Sarah Like "Sully," Obama "Nellie"

Scroll down to read what we absolutely must do to start winning again in 2010 -- and to win big in the presidential year of 2012.

The motto of the woman pictured above is "Serve the people." To find out what Obama's motto could be, scroll down. Hint: It's less about serving than about scaring.

Most Americans remember a part of Franklin Roosevelt's Depression-era remarks about fear. Yes, he did say in his 1st Inaugural, "The only thing we have to fear is . . . fear itself," but that's not the whole statement. It went this way, "The only thing we have to fear is . . . fear itself . . . nameless, unreasoning fear." The final three words, starting with "nameless," are extremely important.

Granted, there are situations in which fear is appropriate -- for example, if you wake up and see a hungry grizzly bear climbing through your bedroom window. In a case like that, there's nothing unreasonable about fear. (After the initial surge of terror, of course, the most important thing you can do is to calm down and decide -- reason -- quickly about how you're going to get out of the situation. In other words, act like Captain "Sully," not like Nervous Nellie.

Barack Obama has told us that, without his (potentially catastrophic) Stimulus Bill, we will face a financial "catastrophe." How he knows that -- the reasoning part -- remains unclear.

So, why did he appeal to one of our primal instincts? Because he knows -- or at least his speech guru Aexlrod knows -- that fear sells. Scare people half to death and many of them will do your bidding. The last thing Obama wants his audiences to do is have reasoned responses to his rhetoric.

When he tells us, for example, that "95% of the American people are going to get a tax cut," he is lying to us. He knows that nearly 50% of American wage earners (and their immediate dependents) don't pay federal income taxes.

When they get their $500 or $1000 "tax cut" from the Treasury -- and yes, Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle who didn't pay their taxes, will get one -- it will not be a tax refund. Instead, it will be a welfare check. In other words, Obama will be putting half the population on what our grandparents used to call the "dole," welfare. As Obama told Joe the Plumber, it's not about stimulus, but rather about "redistribution of wealth."

Why do such a damaging thing? Because Axelrod/Obama know that dependent people are reliable providers of votes in future elections. When the government basically "owns" someone, he or she expresses gratitude by voting for bigger and bigger government. Sadly, though, he or she is no longer a free, independent citizen.

Thus, we have FDR, along with all other great American leaders, arguing against reliance on "nameless, unreasoning fear." In contrast, we have Obama and his minions relying completely on fear because reason isn't on their side. As every tyrant knows, fear is his most powerful ally. Gov. Sarah Palin's motto is "Serve the people." In contrast, Obama's seems to be: "Scare the people."

In today's difficult times, we will still sing "God bless America." Yet the more appropriate phrase might be "God help America." In fact, God generally blesses our land most abundantly when the vast majority of Americans do everything in their power to help themselves, their families, and their communities.

WHAT WE MUST DO TO START WINNING AGAIN . . .

We've all heard the saying that "close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." In fact, close also counts in politics, where we need allies who are "close enough" in their views to vote with us against Obama-Biden types. We have been skunked badly in two straight elections, and rationalizations about those devastating losses aren't helpful. Clearly, we need to do a much better jub of explaining why our principles and policies are better for the American people -- at least for a MAJORITY of the American people.

Part of the process involves our talking, but a bigger part involves listening to why so many good people did not side with us. We need inspirational leaders, like Gov. Palin (and her Lt. Gov. Todd Parnell), Marsha Blackburn, Diana Irey, Linda Chavez, Tom Coburn, and, yes, like Michael Steele. Winning AL, MS, UT, ID, KY, and WY are not going to be enough. States like OH, FL, NC, VA, and even PA are winnable if we do a much better job of organizing and fundraising. The Left outraised us in donations by two-to-one and three-to-one. We have to do more than just express our opinions on the Net and the Rush Limbaugh Show, important as both those activities are. All of those who are serious about winning are going to have to put their money where their mouths are.

Specifically, we need many more young voters and more Hispanics, and it's up to US to figure out the best ways to get much more support from those groups. There are 26 million veterans in the U.S., and we need a plan/mechanism for contacting every one of them. Ultimately, all groups that stand for classic American values are going to have to work together, share information, and leverage one another's strengths.

Sarah's Critics: Moral Reprobates, Haters

Sarah Palin's critics hate pictures like this one, apparently because it reminds them of the relative emptiness of their own lives.

