Is Palin “a natural Patton?”

Kyle-Anne Shiver says she is. What’s more, Shiver believes Palin “nearly saved McCain.”

“Nobody ever defended anything successfully; there is only attack and attack and attack some more.”

— General George S. Patton

For all the tacky talk in media circles, where folks have extremely over-inflated opinions of themselves, one would think that Sarah Palin was the sole arbiter of Republican defeat this year.

What a pile of preposterous poppycock!

From the beginning of ‘08, the accepted wisdom was that no matter whom the Democrats nominated, they would deliver to the Republicans an ignominious defeat. But this year’s defeat was anything but the complete rout it was supposed to be.

And the person who nearly even saved the day — and the election — for Republicans was Sarah Palin.

This is not a minority opinion. When Rasmussen conducted detailed exit [1] polling among Republicans, they found that a full 69% of respondents thought Sarah Palin helped — not hurt — McCain. Governor Palin has not garnered the status as America’s most highly regarded, most popular governor for nothing.

And how much do Republicans admire Sarah Palin? Far more than anyone else on our side of the aisle, according to more Rasmussen tidbits:

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is very favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) very unfavorable. . …

And just how was it that the pitbull in lipstick upset the pundits and the prognosticators this year, at least in the matter of degree?

The woman, in my opinion, is a natural Patton. A fighter to the core. Palin seems to instinctively know that when one is hip-deep in a culture war and a fight for the survival of American exceptionalism, then one must do more than defend, defend, defend.

If one is not willing to attack in defense of one’s cause, then he ought to get out of the way at the very least — or consider joining the other side.

At least that’s my paraphrase of one of the Patton doctrines.

Sarah Palin came out [2] fighting on her night in the convention spotlight. In her speech, she relied on the same line of attack that catapulted her from Wasilla mayor to governor of Alaska: plainspoken, honest convictions and a sense of humor.

And she debuted with some of the most memorable lines of this entire campaign:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.

I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

Sarah Palin’s appeal was her willingness to fight — and fight courageously — for the American taxpayers, the ones who actually pay the bills for all that bureaucratic largess and faux generosity …Shiver has much more to say including this:

Palin wasn’t hesitant to bring up the voter fraud investigations of ACORN and make certain that her hearers understood the intimate connections between Barack Obama and ACORN [5] shenanigans. Sarah Palin, the mother of an American soldier now in Iraq, wasn’t squeamish about picking holes in Obama’s national defense priorities, even when she was [6] derided in the media for doing so. Sarah Palin wasn’t shy about [7] repeating the very, very late release of Obama’s taped admission that his energy plan would naturally “bankrupt the coal industry.”

Palin never stopped. She fought on until the final tally. Absolutely Patton style.

And the pundits, critics, and insiders can turn themselves every which way and back again, but they will not succeed in tearing this natural leader away from the nearly two-thirds majority of Republican voters who have already hailed her as the next leader in waiting.

It must have been just awful for John McCain to have been upstaged the way he was by Governor Sarah Palin. But McCain’s time is clearly past and Palin’s is just beginning. …

Shiver’s entire column’s here.

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Comments:

Shiver states her case well, but I think she claims too much for Palin.

I don’t doubt as the Rasmussen poll results and the size and enthusiasm of the crowds at her rallies indicate, Palin was a plus for McCain among Republicans.

How much she may have helped him among independents and Hillary voters are more complicated questions to which I won’t hazard a guess right now.

I want to first look at more data. I’ll also pay a lot of attention to what Stuart Rothenberg, Michael Barone and Karl Rove say in response to those questions.

As for Palin’s future - - -

Can she expand her enthusiastic base among traditional Republicans to include independents and “Reagan Democrats?”

She’ll need to do that to be an electable candidate heading the GOP’s presidential ticket.

Some pundits say Palin is thinking of making a run for the GOP’s 2012 nomination. She’s done nothing to discourage that talk.

If she’s thinking of 2012, Palin pretty much has to begin now articulating policies and forming alliances that will start the process of expanding her base.

All things considered, I’m inclined to think she might do better to aim for 2016.