Sarah Palin for Senate might be back on the table.
The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee could be inching closer to running for US Senate against incumbent Democrat Mark Begich.
Palin appeared on the Fox News Channel today and expressed strong support for Sen. Ted Cruz (R – Tex.) who is leading an effort to remove funding for Obamacare through the legislative process. In July, Palin noted that Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee (R – Utah) and others on Capitol Hill (perhaps including Sen. Rand Paul) need reinforcements to limit the growth of government and cut federal spending, and she expressed similar sentiments today.
Palin also blasted the infighting among defeatist Republican insiders who oppose Cruz’s effort and therefore “capitulate to liberals” on socialized medicine. Instead of Obamacare, she favors a law that is more patient–centered and market-based (rather than government-based) that will in her view provide better insurance coverage for the country.
In an ongoing series of polls, Obamacare continues to be very unpopular with the American people.
Some of the antipathy towards Cruz among members of his own party may among other things be based on jealously, grave concerns about how the whole thing will be spun by a hostile mainstream media, and perhaps the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality.
“Someday I’m going to tell America what I truly think about GOP elephants that would actually turn on a senator who is fulfilling his campaign promises,” Sarah Palin said during today’s interview. Referencing her dad’s career as a science teacher, Palin added that “you never told me elephants were cannibalistic.”
As far as a run for US Senate, Palin again underscored that “Ted Cruz and more of those good guys need some reinforcements in the midterm elections; they need help to undo so much of what the Democrats are doing. I don’t know if it will necessarily be me.” Palin alluded to the necessity of undoing laws and administrative regulations that could bankrupt the country and undermine personal freedom.
She seemed less-then-enthusiastic about actually moving her family to the nation’s capitol, however. “I think it really takes someone who has the stomach for the patience necessary to live and delve in that cesspool that is Washington, D.C., which is quite corrupt. I have young children, and I want to keep them nice and pure, if you will. And Washington, D.C. would be a very tough environment for them… ”
Conventional wisdom from the Beltway media and Beltway political insiders is that Palin is unelectable. Conventional wisdom is sometimes off the mark, however. Tony Abbott, for example, was considered unelectable, and he is now prime minister of Australia.
Palin recently received validation from her polar political opposite, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, about her assessment of Obamacare death panels and the need to abolish the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board. Dean, the ex-chairman of the Democrat National Committee, ran for president in 2004, until his campaign effectively ended on January 19 of that year with the infamous “Dean scream.”
The fact that the Senate seat is currently held by a Democrat is an anomaly as Alaska is traditionally a solid GOP state. Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was very narrowly defeated for re-election in 2008 by Begich but only after Stevens was found guilty in a federal corruption trial shortly before the voting. Steven had (perhaps stubbornly) declined to step aside and let another Republican run in his place. It subsequently turned out that the charges against Stevens were trumped up, and his conviction was later vacated on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. Stevens, the longest serving Republican senator in history and a decorated WW II pilot, later tragically died in a private plane crash in Alaska.
When asked today about former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi incident, where terrorists killed four Americans at the US compound, Palin said “If it doesn’t have an impact on the 2016 presidential election, if she’s a candidate, then America, I am very disappointed in our electorate, because anyone who would just throw away 200 years of our military ethos and leave our men behind to be murdered in Benghazi in this case? No, that person should never be considered as Commander in Chief. That’s why I’m so grateful for Congress to be pursuing what happened in Benghazi, getting to the truth of it…”
On an historical note, it is kind of interesting to reflect on, for example, that when Congressional Democrats vigorously opposed the policies of President Reagan or either President Bush, the media generally considered this as a proper constitutional exercise of the separation of powers rather than “obstructionism.”