Posted by
Board Certified M.D. on Monday, September 01, 2008 9:15:31 AM
Before deconstructing the anatomy of Sarah Palin's New Media rise in the GOP, it is important to state that one issue that put Sarah Palin on Anti-Pork spender Senator McCain's radar was her rejection of the Bridge to Nowhere proposed by Senator Ted Stevens.
Let me introduce you to Adam Brinkley(You Tube), an insightful, smart and industrious 21 one year student from Colorado was dissatisfied with the GOP Political prospects and went looking for rising stars on the GOP bench. After a ~1 month expedition he came up with Sarah Palin, the "Maverick" Govenor of Alaska who beat the legacy candidates ensconced in their Political Machines. Back then he make the assumption that Rudy Giuliani would be the GOP nomination and used a set of grounds rules to come up with a running mate. He started a blog to promote his position back on February 26, 2007 entitled Palin for VP.blogspot.com and used the alias Elephant Man. Here is an excerpt from his first over 18 months ago
This blog is the result of about a month worth of research on potential Republican Vice-Presidential candidates for the 2008 election. I had been considerably less than thrilled with all of the early speculation, mostly swirling around second-tier presidential candidates, so I decided to see if there was anyone better suited for the job that I hadn't been hearing about. So, I developed the following profile for the perfect VP candidate (using Rudy Giuliani as my presumptive presidential candidate):
1) A energetic, young, fresh face who will energize the electorate
2) Not connected to the current administration
3) Pro-Life
4) Pro-Gun
5) A woman or minority to counter Hillary or Obama and put to rest the idea that America only elects white males
One of the first names I found that fit these qualifications was that of Sarah Palin, the recently elected Governor of Alaska. I knew that I had stumbled upon a fantastic candidate for national office, but I kept looking in the hope that I could find other potentially viable choices. However, after looking at every GOP governor, senator, and congressperson, I found that Palin had only become more appealing.
She was certainly energetic and young, having become governor at only 42 years of age. Watching her speeches and campaign ads, I discovered that she was definitely a new kind of leader, coming off more as a spunky soccer-mom than a stuffy career politician. As for abortion, she was staunchly pro-life; and as a lifetime NRA member she was the most pro-gun candidate in the country. Furthermore, her experiences in rural Alaska provided a perfect complement to the big-city credentials of candidates like Giuliani. Her moderately libertarian positions on most other issues also match up perfectly to Giuliani.
There was one thing about Palin that initially worried me - "lack of experience". She had only been elected governor in 2006, and her only previous experience was as a two terms as a city councilwoman and two more as mayor in Wasilla, AK (population 8,471 in 2005) followed up by a failed campaign for lieutenant governor and a brief stint on Alaska's Oil and Natural Gas Conservation Commission. This didn't seem very appealing at first, but then I took the time to look closer at Palin's history. What I had failed to realize was that she had habitually knocked of powerful incumbent opponents and was a quick learner on the job. In the 2006 gubernatorial election, she rolled over scandal-prone incumbent Frank Murkowski in the GOP primary, then went on to defeat former governor Tony Knowles in the general election - pretty impressive. Further back, she had knocked off an entrenched incumbent to become mayor of Wasilla, then developed a reputation as a hard-nosed, effective mayor. Her performance in Wasilla got her elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors and earned her the nickname "Sarah Barracuda".
In the end, I decided that Sarah Palin had actually compiled a rather astounding record of achievements in her 42 years, and was more than capable of making the jump to the national level. So now I ask you who you would rather have as your Vice-President. You could accept conventional wisdom and choose from the lineup of old men currently being bantered about, or you could choose an inspiring leader like Sarah Palin. As for me, I'm going with "Sarah Barracuda", a candidate who will help us win the election and then deliver solid results.
The only way to kick-start talk of a Palin candidacy is for the bloggers like us to band together to show our support. Otherwise, the media and the political establishment will remain blissfully unaware that there are other VP options beyond the current presidential candidates
Brinkley's blog introduced Sarah Palin to New Media Americans in the Lower 48 states. He got help from other bloggers and New Media People. He has now been discovered and has been invited on to Media
Another great website aggregator for Sarah Palin Palintology is worth a look too!