Sarah Palin Threatens To Leave Republican Party
An empty threat.
Former Alaska Governor and 2008 Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin has made her way back into the political scene lately. It started when she was given a new contract with Fox News Channel less than six months after her previous contract had been let to lapse by a network that had seemingly grown tired of her, and it’s continued through the immigration debate in the Senate where she’s engaged in attacks on Republicans such as Marco Rubio, Jeff Flake, and Kelly Ayotte who supported the Senate bill over the increasingly loud objections of conservative pundits and talk show hosts. Now, she’s talking about the idea of leaving the Republican Party and forming some kind of “true conservative” third party:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president responded to a Fox News Channel viewer’s Twitter question Saturday about the possibility of her and conservative talker Mark Levin abandoning the Republican Party and creating something called the “Freedom Party.”
“I love the name of that party — the ‘Freedom Party,'” Palin said. “And if the GOP continues to back away from the planks in our platform, from the principles that built this party of Lincoln and Reagan, then yeah, more and more of us are going to start saying, ‘You know, what’s wrong with being independent,’ kind of with that libertarian streak that much of us have. In other words, we want government to back off and not infringe upon our rights. I think there will be a lot of us who start saying ‘GOP, if you abandon us, we have nowhere else to go except to become more independent and not enlisted in a one or the other private majority parties that rule in our nation, either a Democrat or a Republican.’ Remember these are private parties, and you know, no one forces us to be enlisted in either party.”
Joe Gandelman points out the practical problems with an idea like this:
1)Starting a SUCCESSFUL third party is very difficult. Probably the last person who had a real shot at it was Texas billionaire Ross Perot when he ran against George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992 — and squandered his chance when he initially dropped out, complaining that Republicans were planning to disrupt is daughter’s wedding. More often than not, third parties in America provide a valuable mechanism for those who don’t want to choose between “the lesser of two evils” that help one or the other major parties by depriving a major party of a vote. This is the reality — so far. The American political system is
stackedrigged against third party success.2) This underscores again Palin’s supreme weakness if she was presented as a serious candidate for the Presidency. There is no concern on her part about expanding the GOP’s constituency. She only wants to make sure that the party includes or follows the wishes of part of party and those in the party who don’t follow its wishes need to be marginalized.
3) It again confirms how fortunate America has been that Palin was never in line to become President as Vice President. Or, rather, if confirms that belief to Democrats, non-conservative independents, moderates and many Republicans who’ve been drummed out of the GOP because they are “RINOS” (moderates) or traditional conservatives who Palin and those who believe as she does feel must be punished for not following their agenda or for daring to show political treason (working at all with Democrats as Republicans have done in more years of America’s history than they have not).
4) It shows why Republican rebranding is now all but virtually dead and how difficult any attempts to change the current conservative political entertainment media complex/Tea Party brand will be. If the immigration bill is killed by the Republican House or watered down so it is repudiated by Latino groups, Democrats and Senate Republicans who included the path to citizenship, it will be dead.
To all of this I’d add a fifth point, namely that Palin isn’t at all serious when she says things like this because she knows that her brand depends on being able to sit on the outside of Republican candidates, criticize people like Rubio who are actually doing something about the problems facing this country, and step in from time to time with endorsements for acceptable grassroots candidates, most of whom are likely already heading toward victory. Sarah Palin would no more leave the Republican Party for the doomed endeavor of a third-party than she would actually throw her hat in the ring and run for office ever again. It’s worth far too much to her, and to her Political Action Committee SarahPAC, which has donated a surprisingly small amount of money to candidates compared to the money that it’s actually raised. Indeed, while it’s questionable how relevant Palin even remains inside the GOP at this point, she would become even less relevant as part of some anonymous third-party of cranky conservatives which, if it were even moderately successful, would only serve to hand red state seats to Democrats on a regular basis. This is really just Sarah being Sarah, meaning that she’s back to her usual schtick of saying things designed to get her attention that she has no intention of following through with. Kind of like she spent the run-up to the 2012 Presidential campaign letting her supporters think she was actually seriously thinking about running for President.
And it’s not surprising that she’s able to get away with it when she’s got true believers like this:
Now we are witness to Republicans like Marco Rubio, who claimed to be a conservative, and the other back stabbing Republicans who voted for the Senate bill on immigration where they thumbed their nose at the rule of law and created an amnesty bill. It is not Obama or Democrats that have ruined the GOP, it is the establishment republicans who have done so, putting your personal power ahead of country and principles.
Enough is enough Republican Party, you are about to go the way of the Whigs if you keep it up. More and more I actually think that a third party is the way to go because the establishment Republicans are really no different than Democrats. Big government progressives are progressives no matter what party affiliation they belong to.
