I kinda like WAR too, but I don’t know that I’d want him in any administration I was a part of; too independent, too flamboyant. Sorta like me! I’m like what they say about guns; you only need me when you REALLY need me. The rest of the time you try to keep me out of sight.

Why are you telling me the role of the VP? I didn’t ask the question.

“Too bad you rely on an edited interview for your information and conclusions . . . especially when Couric and company performed the edit.”

Too bad you’re too blindly loyal to the party. I on the other hand, am loyal to conservative ideology and not party politics. Just because someone has an “R” by their name doesn’t automatically get my support as Palin does in you’re eyes.

She’s fine for the people of Alaska, but when it comes to real politics, we need someone more qualified and I believe in order to win in 2012 that person has to be someone yet unnamed, someone capable of turning blue states red instead of red states blue as Obama did.

I do not know who that person is and I don’t think He has surfaced yet. Yes I said, he.

I do not think any Republican would have won this past election. It just wasn’t meant to be. It was a Democratic year and a testament to the Bush Administration. It also didn’t help that we had two weak and divisive candidates to the Democrats lone shining star who could do no wrong and to whom nothing stuck.

2012 I think will be lesser Republican revolt and we’ll start to get a few seats back here and there as the trust comes back but it will take time as the brand is tarnished and people are still angry over the last four years.

Its funny how willing to dismiss a person who doesn’t agree 100% with you.

She won’t make this mistake again.

Yeah, she was handled poorly by idiots who worked for the Bush Communications staff-but it was partly poor judgement on her part not to do more fightback against McCain Campaign idiocy.

She learned, and is now both harder and wiser.

She’s probably done MORE of that than you give her credit for doing, but as much as I like WAR, there was absolutely no reason this AG appointment should have gone down the way it did. She screwed up, and if she was set on WAR, she should have set it as a recess appointment to give everyone in the Republican Caucus time to get used to him. She can’t be superwoman, I get that. But she CAN create alliances. That’s basic politics.

Unlike you, I think she gets that and the whole “I back Lisa” deal is the primary indication of her long term state strategy of trying to do a Republican + Independent + “Palin Democrat” strategy statewide. The whole strategy of running against the GOP has come a cropper with the detonation of the Stevens case and the news that the D’s were using the Bush justice department as a vehicle to take over Alaska politics. Now all those Radiocative Republicans aren’t so Radioactive anymore, and the PIS’ name is mud in Anchorage and Juneau.

This, by the way, is a new reality which works to the advantage of the State GOP in a big, big way. I think Sarah gets this, which is why you’ve seen the repositioning over Stevens.

By the way, as to WAR, you actually have to like that nomination and what it says about her judicial thinking. Limited government, Second Amendemnt, Hummers. Unfortunately, bad timing.

What really bugs me is how many people believe it was Palin who said: “and I can see Russia from my house” when that was actually a joke line on SNL from Tina Fey… that one joke formed many people’s incorrect views of this candidate.

That said, she should have waited. It would have been the clever move, and it would have gotten everyone used to WAR. Your point is taken.

Now she has to go hat in hand to the House Republicans to get their advice. At least, that’s what I’d do if I were her.

She also tends to be a fighter. There’s a point at which one says that it can’t be helped. If Ken Salazar is going to try and shut Alaska down for political reasons, then that’s what’s going to happen.

Do you fight that, or do you bi**h about Palin?

Now, part of the problem is that there were some corrupt Republicans running around. That made it easy for her. The whole Ketchickan bridge thing was an imbroglio that didn’t need to happen, primarily because Gravinia Island actually needs that bridge built. More people are moving to Ketchickan and that airport is going to need a bridge built to it from the mainland. Gravinia Island became a poster child for a corrupt Republican Congress gone haywire.

Sarah wasn’t just running against the Alaska GOP in 2006, she was running against the Washington GOP. It’s part of the reason she won.

It’s also part of the reason she can’t get the Party behind her: there’s a lot of bad feeling left over from Gravinia Island and other incidents early in her career. Thus, a really, really good guy like WAR pays the price for some score-settling.

As I said earlier: you makes amends by doing the little things. Helping out Lisa is a start. Going to the House Republicans to ask them for suggestions on WAR’s successor and taking their advice is another. Let the legislative party get some skin in the game. Pick some fights with Democrats that don’t involve the Palin family and that involve public policy and oil and gas improvements.

Politics isn’t beanbag. I wouldn’t want to elect a Governor of Alaska who was a candy-a$$. She fights. That’s what matters to me. However, too many of her fights have been with the wrong people. That’s got to stop.

According to the article:

“She fills up a room,” Culvahouse told a Washington meeting of the Republican National Lawyers Assn. (See video below.) Even difficult questions, he said, she knocked “out of the park” during the vice president interview process.

While the media continues their campaign to destroy Palin by death from a thousand paper cuts and local Alaskans are immersed in the tawdry business of state politics, let us not forget her raw talent and raw appeal. The battle scarred, tried and tested veteren lawyers of the Reagan years see it, so should we.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/04/sarah-palin-mccain-vp.html

I’d prefer that we have a President or a Governor that actually knows what the switches and levers of government do and not only what a government should do but what it takes to get it to do it. Somebody with enough political savvy that if they wanted to appoint someone with a lot of controversial baggage to be their Attorney General, they might think it was smart to wait a couple of weeks and appoint the AG when the Legislature isn’t in session so he could serve until the next Session before facing confirmation. Stuff like that.

Having said that, politics IS a profession. I’m not talking about focus groups, polling, marketing. I’m talking about knowing what battles to fight, when to fight them, who to talk to, who not to talk to etc. There is no reason for her or hers to be talking to tabloids. NOTHING is gained by that. In terms of discipline, yes that is always a good thing, politican or not. I’m not sure why you mentioned Clinton in that. His lack of self discipline was his undoing.

Finally, anyone either in a postion of power or potentially in one, needs confidantes who will tell them what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear. You can’t just sirround yourself with sycophants. Show me a successful anything, and I’ll show you someone who picks good people and listens to them.

I’m usually quite civil with those with whom I merely disagree. Not so much of people who make accusations, something most Palinbots do far better than actually formulate positions which support the Governor. Interestingly and ironically, the Palinbots respond the same way the Obamaniacs do: If you critize anything BHO says or does you’re a racist and you’re just angry because he took the Presidency away from the Republicans. If you criticize Gov. Palin, you’re a misogynist and you’re just one of the disgruntled old boys that she “kicked out.”

You both are implying that she is the one who has to mend fences. But, from the contempt resolution against her staff and husband to the continual snide remarks about her “national ambitions” and this whining about her taking a day to go to Indiana for this speech, it appears that most Republican legislators seem to be petty bastards who want to take every pound of flesh from her that they can. So, I’d say that THEY have as much work to do on their side of the fence as she does on hers. Right now, I suspect that she thinks that if she reaches out her hand it will get slapped back. She seems to be making peace with the Murkowskis and her olive branch to Stevens’ supporters may be well received. But, the GOP in the legislature will have to reach out as well.

By your next post, please.