Is Sarah Palin toothless?

Palin Proves 'Mama Grizzly' Has Bite - NYTimes.com:Sarah Palin

"As always, proud to be American! Thanks, Commonsense Constitutional Conservatives, u didn?t sit down & shut up . . . u "refudiated" extreme left," Ms. Palin wrote.

Except in Nevada, and California and probably in Alaska. 

Except in that not a single "constitutional conservative" was elected last night (almost every one of them would like to make pretty significant changes to the Constitution to make it reflect their "conservatism")

I'm not even going to talk about "refudiate".

Sarah Palin has bite when she backs a candidate that was expected to win (Ayotte, Haley, etc...) but her choices in close races (Scott Brown aside) have been pretty lackluster. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina both go down in CA., Sharron Angle can't beat someone with a huge disapproval rating and Christine O'Donnell, well, maybe if she was a witch she could have done something to help her chances.

This election is not a vindication of Sarah Palin as a king/queen maker, it shows that she is no more influential than any other GOP pundit.  Now, if only the rest of the "lamestream media" would wake up and stop acting like she's important, we could all get back to having useful discussions about policy, as opposed to Mrs. Palin's preferred method of politics, rhetorical crap with no actual substance.

Tea Party says Rove is out of touch...

Tea Party Strikes Back at Rove after Palin Attack - The Daily Beast:

Damning by faint praise, [Levi] Russell went on to say: "Personally I've always liked Rove, but it is painfully obvious that he is losing his connection with the American people, and no longer has his finger on the very strong pulse of the conservative movement in this country, which is fueled by the tea party and figures such as Gov. Palin."

I honestly never, ever, thought that I would be defending Karl Rove, but hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day. 

Levi Russell, spokesperson for the Tea Party Express, implying that Karl Rove has lost touch with the "American people" is just, well, completely asinine. In fact, most of the American people completely agree with Karl Rove. 

In a survey conducted by Vanity Fair/CBS News in early August, 59% of those surveyed said they didn't feel that Sarah Palin has "the ability to be an effective president". Here's what Karl Rove said about Sarah Palin after her announcement that she would run for the presidency if "there's nobody else to do it": 

There are high standards that the American people have for [the presidency] and they require a certain level of gravitas, and they want to look at the candidate and say 'that candidate is doing things that gives me confidence that they are up to the most demanding job in the world'. 

With all due candor, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel, I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of ‘that helps me see you in the Oval Office. Being the vice-presidential nominee on the ticket is different from saying ‘I want to be the person at the top of the ticket.'

Rove was simply agreeing with the American people, for once.

The Tea Party's Kissing Cousin

Tea party, religious right often overlap, poll shows:

"The way the data looks, if this is a marriage of convenience, it's one that would be against the law. The relatives are too close," said Jones, a self-described progressive.

Okay, so that's a deliberately vague and somewhat shocking headline, sue me.  It's a functional analogy.

That being said, the biggest issue that I see the Tea Party facing is this one, the struggle to maintain a dedication to individual liberty, small government and fiscal responsibility without being sacrificed on the altar of social conservatism.

The Tea Partiers may share socially conservative beliefs, but the Tea Party is not, at its core, a socially conservative movement. No movement that wants to amend the constitution to protect a private arrangement (marriage), protest the free expression of certain religions (Islam), use Government to deny private property rights (Park51), use Government to dictate individual medical treatment (Abortion), etc... is in any way in favor of small government. The Tea Party movement was started around fiscal conservatism, not social conservatism.

The problem is that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between the Tea Party and the social conservatives and you can pretty much blame the Tea Parties for that. The first Tax Day Tea Party had nothing to do with social conservatism and everything to do with fiscal restraint. Since then the cause has been distorted and championed by people like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, at least publicly.

If the Tea Party as it was originally constituted wants to survive, they need to decide what they are on the whole and find a way to speak with one voice.

Daily Kos: Hypocrisy comes in all colors

I don't normally read the Daily Kos, there's nothing particularly wrong with the DK, I just tend to prefer to get my media from less biased sources (and no, that doesn't mean Fox News.) Today, while adding Newsmakers to my follow list on social|median (which is a great social news site for those of you who haven't tried it out yet) I came across a link to a DK article written by an Obama supporter who had stumbled upon a McCain/Palin meetup in a Tampa Bay-area Starbucks. I don't really want to get into the article itself in this post, as to be honest, it had nothing to do with why I'm writing this. No, it was the poll at the bottom of the page that got my blood a boilin'. I've brought it here, in all it's glory (as well as it's dubiousness). [caption id="attachment_747" align="aligncenter" width="329" caption="Daily Kos Political Poll"][/caption] I'm honestly not sure if should be offended by the options I am presented with, or the fact that anyone would vote on such a ridiculous, useless survey that simply reinforces negative stereotypes. This poll is shameful, I don't know if I can put it any other way without devolving into obscenities that I try to keep out of my posts. As I have tried to make it clear in my recent posts, I do not support either McCain or Obama (nor Barr, McKinney or anyone else at this point for that matter). I am not writing this article because it amkes McCain/Palin supporters look bad (which the Dail Kos article certainly does), nor to make Obama supporters look elitist and condescending (which the poll does without any help from me). The poll bothered me because it validates in Daily Kos readers all the qualities that the articles purports to display negatively on McCain supporters. This poll shows simply that DK readers (or at least a vast majority of them) are judgemental, ignorant, and very easy to sway. I know many, many intelligent, confident, assured, accepting individuals who support McCain (my father for one) and to assume that this small group from Tampa is representative of the larger makeup of McCain/Palin supporters is narrow-minded and honestly, naive. I am not sure who comes up with th polls that run on the Daily Kos, but as someone who takes this election and the issues our country faces very seriously, I am appalled by the utter hypocrisy and lack of responsibility that a poll like this shows. The odds on me reading the Daily Kos in the future, have suddely become very, very small.