The recent criticisms of Sarah Palin by celebrity Ashley Judd and District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald were as predictable as they were malicious. In fact, most of those that take such pot-shots at Gov. Palin are thoroughly contemptible. They're almost invariably offended by the fact she's a Christian, a faith that's incomprehensible to Judd and Buchwald, a faithful spouse, and an dedicated mother who involves her chilren in her life.

Buchwald and Judd are both Democrats, of course. Thus, they recognize Sarah as a threat to their political scams.

Judd reflects a Hollywood culture that celebrates immorality, materialism, and substance abuse. It's a world where money counts -- and ordinary people don't. As far as children go, they're beings who, shortly after birth, are handed off to a collection of nannies -- and told to return when they're 18. It's the world of David Letterman, where sluttish creatures like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Ashley Judd are welcomed nightly as "honored guests."

Judge Buchwald lives in a world characterized by endless lawsuits, high-priced lawyers, and moral depravity. Her husband "represented" -- served as a lawyer for -- Ashley Dupre, the prostitute in the Elliott Spitzer case. What Judge Reice thinks of Miss Dupre and of former Governor and fellow Democrat Spitzer is not clear, but one can imagine.

As for Ms. Judd, what she knows about "wildlife management," an issue for which she's a fundraising shill, could be written on the head of a pin. To someone like her, vicious wolves are cuddly little creatures that she once saw in a Disney movie. The fact that the wolves slaughter caribous and moose -- especially the young and infirm -- never crossed her pea-sized brain.

What are we to make of Sarah's perfervid critics? Most of them are hostile to normal Americans, including Gov. Palin and her family. If they became pregnant with a Down Syndrome child, they would abort it immediately. They place no value on such a child. They certainly wouldn't say that "Got had blessed" them, as Todd and Sarah did when Trig was born.

Sarah Palin is a woman well on her way to making history in America and the world. As for the Judds and Buchwalds of the world, the world will little note -- nor long remember -- them. Sarah should swat them like mosquitos carrying the West Nile virus.

Krauthammer Blasts Obama's Fear-Mongering

Clearly, Sarah Palin is the woman who can bring the real change that Obama promised -- and isn't delivering . . .

Below you'll find Dr. Charles Krauthammer's brilliant -- and devastating -- criticism of the abominable Obama Stimulus legislation, which represents the same orgy of over-spending and borrowing that put the nation in the current economic mess. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a classic definition of insanity. Here's the link to the piece, which appeared in the Washington Post and is featured below.

http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/news.jsp?key=347827&rc=op&npc=op

By Charles Krauthammer
Updated: Friday, February 06, 2009

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."-- President Obama, Feb. 4.Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high positions. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings.

California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie.

The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Sarah Palin: "One of Us"

In my previous columns, I talked about the use of images, symbols, and themes in a presidential campaign. Pictures like the ones below tell us a great deal about candidates, more perhaps than we can express in words alone. Sarah Palin is the quintessence of everything we've historically regarded as American.

But what are we to think of Barack Obama, the man who spent 20 years in a church where the lunatic pastor spewed hostility toward white people and the U.S. government? Images and symbols are going to play a major role in the campaigns of 2010 and 2012. A particularly insightful blogger, Marnie Delano of N.Y. state (http://pumatruthisgold.blogspot.com/) , described today's Obama as "frail, frazzled, and feckless." Nobody ever used such terms to characterize Sarah Palin.

"Sarah Palin . . . She's One of Us." Obama? The "change" he's brought us seems to consist mainly of a bunch of Democrat influence peddlers who don't pay their taxes . . . and who have contempt for normal Americans.

If you haven't already, please join TeamSarah.org . . . and contribute today to SarahPac.com. If you're a blogger, please join ReadMyLipstickNetwork.com. Thanks.

Defeating Obama: Attack Relentlessly, Ferociously

The McCain Campaign could have used a graphic like the one below as a potent image to diminish the standing of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, McCain did no such thing. In fact, they let the Obama Campaign use Gov. Palin as a political pinata. That can't be allowed to happen again.

In the 2008 election, John McCain refused to "go negative" on his Senate colleague, Barack H. Obama. That was one decision, among many, that ensured McCain could not win the election. In fact, what happened was that the Obama Campaign relentlessly attacked . . . Sarah H. Palin, one of the most remarkable women ever to hold elective office in America.

