’t win if we keep people out. Our goal is not to assemble a small army of purists. We need a nation of converts. We have seen the other way of governing. It has had its day. It has made its best case. It has failed.

Ideology is too often seen as a dirty word when in reality, it simply means standing upon the principles of one's belief system. Of course, Bush is wrong when he discusses the supposed "reform-minded free thinking"  of the conservative movement. Perhaps this "pale pastels" he is referring to are the ideas of the Republican "movement" over the past 50 years--Nixon who thought that the EPA was a good idea or perhaps his father who raised taxes after promising not to. He certainly isn't referring to the Reagans or Palins of the last fifty years.

Bush says we need a nation of converts, but his idea seems to be that conservatives convert to a unprincipled ideology of pale pastels rather than conservatives promote the ideas of individual liberty and our founding principles to those around us. There is nothing more "Big Tent" than the idea of freedom and limited government that provide the solid foundation. Essentially, he wants us to pitch the proverbial "Big Tent" on a swamp. What happens when you drive the stakes of a tent into a swamp? The tent collapses because the stakes weren't driven into a solid foundation. A "big tent" is a great goal, but it must be driven into solid ground--perhaps into soil as dark as the "black lines of ideology" that Bush bemoans.

For a take on this piece far more eloquent than my ramblings, please listen to this segment of Mark Levin's show from today:


 

Crossposted here and here.

Palin, Reagan, Thatcher, and the Political Second Coming of 1976

Today, February 11, 2012,  Governor Palin gave the closing address at CPAC. Today also marks 37 years since Margaret Thatcher was elected to be the head of British Conservative party ousting former Prime Minister Heath. That same year, 1975, Thatcher was given that leadership, Ronald Reagan gave his famous "bold colors, no pastels" speech to that year's CPAC convention. Three leaders whose principles and passion drive them, not their political party.

Governor Palin's barnburner of a speech hit on everything from her call to stand for life to highlighting how Obama's policies led to the MF Global's disastrous loss of billions of dollars of people's money to criticizing how the Obama administration is sharing nuclear intelligence with the Russian Kremlin . She carved out every leg of the stool.  She hit on the permanent political class who, rather than viewing Washington D.C. as a cesspool that needs drained, see Washington as a hot tub to lounge in. She called for not a red or a blue America, but a red, white, and blue America--unity against a president who is not trying to win the future, but lose our country. She also called for the presidential candidates to stick to the issues and to the need to replace President Obama in the issues. Perhaps drawing (in a bit of a softer way) from her recent Facebook post about the cannibalistic methods of GOP Establishment, Governor Palin called on the candidates to avoid the personal attacks and misrepresentations and lies of each other's records. There's no need for the Republican Party to become the political Donner party to only make the Democratic machine's job easier in the general election.

Any words I could type about this speech would not do Governor Palin justice. The best thing to do is watch it for yourself. There are some who, even after this speech, which required 4 overflow rooms to be open at the event with who knows how many watching at home, downplay Governor Palin's influence. There are some who say that if she was a real fighter she would have thrown her hat into the ring for 2012. However, Governor Palin's flame has not be snuffed out, as Adrienne Ross noted yesterday. She is still a fighter. None of the current presidential candidates went to Madison, Wisconsin in the midst of one of the fiercest reform battles in modern American history. None of the others stood with the Tea Party when we were essentially deemed accomplices to murder following the horrible Tucson shooting in January of 2011, yet Governor Palin did--even while she was the main target. Today, she stood with us fighting a two front ideological and strategic battle with both the GOP Establishment and the Left. Governor Palin has always stood with us, not in front of or behind us. She has spoken with us, not at us or to us. She has done so, not to score political points and not to gain political power. She has done so because it is who she is. She happily clings to principle; she doesn't bitterly cling to power. What you cling to is what guides you.

 Personally, I've always thought of Governor Palin has the political lovechild of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Ronald Reagan's "bold colors, no pastels" speech came when he was not an office holder, nor had he launched his 1976 presidential campaign. Margaret Thatcher's position as head of the British Conservative party came when her party was in the minority. She wasn't running for prime minister at this time. In the timeline of conservative political history, so many have tried to correlate this year's upcoming election with that of 1980. While there is indeed a Jimmy Carter like figure in this election; there is not a Reagan like figure. While there are no perfect political parallels, perhaps this election year begs the question if  it is really the second 1980? Perhaps instead it is the second 1975-1976--when the conservatives in America and in Britain called their parties to be bold in their principles and in their foundation. After all, what good is a "big tent" if the tent pegs are driven into a mushy ground?  Conservatism is often described as a three legged stool, and indeed it is, but it's that stool won't hold together unless it is bound by the seat of character and the glue of the optimism and good humor. This is the principled bond of Thatcher, Reagan, and Palin. Because these principled leaders reasonated with so many people, they were often tried to be silenced by their critics. However, they all possessed that "glue" of optimism and good humor in the face of hecklers, as Rubegonia has captured in this clip of Palin's speech today and one of both Reagan's and Thatcher's speeches:

 

 Thank you, Governor, for being principled and passionate, and happy birthday!