Keep writing those checks folks, because that’s exactly what Sarah wants you to do.
Palin apparently has no clue about how many libertarians can’t stand her.
The Alaskan ‘Snookie’ squeaks again and the press feels the need to retransmit the squeak.
This is another reason why we can’t have good stuff.
The guy that signed the first income tax into law and the guy that tripled the national debt, sold weapons to terrorists, and negotiated with terrorists and communists?
I have a feeling that I’m wasting my breath, but geez.
It must be a really slow news and politics day if everyone from MSNBC to Fox News have to dreg up Sarah Palin to write/talk about. She is irrelevant and has been irrelevant for years. Yet too many wonks and punidts cannot resist writing about her.
Grifter´s gotta grift.. fleece em good Sarah…
Please, please form a third party. Oh pleeeeaase…..
It’s also funny that she wants to create a third party because of immigration reform but invokes Lincoln; seriously, what the frak?
Palin…like all Republicans today…have no idea what Conservatism means anymore.
The idea that she is going to lead a Conservative movement is so stupid it defies description.
The Republicanist Religion, yeah.
That’s even likely.
Wait, wait, wait, wait a second here. Establishment Republicans have put *MY* personal power ahead of country and principles?
Maybe I should be voting GOP after all … ??
@Timothy Watson:
That’s not to mention her invoking the last president to sign an amnesty bill! It’s kind of like invoking Lincoln in support of the Confederate Flag.
@Franklin: How dare the GOP actually (on occasion) try to win elections so they have the power to do something (not that they are too disposed to use that power to do anything meaningful)?!
@Kylopod: Yeah, I realized that a couple minutes after I posted that comment. As I said on Twitter: “It’s amazing how long it takes to fully process the stupidly, ignorance, and cognitive dissonance of what Sarah Palin writes and says.” The result is that I could post something every five or ten minutes as my mind manages to decipher this absurdity.
I believe Nancy Pelosi said it best: “Who cares?”
So, is it too early to call her a RINO?
It’s laughable, because not only is Palin too lazy to do the work involved, she’s shrewd enough to know she could never get elected to anything. But she’ll dangle the hope in front of her sad sack crew of devotees to encourage them to donate to Sarahpac, which remains her personal slush fund as long as she doesn’t run for anything.
The people who believe in Palin are the people who joyously allow themselves to be fleeced by televangelists. And is there really any difference between the two?
I would so love if she did, and took the tea party with her.
@superdestroyer:
It’s that rich vein of comedy they can’t resist tapping.
I need to start a petition. This petition will promise SarahPAC twenty dollars from every signatory if she makes good on this threat and forms a bona fide third party, which should really be called the Tea Party and not the Freedom Party. Something that can be conjugated. Call it the Christian Union party, call ’em Unionists for short. I don’t know, she can hire someone smart to figure out the name.
I want this to happen. Granted, my third party fever dreams never took into account a crazy rightwing schlockmonger, but you work with what you’ve got.
@Timothy Watson: Lincoln didn’t sign income tax into law, it was instituted during WWII as a volunteer tax to help fund the war but was made mandatory at the end of the war. When you say that the President that tripled the debt, sold weapons to terrorist and negotiated with terrorist, you described Obama, not Regan. Obama has sold weapons to both the Taliban and Al-Qaida and is now negotiating with Al-Qaida affiliated terrorist in Syria to sell them weapons. I am a registered Republican and am seriously considering changing to Independent. The GOP no longer stands for Conservative values.
@Timothy Watson: Most liberals hate Sarah Palin because she stands for Conservative values and liberals would rather see the country go to hell instead of staying the greatest nation on earth. Also Timothy, in case you haven’t noticed, blacks have more rights than whites now. All they have to do is yell racist or start rioting and they get whatever they want.
Sarah Palin is so relevant to American Politics as me. And I don´t even vote in the US.
@Bob N:
1.) Income tax is a lot older than WWII. Look it up.
2.) I don’t think most liberals “hate” Sarah Palin at this point. We just laugh and marvel that a major political party takes her seriously like she has anything worthwhile to add to a political/policy debate. There are lots of conservatives who, while I may disagree with them ideologically (e.g. Dr. Joyner and Couselor Mataconis), are intelligent, thoughtful and capable of making coherent arguments in support of their cause; the Quitter from the North Country, however, is not one of them. And I doubt I’m alone in that assessment by both liberals and conservatives, alike.
@Bob N: “When you say that the President that tripled the debt, sold weapons to terrorist and negotiated with terrorist, you described Obama, not Regan.”
