Mr. David Frum is All Mixed Up Over Who Left Whom

David Frum wrote two articles this week whose content were quite comical, so I decided to share the gist of it with you.

Ronald Reagan has often said in regard to his party change from Democrat to Republican that, “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party, it left me.” Ironically, David Frum who preaches to the Republicans that “The Era of Reagan is Over” and that it’s necessary to adapt to the times, has now turned to Reagan’s words and twisted them in order to defend…Romney.

Frum criticized those who blast Romney for his endless flip-flops with the excuse that “it’s not Romney who is the flip-flopper. It’s the conservative movement.” Frum continued his ridiculous defense of Romney, explaining that Romney’s positions had always been aligned with the Republican Party. However, since the party has undergone recent radical changes he had to do some shifting in order to keep up with the pace. The blame therefore lies with the party.

My immediate question upon reading Frum’s nonsense was why has Romney not done that which Reagan did? If the party has left Romney, why hasn’t he left the party and joined whichever Party is more in line with his original positions, be it the Green, Liberal, Democrat or other party? Mr. Frum, perhaps you can remind us when the Republican Party’s platform had been to run to the left of Ted Kennedy? And if Romney’s positions were so “mainstream” then why couldn’t he win a second term in David Frum’s mainstream Massachusetts?

In his other article, Frum officially discussed the various possible outcomes of the 2012 elections and their consequences. The underlying theme of course was to bash the Tea Party and Republican activists who he considers having lived the last three years “in a fantasy world in which fringe characters like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain somehow ’speak for the common sense of the common people.’“ Frum also threw in Perry, Bachmann and Trump in addition to Palin and Cain as having each served as the Tea Party’s messiah.

Rick Perry is the Governor of the largest conservative state for the last ten years. Does that make Texas, which boasts a considerable percent of America’s population and jobs, a fringe state?

Sarah Palin had been elected twice to the mayoral position in Wasilla and then as the Governor of the state of Alaska. Is 90% of Alaska, which approved of Palin and her successful policies, also fringe? That brands the two largest states of the country as loaded with fringe characters. Whoa! And what about John McCain who you so adore and chose Palin as his running mate, is he fringe too?

Herman Cain, in addition to having been honored with the fringe title, was predicted by Frum to run a train wreck of a presidency if he wins. Surprisingly, this disaster of a guy was credited with the positive financial turnaround of Burger King and Godfather’s Pizza, was the host of a popular talk-radio show, and served as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City. It sure causes one wonder what he would’ve been able to accomplish if he hadn’t been so fringe.

David Frum’s treatment of Obama differs vastly than that of his “fellow” conservatives. Obama and his policies aren’t referred to as socialist or communist, but that of a mainstream Democrat guy. What has Obama touched that met with success? He touched health care and it is on the path to destruction. He touched our economy, and it plummeted far lower than before. Sadly, one can simply say; Obama touched America and has wrought destruction upon it. His interference in the Middle East or other foreign countries has only increased the violence against innocent and the promotion of Islamic extremists. However, when Obama’s healthcare reform bill passed, Frum blamed … Republicans for having refused to create a bi-partisan bill.

Being that you, Mr. Frum, consider yourself as a conservative, it seems as though you are the fringe character. Demanding the party to have a pro-choice candidate at the top of the ticket, or taking measures to curb in global warming is in direct opposition to the Republican Party and the Conservative movement. If the Republican Party has abandoned anyone, it was the conservative principles upon which it was originally founded. It has as of late forgotten that “Government is Not the Solution to the Problem, Government is the Problem” and had picked John McCain to represent them in 2008. Since McCain was your favorite guy in the 2008 campaign take a look at the results of his campaign and the extreme policies of the current administration.

Mitt Romney has a significant chance in winning the primary, only to then yes or not win the general election. A repeat of McCain’s performance is quite likely. There is only one thing that is absolutely definite regarding Mitt Romney. He hasn’t stopped flipping and flopping on every topic and policy brought to the table, possibly because in his entire political career he hasn’t had any definite positions. He simply gave the answers that the people he was speaking to wished to hear, and acted in the manner which was most beneficial for him in getting reelected. He definitely wasn’t conservative in the past, and his many flips won’t make into a conservative. A wolf in sheep’s clothes is still a wolf.

The conservative movement’s platform is the same as it had always been. It hasn’t changed and won’t change its pro-life, pro-individual liberties, pro-small government, and constitution-adhering principles. Conservatism had always been the basis of the Republican Party, and a demand for it to return to its roots is only logical and understandable. Perhaps, Mr. David Frum, it is necessary for you to review the conservative ideology which has originally been represented by the Republican Party, and is still supposed to be one and the same. A demand from conservatives for the party to therefore return to its roots is only logical and understandable. A demand from a phony conservative like you to fundamentally transform the party is not.

Just Like the elitists have been proven wrong by Reagan they'll be proven wrong by Palin

Conservatives4Palin has done a great job digging up an old article of Times Magazine in which they claimed Reagan to be unelectable, and rewrote a nice chunk of it substituting Reagan with Palin.

The end result is so strikingly familiar to today’s media arguments, one’s impression is that it was truly written in regard to Palin. When discovering that it's actually from March of 1980, it takes the monster of a fear regarding electability and exposes it as the illusion and distortion it truly is.