Crossposted here and here.

Ronald Reagan on Occupy Wall Street

Forty-seven years ago today, Ronald Reagan delivered his famous, timeless " A Time for Choosing" speech in support of Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign (H/T Gary). I listened to the speech again today, and its words were just a relevant today as they were then:

There may not be a Cold War threat that we are facing, but the burgeoning influence of socialism is still present. Liberal policies have lead to excess spending, increases in government programs, and shrinking freedom. Liberal politicians and liberal Americans in general have chosen class warfare as their modus operandi. The president who was touted as a supposed uniter is really a divider--dividing between red and blue states, dividing between conservatives and liberals, and dividing between the wealthy and the rest of America. The Occupy Wall Street crowd has declared class warfare between what they claim as a nebulous 99% against the richest 1%. What about the 53% who pay taxes compared to the 47% who do not? How is fairness defined? Is it based up merit and diligence, or is it "from each according to his ability to each according to his need"?

There were a few excerpts from Reagan's speech that are particularly applicable to this Occupy Wall Street crowd. Reagan spoke of a conversation with a Cuban refugee who had escaped to American from the chains of Communism:

Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

I'm reminded of a clip from a discussion between a man who once lived under the tyranny of the Soviet Union and a few of the Occupy Wall Street protesters (language warning):

The man also discusses the horrible conditions of Communist North Korea, which the Occupiers seem completely unaware of. In fact, conditions in North Korea have gotten so bad, mothers have resorted to eating their children.

Reagan went on to so say in his speech:

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

The phrase, "power to the people" was first used in the protest of the 1960s, which many on the Left feel is echoed by this Occupy movement. What do conservatives think? It is as simple as a change in preposition--power from the people. Government cannot given power to the people, but it does wrongly take it away.Whether it's encroaching on personal liberties, instituting burdensome regulations or taxes, or even one branch of government unconstitutionally taking power away from another branch of government.  Reagan echoed the sentiments of the Founders--the power is derived from "We the People". The Constitution was written from the perspective of "We the Nation" or "We the States". It was written from the perspective of we the individual people. Government can only exist at the consent of the governed, yet government has taken the power from the people. People like the Occupiers want, in fact they demand, the government to plan their lives for them from $20/hour minimum wage and guaranteed jobs to  student loan forgiveness. Where is the American rugged individualism?  Where is the self-sufficiency? Where is the pride in one's work or the power and opportunity to make their own decisions. Heck, President Obama has already promised to help with student loans to the tune of a whopping $8 per month in loan reductions. What will that buy? Two extra coffees a month? A fourth of a t-shirt on clearance at Anthropologie?

Reagan also spoke of the class warfare mentality and rhetoric that existed nearly fifty years ago and is pervasive as ever today:

We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning.

The proverbial fat man is the "1 %" to the Occupiers. Do people become wealthy because they took advantage of the poor man? Did the late Steve Jobs, whose iphones are a favorite of the tweeting, occupying Hipsters and who didn't even complete college, become wealthy because he exploited someone with less money? No. He did so because of ingenuity and hard work. Did "musician" Kanye West, who visited the protest in support of it, become a successful, wealthy artist do so by exploiting those with less money? No. He did so because producers saw his talent and people bought his music. The same is true for the very bankers and businesses they are protesting. The Occupiers buy Apple and other electronics products form companies traded on the very Wall Street they are protesting. The CEOs and shareholders of these products are benefiting because of the Occupiers, but not at the expense of them. The Occupiers can tweet, capture video and pictures, and making phone calls using these products. It's a win-win. The 99% and the 1% both benefit. Ronald Reagan knew of poverty himself. He grew up in the "99%". He was talented, hard working, and optimistic. He didn't allow himself to be a victim of his circumstances. He took advantage of his opportunities. He didn't cry outrage over student loans; he worked his way through Eureka College in part by lifeguarding nearby. He realized American exceptionalism in his own life. He saw that America was the world's best hope because of that exceptionalism and because of the free market principles of the Founders. He didn't feel that, in order to progress, that American needed to regress to socialistic policies that were failing the countries of the USSR and Cuba during his administration. As Reagan said in his speech, we have the "right to make our own decisions and determine our on destiny". We are not victims of a 1%. We are part of the 100% who are blessed enough to live in a country where we have a choice.

