Winston Churchill, Sarah Palin, and Ms. Potato Head 2012!

There is a quote that is sometimes misattributed to Winston Churchill: "If you're not a liberal when you're 25,you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain". As it turned out for me, when I was 25, my heart told me that I needed to start thinking. I grew up in a conservative Republican household. When I asked my parents what the movie the Wizard of Oz was about, my dad said it was about how government couldn't and shouldn't give you what you already have or can gain for yourselves. When I was 5, my parents had me call into a TV station's kid election to vote for George HW Bush. Later, college hit, as did the US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. My 20th century American history professor spent 10-15 minutes each class railing against these wars, and when we finally got to studying President Reagan, he called Reagan the worst President in American history. Being naive, I partially bought into these views. I didn't pay attention too closely to politics, but I did vote. In 2004 as a college senior, I cast votes for both President Bush and Senator Obama. As a community health graduate student, my professors touted universal health care while bashing free market ideas like health savings accounts. This influenced me too, and I ended up voting for the Green Party gubernatorial candidate in 2006 because he supported Universal Health Care.

Fast forward two years to 2008, when I was 25. With Illinois' open primary system, I vacillated between voting in the Democratic or Republican primary before deciding to vote in the Republican primary--not for any particular reason. I looked at the candidates' websites the night before the election, then went in the next morning and voted for Senator McCain. This was February of 2008. I didn't pay attention again until August 29, 2008 when Senator McCain announced Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. I had no idea there was a Republican woman prominent enough to be picked to be a VP nominee. I have to admit, during the campaign, I was probably more of a Palin fan than a Palin supporter. She was a runner, former high school point guard, and flutist--just like I was. Plus, I was fascinated by her ability to wear high heels all the time and still smile as much as she did. However, I did substantively appreciate that she took on corruption,understood energy independence, and was strongly pro-life. It wasn't until the McCain-Palin ticket lost that I truly became a student of her record and a strong supporter. The more I learned about her record, the more I realized she was the opposite of every politician I'd seen growing up in Illinois. She was a fiscal conservative and a corruption fighter. She couldn't be bought. In fact, she didn't allow lobbyists in her office. She focused on openness and transparency. Above all else, she had something I'd never seen in a politician--character. She turned me into a full fledged conservative.

When she resigned from the governorship, I took me time to wrap my brain and my heart around it. After she released her now famous "death panel" Facebook post though, it all made sense. Following that time, she was the leading voice against the Obama agenda--from healthcare to spending to Israel to energy independence. She was our Continental Army Commandress in Chief a la George Washington. She wasn't ruling over us, nor was she passively supporting our efforts. She was actively fighting with us. To me, this is why she should have been president. When the War of Independence was fought and won, it was George Washington, who fought with the people, who was selected to be president. It wasn't the James Madisons, Thomas Jeffersons, or Patrick Henrys who did great things in their own rights, but they weren't fighters. Governor Palin was and is a fighter. Not only that, she had the record of reform and the courage and willingness to take on the tough issues. When she said she believed in fundamental restoration of America, I believed her, and I trusted she would usher in restoration if she was elected.

When she announced yesterday that she wasn't going to run for office, I was stunned and horribly disappointed for our country. While I may not fully understand her decision, I do respect it. I know she made it prayerfully and considered her faith and family foremost. I would have expected nothing less. She would have made a great candidate and an even better President. No one would have been more willing to hold her opponents accountable to their record in debates while keeping the focus on President Obama. No one would have been able to speak against crony capitalism and for reform with a record to back it up like she would have. No one would have been able to instill a sense of optimism and American exceptionalism in the American people like she would have. No one would have had the political courage to slash spending, address entitlement reform, and transform Washington like she would have.

Since she's not running, I've decided to vote for Ms. Potato Head in the 2012 GOP primary. I'll take the best from some of the candidates and create my own. I'll take Ron Paul's embrace of personal liberty, Rick Santorum's pro-life stance and support for Israel, Gary Johnson's budget cutting, Herman Cain's charisma and optimism, Newt Gingrich's ideas, and Michele Bachmann's femininity and create my own Ms. Potato Head candidate. Even with the best of these candidates, they don't equal 1% of the candidate and president that Governor Palin would have been. No one has her record. No one has her consistent stance on the issues. No one has her character. It's a shame. In all honesty, I'll likely plug my nose and vote for someone in the primary and the general elections, but I won't work my butt off to get someone elected like I would have for Governor Palin. I'm not resigned to disappointment or bitterness. Bitterness is swallowing poison and expecting someone else to feel the effects. The greatness of America has always laid in the "We the People". No political leader, elected or not, changes that.

