The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Calling B.S. on Ed Rollins

Posted on | December 2, 2010 | 20 Comments

Dan Calabrese has had it up to here with the anti-Palin crowd: 

it seems that just about everyone else is obsessed with Palin’s presidential prospects, and that includes a certain Ed Rollins, who holds forth today on CNN.com with a piece titled, “Palin, I knew Reagan. You’re no Reagan.”
Well.
There is much to mock about a piece on Gov. Palin’s supposed lack of presidential qualifications, especially coming from a man who once tried to help win the presidency for H. Ross Perot, who was not only unqualified but also insane.

Jennifer Caballero at Liberty Pundits asks the all-too-obvious question:

“Why is Huckabee’s ex- campaign manager
telling us who’s worthy of Reagan’s mantle?”

Bingo, Jen. Whatever your opinion of Sarah Palin, the problem is that nearly all her most prominent critics are professional operatives of one sort or another. If they are not already on the payroll of some prospective 2012 GOP presidential candidate, then they are presumably seeking such work. And they know they can get headlines and ingratiate themselves to those prospective employers by publishing anti-Palin rants.

The real danger here, as I’ve said before, is that this relentless Palin-bashing from within the GOP can have no good result. Either (a) Palin wins the nomination anyway, in which case the GOP 2012 nominee will have been damaged by all these friendly-fire attacks, or (b) someone else will win the nomination as the beneficiary of a none-too-subtle “Anybody But Sarah” campaign in the primaries. And then good luck getting those people energized for the general election.

Rush Limbaugh did a great segment Wednesday on the anti-Palin crowd, featuring this quote from GOP operative Nicolle Wallace:

Only Sarah Palin can beat Sarah Palin.  And let me tell you why no one will take her on.  Her defenders and supporters, the likes of Rush Limbaugh and people I admire, are so powerful on the right that nobody wants to anger any of those people, nobody wants to end up in the crosshairs, and nobody wants to look like they are unwilling to let her do her thing.  I don’t think people should be, you know, uptight and angsting about Sarah Palin.  I think she’ll reveal herself, and people will love her or hate her.  I really believe that if it looked like she were about to become the nominee, or, heaven forbid, the leader of the free world, a whole lot of people would stand up and say a whole lot of things.

Understand one thing: Nicolle Wallace is Team Bush all the way. She is speaking for, and serving the interests of, the Bush wing of the GOP. I’ve long warned that there is a Jeb 2012 bandwagon geared up and ready to roll at a moment’s notice, if Jeb decides to take a shot at it. If that doesn’t happen, the Bushies are trying to keep their thumb on the scale, to make sure that whoever gets the 2012 nomination, it’s someone acceptable to them.

But the Bushies know that, whatever else happens, it’s all over for them if Sarah Palin gets the 2012 nomination. Establishment phonies like Nicolle Wallace will be persona non grata to a Palin-led Republican Party. 

Just keep that in mind. There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes of the GOP than most grassroots conservatives suspect.

P.S.: Ed Rollins? Dude worked on the Huffington ’94 Senate campaign.

Category: Election 2012, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin

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