Reagan's 1981 Christmas Address

I ran across this Christmas address from Reagan's first Christmas as President in 1981. Reagan blends a spiritual and patriotic message into his optimistic address. It is my hope that at Christmas 2013, Lord willing, America will receive a similar presidential message from a President Palin. I would like to wish all who happen to stop by this little blog a wonderful Christmas. God bless.

Ed Rollins Engages in "Green" Journalism against Governor Palin

We are all well aware of the numerous examples of yellow journalism that has been printed about Governor Palin over the past 2+ years, but following the midterm elections just a month ago, it seems that more and more liberal pseudoconservative political analysts have added another hue to their palate and engaged in "green" journalism. The "green" environmentalist adage of "reduce, reuse, recycle" has now become applicable to the numerous anti-Palin screeds that have come out over the past month. First, any arguments made against Governor Palin have been reduced to ad hominem attacks and non-substantive arguments about her political strategy and potential run for president, then these reduced attacks and arguments are reused by other psuedoconservatives and recycled by other news outlets. It has become nothing but a vicious cycle.

In a recent interview, Governor Palin answered a question posed by Chris Wallace regarding negative comments made by Karl Rove in reference to Governor Palin's travelogue show on TLC. In her response, Governor Palin made reference to the fact that President Reagan once had an acting career. This has become fodder for pseudoconservative analysts to run to their laptops and tap out the ridiculous argument that Governor Palin was disrespecting Reagan and his accomplished political career. These arguments was first screeched by Peggy Noonan, then parroted earlier this week by Joe Scarborough. Not to be outdone, CNN political analyst and former Huckabee campaign manager, Ed Rollins jumps on board the "green" journalism bandwagon and attacks Palin on her comments about Reagan and her potential 2012 presidential run.

Rollins attempts to begin his piece by using a nonsensical analogy of a marriage between the GOP and the Obama administration with the American people acting as parents hopeful that this marriage will work out. Then he make an abrupt 180 and uses this illogical example as a springboard to launch into a patronizing, misconceived advice column directed at Governor Palin. About Palin and Reagan, Rollins writes:

And quit comparing yourself to Ronald Reagan. To paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen's comments to Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate: I knew Ronald Reagan, and you're no Ronald Reagan.

[..]

And the Reagan comparisons aren't helping. You might as well compare yourself to Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt.

Before President Reagan was your age, he was an international movie and television star, the actor's union president and a spokesman for a major U.S. corporation.

I know you were only 2 when Ronald Reagan was elected by a landslide to the first of two terms as governor of California in 1966, but I would have hoped somewhere along the way through the five colleges you attended that you would have learned a little history. And I can tell you being governor of the most populous state is a lot tougher than being governor of one of the least populous ones.

The year you were born, Ronald Reagan picked up the torch of Barry Goldwater after the debacle of 1964 and carried it proudly forward. He rebuilt the Republican Party after Watergate, the resignation of Richard Nixon and the defeat of Gerald Ford in 1976.

He won two electoral landslides and made the presidency work again after several failed presidencies. He also never quit anything or any job before he was done. And he was a great communicator because he not only made great speeches, he wrote many of them because it was what he believed. People listened to them and were moved by them.

Does Governor Palin greatly respect and admire President Reagan? Yes.Does she often quote him and invoke the principles that he so strongly stood for? Yes. Does she compare herself to him or personally see herself as Reagan's political heiress? No! She simply brought up the fact that President Reagan was an actor that later went on to an accomplished political career.

One would have hoped that in his educational career, Rollins would have learned a little bit of geography and basic facts about America. In attempting to slap Governor Palin for what he misconceives as a lack of knowledge about Reagan's political career, Rollins seems to forget that the candidate he worked for in 2008 was once Governor of Arkansas-- not a populous state by any stretch of the imagination. It's also quite interesting that a former governor (Howard Dean) of the country's least populous state (Vermont) never seemed to be questioned about his potential presidential abilities as a governor of a small state, but I digress.