So you’ve decided that real Reagan — who sold missiles to Iran in order to illegally wage war in Nicaragua — didn’t exist, while Comic Book Reagan, who stoicly stood for everything good about America, is the real deal?
And anyone with an iq above 6 should listen to you why?
Tell you what — if you want to indulge in Rightie-porn, maybe you should post at Red State. Come back when you’re ready to deal with the real world.
@Bob N: I do enjoy when Sarah Palin and her supporters show how utterly stupid they are. Have you heard of the Revenue Act of 1861? It “imposed an income tax to be ‘levied, collected, and paid, upon the annual income of every person residing in the United States, whether such income is derived from any kind of property, or from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation carried on in the United States or elsewhere, or from any other source whatever'”.
And you are aware that the Sixteenth Amendment, which gave Congress the power to implement an income tax, was ratified in 1913, 28 years before the United States would enter World War II? You are also aware the Sixteenth Amendment was passed by Congress because of the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., decided in 1895, where the Supreme Court ruled that Congress didn’t have the power to implement an income tax?
You are also aware that the Ronald Reagan sold TOW weapon systems to Iran, a designated State Sponsor of Terrorism, right? And that he sold those weapons to Iran, so they would stop their proxy groups, namely Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards (aka the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution), from kidnapping, torturing, and murdering Americans, right?
If you don’t know these things, maybe you should try picking up a book and reading it instead of watching Faux News or listening to any of the talking idiots on the radio.
But I would like to thank for the “blacks have more rights than whites now” line, since unlike most conservatives/Republicans, you don’t try to hide your overt racism.
And to think that once folks like Ross Douhat and the NRO crowd seriously regarded her as the future of the Republican Party….
OOOPS .
@Bob N:
Most liberals hate Sarh Palin? Nothing could be further from the truth. n fact, most liberals have a sense of humor, therefore they love Sarah Palin. As for the ” blacks have more rights than whites now”? Why that’s something Sarah Palin could have said …. and probably did say. I think conservatives say stuff like that to maintain their anger and resentment – it makes them feel better about themselves. If it works, go for it.
The GOP needs destroying. The TPM will either rebuild the GOP new, or replace it. God bless our constitutional republic and it’s patriots. And that definitely includes Sarah Palin.
I believe the first rule of the party should be a new-old one: Politicians must keep their oath of office.
@Timothy Watson: Great comments but I’ll just like to point out that the Revolutionary Guards are a direct arm of the Iranian state, not a proxy of theirs like Hezbollah. Sorry for being a bit nitpicky.
@Bill589:
Boy….With that dim bulb as your guiding light may I suggest you purchase one of these? I guarantee any of them to be far more illuminating, and to cost far less too!.
Sarah Palin leaving the Republican party and starting a new one? WHERE DO I DONATE?
Also, any chance she’ll recruit people to run for Congress too? Preferable in red or purple districts.
Any conservatives who thinks this is a good idea should read “How to give away the election to the other side” by Ralph Nader.
(OT, but the timestamps for comments are wrong…)
Who cares? She can form her own party. The You Betcha Party. Sarah Palin is irrelevant these days to anyone with common sense. She does well at rabble rousing to an audience who live in a parallel universe anyway. Just as long a she doesn’t become a Democrat, she can have at it.
@Caj:
Which explains why Fox News and Republicans still listen to her,
It’s amazing that this woman still has a loyal base that follows her every word like gospel. She’s playing you! She has nothing to lose except your attention!
And the claims that liberals hate her is pretty hilarious. She’s the best thing that’s happened to Democrats to come from Alaska.
Well, there’s always that Alaskan seperatist party, right?
@Bob N:
Maybe it’s shooting smoke at this point, but nobody so far has commented on your claim about the national debt tripling under Obama and not Reagan. I suggest you take a look at the differences in the growth of the national debt under both presidents. The debt did, in fact, roughly triple under Reagan from the time he entered office to the time he left; it hasn’t even doubled under Obama so far. Of course it takes a little more detail to prove that Reagan’s policies (such as a big increase in defense spending) were responsible for the tripling of the debt that unquestionably occurred on his watch, but obviously Obama could not have done something to the debt that hasn’t, in fact, happened to the debt while he’s been president.
@Timothy Watson: You make a good point, but I’m not sure you nor my down-voters noticed that I was really just amused by the use of the word “your” instead of “their” (or at least I think that’s what the original writer intended).
@ Bob N
Wow. Turning ignorant up to “11”…
@Franklin: I hadn’t noticed the “your” instead of “their” until you pointed it out and my comment was based on it.
