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THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
I snapped this picture at a Sarah Palin rally in York, Pennsylvania this afternoon:
Now these little guys were not dressed up for Halloween (although many kids, including Piper Palin, were), and they were most definitely on the youngish side for this crowd, which was probably about half folks I would peg at being over 50. But Palin-love wasn't just a geriatric thing; there were a lot of young families on hand too, and, like the little boys in the picture, they were being primed to believe that Barack Obama wants to steal their money.
There's been a lot of talk about Palin's future in the Republican Party. She was a lot more impressive in person than I expected; she threw some policy substance into her speech (some of it, on Obama's tax policy, inaccurate), and she spliced the requisite amount of fear-mongering about, as she put it, "the far left-wing of the Democrat Party getting ready to take over the entire government," and the creeping "socialism" that might entail.
Before she even arrived (with the Straight Talk Express pulling right into the small arena just feet away from the crowd, in a moment of high drama), people I talked to had bought right into the scary socialism theme. Everyone I spoke to either thought Obama was a socialist (or, as one woman put it, "a Marxist, and how far away is Marxism from Communism?") or "tended toward socialism."
Palin invoked Reagan's name once or twice -- and usually that gets a big rise from an audience like this. But the positive reaction for Palin herself, and the booing for Obama, eclipsed that.
Most people here are, despite the polls, confident of a McCain win on Tuesday. But one young woman told me that although York County is typically solid Republican, she's worried because she knows a lot of Republicans voting for Obama. But if they lose on Tuesday, I would not count Palin out for 2012. I was just a few feet from her in the rope line, and she has a certain magnetism that conservatives adore.
--Sarah Posner
COMMENTS (15)
Soo...you saw Sarahcuda in person and realized she's A LOT more impressive than she's been characterized by the drive-by's.
I hate to say I told you so....
Posted by: Cahnman | October 31, 2008 8:34 PM
I see the pig, but where's the lipstick?
Posted by: Aaron | October 31, 2008 8:54 PM
Doesn't Posner generally cover faith-based... oh, right.
Posted by: V.O.R. | October 31, 2008 10:10 PM
These cute little children have no future at all in Obamerica because they are white. As we see in the case of “Aunti Zeituni’s” illegal welfare cheating, what the left really desires is the complete transformation of demographics in the US—replacing the current (white) American majority with illegal immigrants of color so that the current (white) American majority becomes a permanently powerless, despised, and persecuted minority in its own country. This is one of the key reasons the left seeks to plunder the pockets of American citizens and legal immigrants—in order to give food stamps, subsidized housing, free medical insurance, and a host of other benefits to all 25,000,000 illegal immigrants in this country with the eventual goal of making them all US citizens so that they can outvote whites and make the hard left a permanent ruling clique. Bush, McCain, and their big business controllers have always been happy to collaborate with the left on the racial engineering of a new America. Fat cats and progressives alike are trying to ram this anti-democratic, racist project down our throats.
Don’t let this happen to you or your children or your grandchildren.
Posted by: Future Martyr of Leftist Racial Engineering | November 1, 2008 2:36 PM
I'm a native born white American and I want welfare. We white people are as eligible for welfare as anyone else and I want to make sure that it's there as a safety net for me.
I work, and I've worked since I got out of school. But I want to be sure that that safety net is there for me so that if anything unforseen happens I won't have to beg at my local freeway entrance or live in my car. I've been frugal and have no non-mortgage debt, but I don't have an extended family to take care of me and, in spite of my frugality, don't have more than a year or two's cushion of savings. Sorry if this sounds like a luxury, but I don't want to be forced to take the first job I can get, regardless of how perfectly awful, without any options of advancement or retraining.
I don't begrudge anyone welfare and am happy to pay taxes to support it, because I WANT WELFARE FOR ME!!!
Posted by: LogicGuru | November 1, 2008 6:22 PM
I want to be sure that safety net is there for me so that if anything unforseen happens I won't have to beg at my local freeway entrance or live in my car.
Posted by: us | November 1, 2008 6:31 PM
The safety net for all Americans and legal residents is threatened because large numbers of people who are not qualified to receive benefits such as food stamps or subsidized housing are taking them illegally. Cf. “Aunti Zeituni” and legions of other illegal immigrants across the U.S.
Posted by: Nephew, can you spare a dime? | November 1, 2008 7:41 PM
No surprise that this post brought out the crazies. Give them an inch, they take a mile. Well done, Sarah P.! I saw Madonna on an NYC street once. She was also impressive. Seeing celebrities doesn't make them presidential. It only makes you a fawning amateur. Did you get an autograph?
Posted by: nepat | November 1, 2008 11:09 PM
I like the how far is Marxism from Communism remark. They really don't know the menaing of the words they are throwing around. Just boogeymen to them, and they've been taught to fear them.
http://straighttalkonmccain.blogspot.com/
Posted by: sean harrington | November 2, 2008 1:04 AM
I'm a huge fan of "The FundamentaList", though I haven't got Sarah's book yet. I think this current campaign is pretty much a red herring. I would try to untangle the lifestyle issues from the economic ones, and, especially, to put the abortion issue back into its proper class context, otherwise middle-class center left feminists will be perpetually tempted to sell out the left, in return for narrow abortion rights concessions that have little overall 'class' value, and in the process feed this right-wing reactionary religiosity too.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | November 2, 2008 3:43 AM
Exactly why it is important for Democrats to get out the vote and crush the Republicans on all levels Tuesday. A strong mandate makes everything possible.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | November 2, 2008 8:18 AM
Palin will be president of the United States, the question is just how soon. And she will have my vote now and later. She has common sense, which is far superior to the professorial ramblings of Obama. For whatever faults she has, she will be proven correct that the US economy needs a fair or flat tax and that market solutions are far superior to government solutions. Liberalism and its failed policies apparently need to be discredited again, but I have no doubt they will be. Liberalism simply does not work.
Posted by: Rock | November 2, 2008 8:54 PM
Mega-Ditto's Rock.
Posted by: Cahnman | November 2, 2008 9:59 PM
Liberalism simply does not work.
Don't look now, but you're soaking in it.
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