The McCain staffers never figured out how to respond effectively to the smear campaign aginst Gov. Palin. They should have counter-attacked with ferocity. They didn't, and the fault for that lies mainly with John McCain.

Where did campaign manager David Axelrod and candidate Barack H. Obama learn how to conduct an all-out war against Sarah Palin? They probably learned the approach from what might seem an unlikely source, Republican strategies Lee Atwater. He was an expert in the use of images and symbols, something at which the Obama effort also excelled.

Consider how Atwater used the American flag as a powerful symbol in George H. W. Bush's 1988 campaign against Michael Dukakis. The following paragraphs are from John Brady's super biographty entitled Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater, a book I urge everyone to read.

Atwater associated Dukakis with Harvard University and highligted the Massachusetts governor's membership in the ACLU. He emphasized Dukakis' veto in 1977 of a bill passed by the Massachusetts legislature requiring teachers to lead students in the Pledge of Allegiance.

In the campaign, the American flag became a powerful symbol distinguishing Bush from Dukakis. The implication was that the former was for it -- while the latter's position was less certain.

As Brady says, "Bush stuck to Atwater's script, making the Pledge of Allegiance the centerpiece of his campaign. He recited the Pledge constantly, attended the 'First Annual Flag Festival' in Findlay, Ohio, [and] toured a flag factory in New Jersey. "

By October of 1988, Dukakis' once big lead in the public opinion polls had evaporated. Bush surged ahead and won big in November (54% to 46%).

What about Dukakis own efforts at symbolism? The governor had to demonstrate that he wasn't merely a liberal wimp.

"He visited a General Dynamics facility in Michigan and went for a spin in an M-1 tank. The helmet was too large. The grin on his face was sickly. 'Dukakis looked like he wanted to call for his mother,' said Sam Donaldson as the cameras whirred."

In fact, Atwater got a copy of the video of Dukakis riding around aimlessly in the tank. The Republican strategist used it as a commercial to demonstrate exactly how ridiculous the Massachusetts governor was. As part of his campaign of ridicule, Atlwater always mispronounced the governor's name, calling him Du-kay-kis.

As the 2008 campaign unfolded, I wished many times that I -- yes, me -- had been able to play the role of Lee Atwater for Gov. Palin. The McCain Campaign let a national role model, Sarah Palin, be tarred and feathered by Obama and his minions in the media and blogosphere. Lee Atwater never would have allowed it to happen -- and neither would I.

Sarah Palin: Images, Symbols, Attitudes

SIGN JOHN MCCAIN'S PETITION AGAINST THE CURRENT, BLOATED STIMULUS BILL. (Look below the Sarah Palin pictures.)

In the previous column, I talked about super-strategist Lee Atwater -- who engineered wins by Ronald Reagan in 1984 and George H.W. Bush in 1988. Atwater believed that issues and opinions were secondary with voters. What counted most were attitudes, ones based on emotional responses to candidates. He said that images (such as pictures and videos) and symbols were crucial in forming attitudes. Tomorrow, I'll be discussing images and symbols and how they can help Gov. Sarah Palin win the presidency in 2012. Consider the pictures below of Gov. Palin and what they say about her. She's NOT a frail woman. And she's a wife and mother, first, last, and always. She's a person of great character and strong values. Most of all, "she's one of us," which should be her campaign slogan. If you want to know what separates winners from losers in politics, I urge you to read a brilliant biography by John Brady: Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater.

Sign petition opposing stimulus bill - It's quick and easy

http://www.countryfirstpac.com/petition/economic.aspx

John McCain Sponsors Petition Protesting Bloated Stimulus Plan

http://purplepeoplevote.com/2009/02/03/john-mccain-sponsors-petition-protesting-bloated-stimulus-plan/

Senator McCain sent an email to supporters explaining his opposition to the current emergency economic stimulus package stating that…

Yesterday, the Senate began debate on an economic stimulus package that is intended to get our economy back on track and help Americans who are suffering through these difficult times. Unfortunately, the proposal on the table is big on the giveaways for the special interests and corporate high rollers, yet short on help for ordinary working Americans. I cannot and do not support the package on the table from the Democrats and the Obama Administration.

Our country does not need just another spending bill, particularly not one that will load future generations with the burden of massive debt. We need a short term stimulus bill that will directly help people, create jobs, and provide a jolt to our economy.