Apparently to Palin, it’s better that your representatives, even when they are representing your beliefs and goals, have absolutely no power to do anything if it violates her principles.
That whole line sounds like some quixotic situation where she wants to get people elected but they shouldn’t have any power to do anything. Isn’t the point of a political party to get people elected? If that isn’t her goal, doesn’t that just make her a gadfly?
@Timothy Watson: I have learned from experience that attempting to parse Palin’s word choice doesn’t tell us very much other than that she doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. I had some fun with this back in the day.
Is Bob N doing an impression of a really stupid Conservative? It’s hard to tell. Poe’s Law in action…
St. Ronaldus Augustus also capitulated to terrorism, as I recall (Lebanon barracks bombing, which resulted in the withdrawl of the Marines from Lebanon… which, to be fair, I see as the necessary corrective to the mistake of putting them there in the first place).
But that’s all down the memory hole, because he said tough things.
She could lead a third party called the Moronicans.
I’d expect that they’d get the 27% crazification vote (in Illinois they called it the Alan Keyes Constant, because in 2004 he got 27% of the vote in the senate race, and that in turn led to creation of the notion of a Crazification Factor). Look at it this way, that would be about 8% more than Ross Perot got back in 1992. By all means, let’s put the non-reality based crazies in one place for close electoral observation.
Sarah Palin has loved the limelight from day one. The more nonsense she spouts the more the head shaking believers love it. So she is in her element right now being the big cheese by threatening to leave the Republican Party. If she leaves it there will still be a bunch of other crackpots in it. I prefer she take them all with her and follow the Pied Piper. Hopefully he’ll lead them all to another country somewhere.
@al-Ameda:
We already have. It’s called the Republican Party.
@Stormy Dragon:
How many?
@Kylopod:
He had to completely rebuild the military that Carter gutted. (and as Obama is currently doing) and he played poker with nuclear defense and broke the Soviet Empire. He brought an end to the cold war. He inherited a recession like Obama. He solved it, unlike Obama.]
Get some new talking points.
Rob in CT,
You said before how you weren’t sure if Bob N was for real or was doing a parody of a conservative. I admit to having had the same thoughts at first. By now, after seeing David Zimmerman’s latest, my theory is based on what I’ve observed in the past: whenever there’s a thread about Sarah Palin, the dumbest conservatives imaginable crawl out of the woodwork. It isn’t Poe’s Law, it’s Palin’s Law. You heard it here first.
@ David Zimmerman
Are all Palin fanboys compulsive liars? (though I don’t dismiss simple ignorance)
defense spending as a percentage of the GDP increased throughout Carter’s presidency — from 4.7 percent in fiscal year 1979 (October 1, 1978, to September 30, 1979), to 4.9 percent in FY 1980. Congress again increased military spending from 4.9 percent GDP to 5.2 percent GDP from FY 1980 to FY 1981 (the final budget approved during the Carter administration). Over the entire course of Carter’s presidency, spending for national defense increased from 4.7 percent GDP to 5.2 percent GDP.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2007/01/23/rosen-distorted-defense-spending-during-carters/140752
What other party would let her join? I can’t think of any.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ed-charley-reese-545-column-07111120110711,0,809184.story
Looking for someone to blame? Congress is a good place to start
By Charley Reese
March 7, 1995
Wake up, you fools!
@David Zimmerman: Excellent!
From whence come all these inept fools?
Enjoy…
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ed-charley-reese-545-column-07111120110711,0,809184.story
Looking for someone to blame? Congress is a good place to start
By Charley Reese
March 7, 1995
Wake up, you fools!
@Kylopod: It’s called having a democrap controlled house and senate, fool.
First, the Senate was controlled by Republicans for three-fourths of Reagan’s presidency. Second, the House and Senate had been controlled by Democrats for 26 years before Reagan entered office, and the federal government never incurred budget deficits anywhere near as high as during the Reagan years. In fact, the budget was balanced three times during that earlier period (FY 1956, 1957, and 1969), the last time under a Democratic president.
@Kylopod: The funding comes from the House, boys & girls. We house our fools in the Senate… say McCain & McCain Lite – Flake/Fake also each and every democrap in office.
18square
Arizona
I mentioned the Republican-controlled Senate from ’81-’86 simply to correct your original statement about the Reagan era (“It’s called having a democrap controlled house and senate”). But instead of acknowledging your mistake, you respond by suddenly denying the Senate is what matters.
Let me clue you in: if you’re ignorant about basic facts of the period such as who controlled the Senate, maybe you should start approaching your conclusions with just a tad less smugness.