Obama's Poll Numbers Take a Hit

[Herb Schaffler]

The bottom line is as a libertarian, I don't like Palin or Obama. I don't agree with Palin's social conservatism and her foreign policy positions and Obama is a leftist statist.

[Herb Schaffler]

So many stories about Sarah Palin, so few about her fans.

[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. | November 25, 2009



"The term personal magnetism is frequently used, as if charismatic figures had a force that aligned followers like so many iron filings caught in their field of force. I would not want to deny that instances of charisma along those lines exist, but the complete surrender of personal will to a figure of power is, I believe, a comparatively rare and marginal phenomenon....As sociologists are fond of pointing out, the relational character of charisma means that one 'has charisma' only to the extent that others confer it upon one; it is their attribution of charisma that establishes the relationship." —James C. Scott, [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link.
The release of [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. has set off another Palinpalooza in the press. Most of the coverage is frustrating, focused as it is on the woman whose name is on the book rather than the readers who are purchasing it. Sarah Palin's views and goals may be a significant story, but they're not nearly as significant as the views and goals of the people projecting their hopes onto her. When the serfs revolt [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. , the czar's platform should not be the first topic of concern.
Oh, there have been the obligatory reports from the crowds lined up to see her on her book tour. But Palin almost always dominates those stories as well. Even when reporters probe past her personal appeal and start asking questions about her audience's own opinions, the topic tends to circle back to Sarah.
Take Norah O'Donnell of MSNBC, who [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. last week for interviewees at a Palin stop in Michigan. She settled on a 17-year-old whose shirt said, "The U.S. Government handed out $700 billion towards the wall street bailout and all i got was this lousy t-shirt." Reading from notes, O'Donnell informed the young woman that Palin had actually supported the bailout.
Now: The fact that someone wore an anti-TARP message to a Palin event is interesting, isn't it? It should make you wonder how many other Palinphiles disagree with the Alaskan about the bank bailouts and other contentious issues, foreign and domestic. The [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. turned out to be unaware of Palin's position on the bailout, prompting O'Donnell to announce, "I think there's some confusion about Sarah Palin's policies." And I'm sure there's plenty of confusion to go around. But these people are fans, not followers. It's entirely possible that many of them have disagreements with the former governor, are entirely aware of those differences, and yet admire her anyway. They might not even plan to cast a ballot for her: They're lined up to have their books signed, not to vote. You can't write them off as confused or as dupes without first taking the time to discern what they believe.
Give credit to Kate Zernike of The New York Times, one of the few journalists covering the Palin tour who seems to have made an effort to [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. with the people in line. (Here again you see some deviation from the standard Republican platform, when an Indiana firefighter expresses his opinion about Afghanistan: "Either man up and fight the war to win it, or get out.") Among Palin's critics, you can give some credit to Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll of [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. , who entered a line of Palinistas outside an Ohio Borders and let them speak for themselves. The resulting [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. may be edited to play up the interviewees' areas of ignorance—at any mass event like this, regardless of its political flavor, you're going to find a lot of areas of ignorance—but at least you get a sense of what hopes and fears are bubbling in that corner of the cauldron pot.
More typical was the Associated Press, which syndicated a [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. full of Michiganders saying why they like Palin ("She could be your next door neighbor") but only once quotes someone speaking about his own ideological outlook ("I like that she's pro-life"). Reporting from the same event, USA Today gives us [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. .
Why does this matter? Because the GOP isn't just undergoing a tug of war between the party leadership and the party base. There are several competing visions within that base, particularly when rank-and-file Republicans, outraged by the bailouts and uneasy about the recession, start regarding Wall Street with the same wary glare they have for Washington. There are, roughly speaking, three forms this wariness tends to take, personified by [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. , [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. , and [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. . Huckabee, the socially conservative progressive, thinks the state can be a counterweight to corporate power. Paul, the libertarian, sees big business and big government as mutually reinforcing allies; to reduce the power of the former he would reduce the power of the latter. And Dobbs, the nationalist, looks abroad for the sources of our troubles at home. If you listen to the people who go to tea parties, enjoy talk radio, and, yes, buy Sarah Palin books, you're apt to hear elements of all three worldviews sloshing around, sometimes inchoately and sometimes as well-defined worldviews. They're all parts of the grassroots right. (And not just the right. During the presidential primaries last year, the leftist writers Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair dismissed the Democratic frontrunners and suggested their ideal candidate would be a blend of [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. .)
Huckabee, Paul, and Dobbs all opposed the Wall Street bailouts. Palin, as O'Donnell will be quick to tell you, did not. Despite some early [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. of [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. , the politics Palin expresses now are pretty much standard-issue Red Team talking points. Her only significant break with the party establishment this year came with the congressional election in New York, when she endorsed the Conservative Party candidate over the GOP nominee; and in that case several other prominent Republicans joined her.
Yet her persona still appeals to people who hate the bailouts, distrust the Republican leadership, and are willing to use the phrase "or get out" when describing America's options in Afghanistan. We don't know how widespread such variant views are within her base of support, nor how such supporters regard the differences they have with the former governor. And until a news organization sends [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. into the Palin fan culture to cover that story, all we're going to get are hints.
We do know that Palin has a gift for appealing to people's feelings of resentment—toward the government, the media, "the elites." Matt Taibbi made the point most starkly, [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. in True/Slant that Palin "doesn't really have any political ideas" but "is on an endless crusade against ########." If the ######## who bug you bear a family resemblance to the ######## who bug her, you just might find Palin appealing, even if her views and yours aren't entirely aligned.
For Taibbi that's a sign that her fans have been duped: that "she is the perfect patsy for our system, designed as it is to channel popular anger in any direction but a useful one." In 2009, though, it's far from clear where this particular wave of anger will allow itself to be channeled—particularly when it comes to Palin, a woman who has proven much better at [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. to a controversial bill than at getting herself elected to national office. So yes, I'm interested in learning what Sarah Palin wants to do with her fans. But the more compelling question is what those fans intend to do with Sarah Palin.
[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. is managing editor of Reason magazine.