He further explains the myriad of problems with this bloated stimulus package and asks for people to sign a petition to voice their disapproval of this bill.

Sign Vote No On The Stimulus Package Petitionhttp://www.countryfirstpac.com/petition/economic.aspx

Obama, Palin, Atwater: Subconscious Politics

Picture of two former vice-presidential candidates and a one-term president: Palin, Liberman, and Obama. Choose the one who's a FUTURE President of the U.S.

"I want hip-hop Republicans. I want Frank Sinatra Republicans." (Michael Steele, new head of the Republican National Committee). Sarah Palin, with one foot in the hip-hop world and another in the Sinatra-era would nod in vigorous approval at Steele's statement.

Do the vast majority of Americans really understand what's going on in politics? No, they do not. That's the view held by Lee Atwater, the greatest political strategist of modern times -- yes, he was better than Karl Rove, better even that Obama's campaign guru, David Axelrod. He helped engineer Reagan's landslide reelection in 1984 and was George H. W. Bush's campaign manager in the winning effort against Dukakis in 1988.

This week on both of my blogs (http://draftpalin2012.blogspot.com/ and http:stevemaloneygop.blogspot.com) I'll be writing about Atwater's insights -- and suggesting how they're similar to Gov. Sarah Palin's approach to politics. The emphasis will be on the psychology of winning.

Regarding Atwater, he's the subject of perhaps the most intriguing political biography of recent decades. It's John Brady, Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater, Addison-Wesley, 1997 It's beautifully written and profound in substance. Brady, a journalist and a consultant to magazine publishers, is a former editor of Boston and Writer's Digest. He wrote The Craft of Interviewing, a classic how-to book for journalists, and The Craft of the Screenwriter.

The material below has several quotes from Brady's Atwater book. As you read the excerpts, consider the two most remarkable politics events of this decade: (1) Barack Obama's election as America's first African-American President; (2) Sarah Palin's victories in 2006 over incumbent Republican Governor (and former U.S. Senator) Frank Murkowski and then over popular former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles.

How did Obama and Palin accomplish these feats? You'll never find out from the MSM, which presents a simple-minded view of what happens in big-time electoral politics.

In fact, Palin and Obama, both master politicians, plugged into a powerful attitudinal current: a yearning for CHANGE. They both offered HOPE to people who had become so exasperated by politics-as-usual that they verged on the edge of hopelessness.

Lee Atwater died at a young age in 1991. However, as you'll see below, he would have understood why people like Barack Obama and Sarah Palin won. It had little to do with "issues" -- and even less to do with stated "opinions." It had everything to do with deeply held --and mainly emotional -- attitudes.

Brady describes Atwater's key insights this way: "[In life generally and politics specifically], It's not what happens to us that matters - it's how we interpret what happens to us. The interpretation establishes an attitude, which can then be catered to emotionally - [a form of] mental crowd control. When we want your opinion, we'll give it to you." (In other words, attitudes drive opinions -- not vice versa.)

In Atwater's words, "attitudes are deeply ingrained. You can't even necessarily verbalize them." Attitudes are so powerful that they override even what we believe are our opinions. They are deep within us -- visceral and largely subconscious.

Brady adds, "Before going negative on an opponent . . . he [Atwater] cultivated strong positive attitudes among the electorate. He used impressionistic images and symbols to depict his candidate in such a way that perception 'can't be busted up even with opinion changes on specific issues that my opponent might accomplish.'"

(By the way, Sarah Palin is even better at using images and symbols -- especially ones related to her husband and children -- than Obama. Everything Palin does reinforces her most powerful theme: "She's one of us." She's a mother, a wife, a middle-class woman whose life closely resembles ours. And, wonder of wonders, she's HONEST!)

Brady continues, ". The average voter was kind of slow, actually . . . ."The average voter could absorb only a limited amount of information about his candidate, Lee thought, and should never be bewildered with specifics

Brady goes on, "Lee realized that in order to get swing votes, [George H.W.] Bush had to tap voters' emotions instead of their brains. It was Lee's job [as a campaign guru] to find the specific example, the outrageous abuse, the easy-to-digest tale that made listeners feel - usually, repulsion - rather than think. Like the old carnival barker, he needed a hook to get them into the tent."

In future blog columns , I'll discuss more of Atwater's insights -- and how they can help a Sarah Palin get voters "into the tent."