Here’s the C4P rewrite of the article:

For several decades, it has been an article of faith among politicians and political analysts that no candidate can win a U.S. presidential election unless he can dominate the broad center of the spectrum, that all candidates on the edges of the left or right are doomed. Barry Goldwater’s “extremism . . . is novice” campaign of 1964 provides the classic evidence, reinforced by George McGovern’s 1972 defeat in 49 out of 50 states. And since G.O.P. Front Runner Sarah Palin relies upon a base of support that is on the far right wing of the Republican Party, some experts have long declared that if she wins the nomination, the G.O.P. would simply be repeating the suicidal Goldwater campaign.

(…)

National opinion polls continue to show Obama leading Palin by an apparently comfortable margin of about 25%. They also show that more moderate Republicans like Romney would run better against the President. This suggests that Palin is not the strongest G.O.P. choice for the 2012 election and that she clearly faces an uphill battle.

(…)

If popular unhappiness with domestic and world problems finally comes to rest at Obama’s doorstep, voters may begin to see all sorts of previously invisible virtues in Sarah Palin.

(…)

Palin cannot hope to win, however, unless she moves beyond the hard-line conservative base that has sustained her since she first appeared on the national political scene as a spokesman for McCain himself. She has no experience in Washington politics or foreign affairs. Both Congress and the federal bureaucracy are as unfathomable to her as they were to Obama. Indeed one of Palin’s major supporters in the Senate notes that the Alaskan is uncomfortable even visiting Washington.

(…)

Worse perhaps than the verbal gaffe is Palin’s relentlessly simple-minded discussion of complex problems.

You can read the entire original Times article over here.

Over a year has passed since the rewrite, and the media as well as many on the right are still obsessed with the electability issue. Their actions and attitude is quite surprising, given the fact that Reagan appeared to have greater chances in being unelectable than Palin and still managed to beat Carter.

I have therefore searched in vain for the poll that would put Palin in a spot worse than Reagan stood in 1980. This is so even though it's still 2011 – over a year before the elections and before an official Palin campaign has begun, while the Times Magazine article above was written in March on 1980 – about 8 months before the election and with Reagan already as the Republican nominee.

Additionally, Reagan didn’t just have one poll with such a tremendous gap between him and Carter; it was the national average, as stated in the article. Nonetheless he won with 50.7% of the votes while Carter received only 40%.

Furthermore, Reagan wasn’t an unknown individual running for president whom the voters haven’t heard of yet and were waiting to hear from.

The Times Magazine article and his campaign came after his serving as Governor for many years and having already attempted two presidential runs, in ’68 and in ’76. He thus had plenty of name recognition and most people had already formed an opinion regarding him. Despite it all, he became the 40th president of the United States of America.

Regarding the large percentage of people with a negative opinion on Palin and the media’s constant bashing of Palin which has caused most of negatively formed opinions, Reagan too has come under the hateful attacks as seen in this very article which is only one out of hundreds written at that time. Only when the public got to hear directly from Reagan at the debates and through campaign ads did opinions shift in favor of Reagan.

So in response to the supposedly strongest proof in the “Palin is unelectable” refrain, that the voters already have formed their opinion regarding her and won’t change that opinion; that is precisely the same disadvantage Reagan had. It is an argument that has been proven wrong in the past, and can be proven wrong again.

Poll Insider had a great piece which proved just how faulty the above argument with their explanation of Palin as “an unknown known”. This is so because although just about everybody in this country has heard about and formed an opinion on Palin, many have based it upon lies spread by the media and their likes such as Tina Fey’s “I can see Russia from my house” which is still believed by many that Palin had said it.

In a previous article I’ve written, after the release of Palin’s emails titled; Governor Palin’s good governing record doesn’t matter just like Obama’s awful record doesn’t matter, I discussed in detail the media’s hatred towards Palin which painted a distorted picture in the minds of so many. Thus, once people will be exposed to the truth about Sarah Palin many voters can and will have a change of mind regarding Palin.

In fact, many that have searched through her emails and viewed the new movie “The Undefeated” have already expressed their amazement at the real Sarah Palin which the media had buried under mountains of falsehood.

There’s one question those that argue Palin is unelectable have to answer; why don’t all of you who are constantly writing columns and posts all across the blogosphere, in newspapers, and magazines quote the above Times Magazine article and then explain in what aspect Palin differs from Reagan that makes her “truly” unelectable?

Palin’s poll figures are now better than Reagan’s had been in March of 1980 and she still has much more time than he had until the elections to increase her positive ratings.

It’s true Palin is a known figure that has to overcome the negative perception the media has painted of her to the public. It is also true that the above is a perfect description of Reagan in the midst of his campaign.

The media seeked to destroy Reagan with a passion, though their hate for Sarah surpasses all previous politicians as seen in their attacks against her and her family. Reagan however couldn’t circumvent the media as is possible today. To counteract the media, she has all the social media networking tools to outsmart them and her unconventional acts such as her bus tour, which Reagan didn’t have.

The entire un-electability claim has been created because her outstanding record left those that oppose her without anything else to throw at her. These “unelectable dooms predictors” continue to raise their voices in constant repetition of the same argument despite the fact that it's losing ground with each passing day.

Why is necessary to bring endless "proofs" each day anew to prove their argument?

Perhaps because Palin's record has proven that she can win despite having been "unelectable" in the past when she ran for city council, Mayor, and the Governorship of Alaska, that the David Frum's of this universe feel compelled to repeat their claims in the hope of it materializing.

After all, they have already been proven wrong in 1980 and simply can't afford to be in the wrong again.