Out of the West...

Every time there's an article on Sarah Palin, a swarm of liberal commentators descend in full cry.

"Palin is less than bright."

"She's inexperienced."

"She's naive."

"She's a political lightweight with no credibility."

Okay, so if Sarah Palin is such a stupid, clueless bimbo as these clearly liberal posters would like to have us believe, why does she continue to frighten the left so badly? Why do they pour such energy into attacking her.

I think it's because, they don't want to make the same mistake twice. They ignored a certain TV cowboy actor back in 1976 and their dreams of a socialist utopia blew up in their faces. I think, Sarah scares them. She has the same self-assurance about her conservative beliefs as the equally, to them, incomprehensible Reagan. Reagan struck a chord with the American people in 1980 and successfully steam-rollered the attempt by the left to make over the government into a fully socialist state. Now almost 30 years later, they are poised again for a socialist takeover and they can't afford to have another conservative general come along and mess up their plans.

It must be so frustrating for the left to get so close to their socialist dreams and have conservatives come along and mess them up. Sarah Palin is a polarizing conservative figure like Reagan was. Her personal philosophy is crystal clear and resonates with main street Americans, at least, when she's not being filtered by John McCain's woefully inept and philosophically confused minions as she was during the election campaign.

Her greatest mistake was to play loyal sidekick to McCain. To recover, she needs 3 years of her own speeches and writings to show who she really is to conservatives. It was a tactic that worked brilliantly for the redoubtable Reagan. If Sarah can rally the conservative voting block and on-the-fence moderates, as the disastrous Democrat-led spending spree simultaneously crushes the country under the weight of debt (as it appears intended to do), Sarah will polarize the country indeed. She will not, however, divide the country according to who tests better in the marketing studies and polling data as happened in 2008.

Sarah will not be a feel-good candidate, although her followers will very likely feel very good. She will be a d0-the-right-thing candidate and for the Left that's absolutely terrifying.

Her resignation has confused her opponents. They don't understand it at all. The cardinal rule of the Left is that you NEVER let go of power, not for any reason, even for the good of the people you serve. It's better to lie to the people for their own good, destroy anyone in your way, allow the country to suffer, than it is to let go of power.

But Sarah doesn't think like that. If she's not the governor of Alaska, she effectively stops the endless bogus ethics lawsuits that her opponents on the left use to harass and cripple her administration. So, by resigning, Sarah just solved a lot of problems for Alaska and for herself. The new governor wants to do the same things Sarah did and he won't have the press dogging him. It will be good for the people of Alaska! I think that was Sarah's first consideration. It would be the last consideration for the socialist machine that opposes her.

The Republican Party hasn't had a good general in a long time. For too long they've run their campaigns like the Civil War's Union commanders, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Pope and the rest who practiced a sort of win and retreat approach to warfare. McClellan (a Democrat by the way), never fought a battle he didn't retreat from, even when he won.

We need a general in the Republican party who fights like Ulysses S. Grant - a general who fought and advanced. Even when Grant lost battles, he advanced relentlessly. He forced Lee to retreat time and again. Even when Lee won the battle, he had to retire from the field and withdraw to save his forces.

Ronald Reagan fought like that. When he lost the 76 nomination to country club Republicans and Gerald Ford, a lot of pundits wrote him off. But Reagan did not retreat. He took his message straight to the people through radio, television, writing and public speeches. As Jimmy Carter led the country left to disaster, Reagan hammered home his vision of a better America that stood in stark contrast to Carter's muddled socialist malaise.

I think the left senses that Sarah Palin may have the same ability to articulate that vision. That's why they are so desperate to marginalize and stigmatize her. She terrifies them. They successfully marginalized Fred Thompson, but I'm not sure they'll be able to do that with Sarah Palin.

In the meantime, it's fun to watch the growing panic in the liberal camp at the thought of Sarah unleashed. This should be very interesting.

Just one man's opinion.

Tom King