There's still a bit of an open wound though, but time heals all wounds. On August 28, 2008, I barely cared about politics or the trajectory of the country, now these are among my greatest passions. Even though it doesn't seem I'll have the opportunity to vote for a "President Palin", I have Governor Palin to thank for helping me discover a passion for America. I'll be forever grateful for that.

Crossposted here and here.

Governor Palin, George Washington, and the Battle for Our Country

On April 18^th, Governor Palin gave a rousing speech in Madison Wisconsin in the midst of one of the fiercest state budget battles in recent history. In that speech, Governor Palin noted the importance of this battle and recognized the courage and tenacity of Wisconsin conservatives in supporting their legislature and governor in their efforts to restore fiscal sanity and ensure that the pressures of union bosses did not mean that teachers’ union members would lose their jobs. She noted (emphasis added):

Hello, Madison, Wisconsin! You look good. I feel like I’m at home. This is beautiful. Madison, I am proud to get to be with you today. Madison, these are the frontlines in the battle for the future of our country. This is where the line has been drawn in the sand. And I am proud to stand with you today in solidarity.

[…]

Well, I am in Madison today because this is where real courage and real integrity can be found. Courage is your governor and your legislators standing strong in the face of death threats and thug tactics. Courage is you all standing strong with them! You saw the forces aligned against fiscal reform. You saw the obstruction and the destruction. You saw these violent rent-a-mobs trash your capital and vandalize businesses.

[…]

And Madison, you defended the 2010 electoral mandate. You are heroes, you are patriots, and when the history of this Tea Party Movement is written, what you accomplished here will not be forgotten.

Your historic stand brought down the curtain on the last election. And the 2012 election begins here.

[…]

It starts here! It starts now! What better place than the state that hosts the Super Bowl champs to call out the liberal left and let them know: Mr. President, game on!

Governor Palin’s prescience shone through once again in recognizing the importance of the political battle in Wisconsin as the “frontlines in the battle for the future of our country”. Earlier this week, recall elections were held for six Wisconsin state senate seats that the unions hoped would flip to break up the Republican's legislative majority. Despite the fact that recall supporting groups spent at least $30 million for these elections, the Republicans still maintained their majority. These victories come on the heels of other victories for Wisconsin: the re-election of Justice Prosser, a WI supreme court judge (whom Governor Palin endorsed) and the budgetary victory passed by the WI legislature signed into law by Governor Walker, which Governor Palin spoke of in her speech. These recent political victories may prove to be a precursor to the 2012 elections.

Governor Palin’s speech in a fierce physical and political climate during a heated period of politics is just one example of Governor Palin’s participation in the battle for the future of our country. In the Spring of 2010 during the impassioned debate over Arizona’s immigration law, Governor Palin stood with Governor Jan Brewer in support of her effort to secure Arizona’s southern border. When the Tea Party was accused of essentially being an accomplice to murder after the horrific action of a madman in Tucson, Arizona, Governor Palin stood side-by-side with the Tea Party while others felt they “didn’t want to get in the middle of [it]”.Several days following the Tucson shooting, Governor Palin released a video where she said, in part:

President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

Most recently during the debt ceiling debates, after some felt it necessary to pejoratively refer to the Tea Party as “hobbits”, Governor Palin challenged Congressional freshman to “remember the ‘little people’” who elected them. She has stood for and fought with the Tea Party every step of the way.

In short, Governor Palin has been on the front lines of the battle for the future of our country. She has been the leader of the Tea Party, not because she deemed herself the leader, but simply because she has acted as the leader. Whether it was standing with conservatives in Wisconsin or Arizona, supporting Tea Party candidates in the 2010 elections, giving speeches at Tea Parties around the country, or defending the Tea Party against scurrilous accusations and derogatory rhetoric, Governor Palin has been the one leading the fight and battling in the trenches.

Flash back to another time when people felt they were misrepresented and overtaxed and when they felt their God given freedoms were threatened. Who was fighting with them? George Washington. Our current fight may solely be a battle of ideology, principles, and integrity where victories are counted by elections and legislation, not where victories and losses are counted by cities captured or soldiers dead. However, the comparison still rings true. George Washington fought with the Continental Army. A few years later, following the drafting and ratification of a constitution, George Washington was elected as America’s first president. While it was largely an understood formality that the electors would choose Washington, why was he chosen over some of the others? Why was not Patrick Henry, James Madison, or Thomas Jefferson chosen as the first president of the United States? When it was all said and done, it was George Washington, not these men, who fought for and with the people those electors were representing. As we face the upcoming 2012 election, we have politicians who are analogous to the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Patrick Henry, who are great writers, thinkers or orators, but there’s only one who has fought with and for the American people—Governor Sarah Palin.

Crossposted here and here.