Beyond what appears to be an obsession with how young Governor Palin is and how old she was at different points in Reagan's political career, Rollins then drags out the "quitter" meme which he improperly addressed earlier in his piece when he implied that Governor Palin resigned to make money writing books and giving speeches rather than because it was best for the state of Alaska and also subsequently allowed her to be a strong voice for conservative ideals and candidates as Nicole brilliantly addressed earlier this week.

Rollins also tries to suggest, like so many others, that Governor Palin just can't hang with the boys:

You can be a contender for the Republican nomination in 2012, but you're a long way from being the nominee. You're going to have to beat some very formidable candidates with way more experience and far superior knowledge on issues foreign and domestic. And to rate your chances today, I would put them at "possible" but not "probable." It's an all-uphill battle.

Who are these "formidable candidates"? The man whose health care plan is bankrupting his state and served as a blue print for Obamacare? The man who raised taxes on his state and pardoned a cop killer? The man who has a misguided, flip flopping view of climate change? The man who would be supportive of a value added tax? The man who resigned due to small losses in the House and who has loads of personal baggage? Additionally, Rollins seems to imply that Governor Palin feels entitled to the GOP nomination. Completely false. She has not yet declared she is running and has always welcome competitive primaries. She's never presumed anything. S

Rollins then discusses how Reagan wrote many of the speeches that he delivered. This is something that Governor Palin has done also, including, as the recent New York Times magazine piece reports, writing her entire recent speech on quantitative easing. This leads into the next piece of advice that Rollins trumpets from his condescending high horse:

Ms. Palin, serious stuff needs to be accomplished in Washington.

If you want to be a player, go to school and learn the issues. Put smart people around you and listen to them. If you want to be taken seriously, be serious. You've already got your own forum. If you want to be a serious presidential candidate, get to work. If you want to be an imitator of Ronald Reagan, go learn something about him and respect his legacy.

Rollins says that Governor Palin needs to learn the issues, huh? Perhaps addressing the potentially pending Obama tax increases, wikileaks, quantitative easing, foreign policy (including defense spending, the war on terror, Afghanistan, relationships with our adversaries and allies), and Obamacare, just to name a few, fits the bill, Mr. Rollins? He advises for Governor Palin to put smart people around her. Governor Palin has done this if you take a look at the people who advise Governor Palin and are part of her staff, as the NYT magazine piece highlighted. Additionally, Governor Palin has shared that if elected President, she would surround herself with intelligent people, as she did as Governor. She shared in a recent interview with Jedediah Bila (emphasis mine):

To be a successful governor, you have to put obsessive partisanship aside, and you have to be a really good administrator, and you have to have a good team around you, and you have to make prudent decisions based on what is best for the people whom you are serving.

[...]

Someone who’s willing to take some risks in terms of bringing in people who aren’t the known bureaucrats, but people with private sector experience who know how to run a business, make payroll, balance a budget, and live within your means.

These "smart people" that Rollins suggests are likely not the same people whom a candidate Palin or President Palin would surround herself with. This is one of the things that separates Governor Palin from the political establishment. Governor Palin seems to be one of the few who realize what Reagan believed-- that not all the answers come from Washington D.C.. She knows Reagan's legacy. She knows his life story. Anecdotally, I can tell you that she knows even the number of lives that Ronald Reagan saved as a lifeguard working on the Rock River as a young man--an aspect of Reagan's life she spoke about at a speech in Washington, Illinois that I was fortunate enough to attendthis past April.

GOP political analysts, operatives, and consultants have been unleashing tripe about Governor Palin for more than two years, but following the midterm elections, the floodgates of unhinged political discourse have been gushing in reference to a potential Palin presidency. Never mind that there is a new class of Congressmen and Congresswomen who will be sworn in next month. Never mind that the House and Senate are trying to ram through a whole slate of lame duck agenda items in the coming weeks. Never mind the national security threats that have emerged in recent weeks. In the eyes of the political chatting class, those political, domestic, and foreign policy issues are of little consequence. In the eyes of these folks, the greatest threat to America is a President Palin.

Presidential candidacies are chosen by the candidates and their families,and party nominees and presidents are chosen by the voters, much to the dismay of the political analysts. An out-of-context and misinterpreted quote from Governor Palin has served as the basis for at least three Anti-Palin opinion pieces in the past month. That's the only "argument" they can attempt to build upon to paint Governor Palin's supposed disrespect of Reagan.They are grasping at bendy straws. They blatantly choose to ignore her reasons for resigning from the governorship, and their eyes are closed to the numerous times Governor Palin has addressed policy in speeches, TV appearances, op-eds, and Facebook posts. They can't address her on policy because she's right, so they ignore on substance and grab hold of recycled memes. As we have addressed here and here, they have no political arguments left.

