Palin vs. Rove And The 100-year War For The Soul Of The GOP
It is a cinch you are going to lose a fight you don’t even know you are in, and for the past 100 years, grassroots conservatives have been regularly trounced by the Republican Party’s progressive establishment elite because they didn’t really realize they were in a fight for the soul of the GOP.
Sarah Palin has drawn the ire – and the attacks – of the GOP’s inside elite because she rallied the Party’s grassroots conservatives and helped them understand that their fight against Washington (and its culture of cronyism, wasteful spending and “you scratch my-back I’ll scratch yours”) is as much, or more a fight with Republican insiders, like Karl Rove, than it is with liberals and Democrats.
In a very real sense, the roots of the Tea Party rebellion of 2009 and 2010 (which was as much a rebellion against the Republican establishment’s abandonment of conservative principles as it was a rebellion against Barack Obama’s policies) can be found in the thousands of grassroots conservatives who turned-out to hear Sarah Palin speak during the 2008 presidential campaign.
And when the election was over and McCain’s content-free campaign went down in flames, the grassroots looked to Sarah Palin for the conservative leadership and inspiration that no other major Republican figure was offering.
Suddenly, the peasants were outside Frankenstein’s castle with their pitchforks and scythes -- with Sarah Palin at the head of the rag-tag army telling them that the way to win elections was to unabashedly stand for conservative principles.
This made the lords of the castle, insiders (such as Bush architect Karl Rove, Bush and McCain advisor Steve Schmidt and Romney advisor Stuart Stevens, and those from the hinterlands who hoped to one day share in the castle’s riches, like Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus) exceedingly unhappy.
If someone started rocking the boat and educating the conservative Republican grassroots that content-free establishment Republican campaigns were a big insider joke (through which the insiders, like Rove, Stevens and Schmidt, made millions whether Republicans won or lost – and governance according to conservative principles was the last thing on their minds), then the entire feudal system of the establishment Republican Party would collapse, and they would be out an awful lot of money.
Sarah Palin’s message isn’t new – conservatives have been saying much the same thing since Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican Party to pursue his progressive agenda.
What is new is that, perhaps for the first time since Ronald Reagan became a national candidate, the grassroots conservatives who supply the votes, manpower and contributions to elect Republicans are beginning to understand that to get governance according to conservative principles, they first have to throw-out the current Republican establishment and then elect principled limited government constitutional conservatives as their leaders.
Leaders such as Sarah Palin.
We don’t know if Sarah Palin has any interest in running for office again -- who could blame her if she didn’t want to put her family through the vicious personal attacks that would surely ensue if she did -- but leadership in politics can take many forms.
Right now Sarah Palin is performing a service greater than almost any she might fulfill in public office, and that is rallying grassroots conservatives to reject the inside “business as usual” elite of the Republican establishment and demanding leaders who are willing to stand for, and fight for, limited government constitutional conservative principles.
If Sarah Palin can help conservatives win this crucial battle in the 100-year war for the soul of the Republican Party – and we are doing our part through The Liberty Prize and our soon-to-be-published book “TAKEOVER” -- then she will have earned her place among America’s great political leaders whether or not she ever again holds public office.
To support Governor Sarah Palin go to http://www.conservativehq.com/article/12638-petition-support-governor-sarah-palin and sign our letter to Karl Rove demanding that he end his campaign vilifying Governor Palin and her millions of supporters.
Sarah Palin has drawn the ire – and the attacks – of the GOP’s inside elite because she rallied the Party’s grassroots conservatives and helped them understand that their fight against Washington (and its culture of cronyism, wasteful spending and “you scratch my-back I’ll scratch yours”) is as much, or more a fight with Republican insiders, like Karl Rove, than it is with liberals and Democrats.In a very real sense, the roots of the Tea Party rebellion of 2009 and 2010 (which was as much a rebellion against the Republican establishment’s abandonment of conservative principles as it was a rebellion against Barack Obama’s policies) can be found in the thousands of grassroots conservatives who turned-out to hear Sarah Palin speak during the 2008 presidential campaign.
And when the election was over and McCain’s content-free campaign went down in flames, the grassroots looked to Sarah Palin for the conservative leadership and inspiration that no other major Republican figure was offering.
Suddenly, the peasants were outside Frankenstein’s castle with their pitchforks and scythes -- with Sarah Palin at the head of the rag-tag army telling them that the way to win elections was to unabashedly stand for conservative principles.
This made the lords of the castle, insiders (such as Bush architect Karl Rove, Bush and McCain advisor Steve Schmidt and Romney advisor Stuart Stevens, and those from the hinterlands who hoped to one day share in the castle’s riches, like Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus) exceedingly unhappy.
If someone started rocking the boat and educating the conservative Republican grassroots that content-free establishment Republican campaigns were a big insider joke (through which the insiders, like Rove, Stevens and Schmidt, made millions whether Republicans won or lost – and governance according to conservative principles was the last thing on their minds), then the entire feudal system of the establishment Republican Party would collapse, and they would be out an awful lot of money.
Sarah Palin’s message isn’t new – conservatives have been saying much the same thing since Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican Party to pursue his progressive agenda.
What is new is that, perhaps for the first time since Ronald Reagan became a national candidate, the grassroots conservatives who supply the votes, manpower and contributions to elect Republicans are beginning to understand that to get governance according to conservative principles, they first have to throw-out the current Republican establishment and then elect principled limited government constitutional conservatives as their leaders.
Leaders such as Sarah Palin.
We don’t know if Sarah Palin has any interest in running for office again -- who could blame her if she didn’t want to put her family through the vicious personal attacks that would surely ensue if she did -- but leadership in politics can take many forms.
Right now Sarah Palin is performing a service greater than almost any she might fulfill in public office, and that is rallying grassroots conservatives to reject the inside “business as usual” elite of the Republican establishment and demanding leaders who are willing to stand for, and fight for, limited government constitutional conservative principles.
If Sarah Palin can help conservatives win this crucial battle in the 100-year war for the soul of the Republican Party – and we are doing our part through The Liberty Prize and our soon-to-be-published book “TAKEOVER” -- then she will have earned her place among America’s great political leaders whether or not she ever again holds public office.
To support Governor Sarah Palin go to http://www.conservativehq.com/article/12638-petition-support-governor-sarah-palin and sign our letter to Karl Rove demanding that he end his campaign vilifying Governor Palin and her millions of supporters.
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