Fresh off the pollster presses are brand new numbers reflecting what Republicans are thinking right now about which conservative leader represents the way forward for the GOP. While the numbers aren't surprising, really…..they surely say something about the current Party of Lincoln.
From Rasmussen we find that…..
the plurality of GOP voters (43%) say their party has been too moderate over the past eight years, and 55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the future, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 24% think failed presidential candidate John McCain is the best future model for the party, and 10% are undecided.
55% of Republicans surveyed think the Republican Party "should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the future." Only 1 in 4 Republicans think John McCain represents the way forward for the Republican Party.
To say this is disappointing is to state the obvious. I think Sarah Palin is a cute woman Governor with a fine family. I harbor no animosity towards her, …..and her campaigning last fall, though a demonstration of her unpreparedness to be on a national or international stage, rejuvenated conservatives' interest in the election and the political process.
Republicans, naturally, have every right to choose their role model going forward…..but what would the Republican Party look like, if indeed, Sarah Palin became the de facto political model for the entire party?
An endorsement for even more divisiveness.
We just kicked a Republican adminstration to the curb that was the most divisive in my lifetime. Groups of Americans were pitted against each other constantly for political purposes. Latino Americans were isolated for derision during the foolish Limbaugh-led, talk-radio blitz against the comprehensive immigration bill that even Bush favored. Gay Americans watched as Republicans sought to, once and for all, declare gays unequal with an equal rights denying Constitutional Amendment. Those Americans believing in the right to privacy in reproductive and end-of-life matters were singled out as belonging to a "culture of death" during the national embarassment that was the Terri Schiavo episode. Critics were demonized, villified and labeled anti-American and "terrorist sympathizers", with regularity, if they dared disagree with the maniacal foreign policies of George W. Bush.
So, the last Republican model, George W. Bush…….was a relatively divisive figure. Sarah Palin-as-GOP-role-model would kick even Rovian divisiveness up a notch. Palin constantly referred, during the campaign, to "real Americans" and portions of the country where "real America" was located. To Palin, Democrats were "socialists", "communists",……Obama, one who "pals around with terrorists." The Alaskan Governor's rejection of graciousness towards her VP counterpart during their debate was rude and out of place. Her comments during her acceptance speech were mean-spirited, cocky, brash and intended to be divisive.
Is that the role model Republicans really want? After Barack Obama's successful message of all-inclusiveness, his rejection of a fragmented, red and blue states country…..does Sarah Palin's model even have a ghost of a chance of catching on with the American public? The obvious answer right now is…..no. Things can change, but after 4 or 8 years of Obama, do Republicans really, really believe that Americans will open their arms to more of the same old resurrected-from-the-dead politics of the discredited Bush-Rove era? I certainly don't think so.
If Sarah Palin's campaign methodology is an indication of who she is……she has an even stronger drive to divide America than the Rove directed George W. Bush. That's saying something. Americans still don't fully know what Palin actually knows or understands due to limited exposure to press questions, but what we do know from her campaign time is that she isn't a bit backward about being divisive.
And 55% of Republicans, apparently, want their party to be more divisive just like she is.