Now, nohilbilly, I'm waiting for you to dig up some dirt on Jesse Walker and impugn my character for daring to post anything by him.

[nohil-billy]

It's not about digging up dirt Herb, it's about checking out a person's qualifications for reviewing a book. So far you gave me a Digital forensics investigator and earlier you gave me a poker player, and a bad one at that, who reviewed the book on the USS Liberty.

During the campaign you posted an article by some dufus that raked Sarah Palin over the coals. The article contained absolutely no verifiable facts but only opinion by the author. You admitted that you shouldn't have posted it when I pointed it out.

For someone who doesn't like either Palin or Obama, you seem to spend most of your time bashing Palin or looking for articles that bash her. I believe it's because of her religious beliefs. There's a poster at another site that I'm on who is a libertarian atheist and acts the exact same way.

Have to go pick up the neighbor kids but will get back to you on Jesse.

[Herb Schaffler]

I have posted very little on Palin, but a whole lot on Obama and the big majority of it is negative. Check it out! It's true that Palin's religious beliefs have a lot to do with my opposition to her. Leaviang aside her hawkish pro-Israel foreign policy positions, if I could trust her to keep her religious views to herself the way Carter did and not try to push them off on us, that would be one thing, but I don't trust either her or Huckabee to be able to do that. Religion is a personal thing and should not be pushed off on the public through the power of the state.

[nohil-billy]

Bush was a deeply religious fellow but he kept his religion to himself.

[nohil-billy]

Okay Herb, I have no problem with Jesse Walkers qualifications to discuss politics. However, what he does here is say, look, if you talk to the people that support her they have no idea that she was for the bailouts. Then he cites two examples. Now would this be unique to Sarah Palin followers? Of course not. This makes it a one-sided, agenda driven article.

I can find you, on a daily basis, Obama supporters that don't have a clue what the man is about. Not that the news media helped. He still hasn't been properly vetted till this day.

Did you know that many Ron Paul supporters are aware that he is against pork but are unaware that he gets his fair share every year?

I could wander through a crowd of Ron Paul backers or Obama supporters and could come away with the same results as Mr. Walker. Only you and Mr. Walker choose to prey on the politically ignorant to get your points across and score cheap points off a candidate that you don't agree with.

[Herb Schaffler]

"Did you know that many Ron Paul supporters are aware that he is against pork but are unaware that he gets his fair share every year? "

That's because he knows that pork is going to go to somebody, so why not his district?

I think the case with Palin is that she is more of a celebrity than a competent candidate for president. The same is true for Obama. On the other hand, people who supported Ron Paul supported him on the basis of his views. They certainly didn't support him on the basis of his celebrity or his personality which is more the case with Palin and Obama.

[nohil-billy]

What a cop-out Herb!!! John McCain and my own senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill do not request or accept pork.

As for the people who supported Ron Paul on the basis of his views, though they were vocal, there weren't a whole lot of them. I think Ron Paul was supported more as an oddity than as a competent candidate.

See my point?

[Herb Schaffler]

Ron Paul has and presented lots of positions. He is for a non-meddling foreign policy, for abolishing the Federal Reserve and short of that to audit the Federal Reserve. He is for strong controls on immigration because of our lax welfare state policies. He is for restoring some type of gold standard. People supported him because they agreed with those positions, not because he was some kind of oddity.

I'm not saying I'm 100% in agreement with him on every issue, I can think for myself, thank you, but he comes much closer to my overall political philosophy than any other member in Congress. We need more people like him in Congress, at least on knowledge of economics. Two good candidates for the Senate in 2010 on the Republican ticket are Peter Schiff in Kentucky who predicted the housing bubble and was Ron Paul's economic advisor during the election and Ron Paul's son who is running for US Senator from Kentucky. These are the types of Republican candidates that I will be supporting, not the likes of Sarah Palin and Huckabee.

[nohil-billy]

I completely understand where you're coming from Herb but if Jesse Walker were to do a biased opinion piece on uninformed Ron Paul supporters, it's your opinion that would be ignored in favor of the guy who has no idea that Ron Paul asks for and receives pork.

Catch my drift?

What Jesse Walker presented, second hand in some cases, was not unique to Sarah Palin backers, but what Jesse Walker did is try to present it as such. What made it worse was using clips from different interviewers to give the appearance that the phenomena was wide spread when in reality, each interviewer was doing the exact same thing as Jesse Walker. Find the uninformed in the crowd and interview them.

Trust me Herb, for every interview of uninformed 17 year olds that were televised, 50 interviews of informed backers wound up on the editing room floor. That was typical agenda driven reporting.