To Rollins, Scarborough, Parker, Noonan, Gerson and the whole lot of pseudoconservative windbags, I think that most of us can say, " those voices don't speak for the rest of us".


Crossposted here and here.

Ms.Noonan, Show Some Patriotic Grace!

Peggy Noonan has returned to her Palin-denigrating ways again. In a piece entitled, "Americans Vote for Maturity", Noonan writes about the aftermath of the 2010 elections, what it means for both Democrats and Republicans, and what campaign strategies proved to be effective or ineffective in the recent elections. She also took aim at President Obama's detachment and offers advice for both Democrats and Republicans. However, she saved her most pointed criticism and "advice"for Governor Palin.

Perhaps Noonan had a premonition about MSNBC's impending suspension of Keith Olbermann, so she want to position herself as a potential guest host, as the first thing Noonan does is criticize Governor Palin for telling the truth (emphasis mine):

Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide. All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, "an actor." She was defending her form of political celebrity—reality show, "Dancing With the Stars," etc. This is how she did it: "Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtime for Bonzo,' Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor."

As a biographer of President Reagan, one would think that Noonan knows that Ronald Reagan was indeed an actor. Did he later become more politically active? Did he later become Governor and President? Yes, but he was an actor. Governor Palin was not diminishing President Reagan's accomplished political career. She was pointing to his well rounded life experiences that enabled him to connect with the American people even before he held political office.

Noonan then outlines Reagan's career, while taking a slap at Governor Palin:

Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I'll voice their consternation to make a larger point. Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.

Allow me, if I may, to educate Ms. Noonan. Governor Palin is a wife, mother of five, and grandmother, who has a great impact on the American political landscape by currently unofficially leading a movement without a title. Sarah Palin was a journalist/fisherwoman who first got involved in the public arena as a concerned mom through the local PTA. She later was elected to the Wasilla City Council where she served for two terms. She then served as mayor of Wasilla for two terms and acted as the head of the Alaska council of mayors. Sarah Palin served as a commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission where she rooted out corruption in her own party. She later was elected to the Alaska governorship where she served through three legislative sessions. In these three years, she reduced spending by nearly 10% over her predecessor, reduced earmark requests by 80%, invested $5 billion dollars in savings, passed major ethics reform, and negotiated the largest private sector infrastructure project in North American history with the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.

Since stepping aside from office, she has challenged conservatives and has honed her speaking ability through speaking engagements ranging from businesspeople in Hong Kong to conservative leaders in Florida to to pro-life advocates in the Midwest. She has supported this conservative movement that has swept the country helping to bring about a flip of the House, gains in the Senate, and complete upheavals in state government throughout the country. In essence,Governor Palin has done what President Reagan did when Noonan writes that Reagan "popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure." Governor Palin has helped inspire a new brand of conservatism--Constitutional conservatism--a message has often run in the face of both the GOP Establishment and the Democrats.

Noonan wraps this most recent recurrence of Palin Derrangement Syndrome with this nonsensical, unsupported argument:

The point is not "He was a great man and you are a nincompoop," though that is true. The point is that Reagan's career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn't in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn't in search of fame; he'd already lived a life, he was already well known, he'd accomplished things in the world.

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can't just bully them, you can't just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.

Noonan loses her claim of "maturity" when she labels Governor Palin a "nincompoop". Beyond that however, she seems to ignore Governor Palin's focus, abilities, political accomplishments, and natural talents for connecting with everyday Americans. Noonan asserts that you have to be able to "bring people in and along". This is what Reagan did when he went on the speaker's circuit; this is where Reagan truly became Reagan--the Great Communicator. Reagan had a unique way of connecting with the American people, an ability that Governor Palin shares, and Noonan once saw that trait in Governor Palin following her 2008 Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden:



There will never be another Ronald Reagan. Governor Palin, while she often speaks in glowing terms of President Reagan and espouses his political philosophy, does not claim to be the second coming of Reagan. However, there are those traits that extend beyond political ideology--courage and character--traits that both conservative leaders have. They are able to connect with people with their optimism and ability to articulate American exceptionalism.

In 2008, Peggy Noonan wrote a book entitled, Patriotic Grace. I would encourage Ms.Noonan to show some.

Crossposted here.