After the idiotic decision by the Romney team in 2012 to not only deny Governor Palin a speaking slot at the nominating convention but to give the keynote address to Governor Christie and the subsequent election loss it appears that the GOP, leading ones at least, candidates, at least, have learned from the experience.
On Governor Palin's final stint day on OAN Network she interviewed three of the major candidates, Donald Trump Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush. All were extremely pleasant, non-confrontational say the least, appreciative of the opportunity and spent most of their time in policy or detail or discussing deeply held personal values.
It us unimaginable that any of the three, should they be the nominee would not reach out, significantly, to Governor Palin as regards having a major role at the convention. If that were the case then it is highly possible that a large proportion of the conservative voters who stayed home in 2012 will be encouraged to support the nominee who supports Palin. Of course if any successful candidate went further and chose Palin as his running mate that would be a further, and possibly winning incentive, for the "missing millions" of conservatives to go to the polls.
Prior to Governor Palin's interviews on OAN I canvassed the history of the GOP's foolishness which, hopefully, common sense, if not personal advantage for the various candidates, has addressed. If idiocy reigns again however then what the long, or even medium term future for the GOP might be would be in question.
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Taking their lead from from the media, bloggers,”advisers” Journolists (sic) social media commentators (ranging from the deranged to the paid partisan) the GOP establishment cut Governor Palin out from any high profile participation in the 2012 presidential election.
Deciding, based on the advice from all the aforementioned, especially the hack advisers, Schmidt/Wallace et al who stabbed Palin in the back straight after the 2008 campaign blaming her for the loss, that any association with Palin would be a liability and might lose Romney the election she became persona non grata.
From being twice the savior of the moribund McCain campaign, which nothing or nobody could save after the economic collapse and McCain’s “campaign suspension” the darling of the conservatives was shut out of the Romney convention and his campaign.
And how did Romney and all his advisers, his centrist, main stream campaign and the media supporters like Coulter and Brooks et al do without Palin? They lost.
They lost because Romney with his “go easy on Obama after the first debate/$10k bet/47%/binders full of women” and his advisers ran an inept campaign against a president they should have beaten easily. They lost because his utterly lacking in charisma boring campaigner VP pick Paul Ryan couldn’t even carry his own state and was shamefully beaten in debate by Joe Biden whom Palin easily handled.
The election was lost because Romney failed to carry Florida. He lost Florida by 0.88% even though the Black vote for Obama in that state actually declined from 2008.
He lost Florida and its 29 Electoral College votes by 74,309 votes. And how many people turned out to see then vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in one campaign stop in Florida in 2008? 60,000 according to independent reports of the attendance at her “The Villages” address in Orlando. It is beyond imagining that Paul Ryan or any other VP candidate could draw such a crowd.
If Palin had been invited to the 2012 convention to give the keynote address, instead of Christie who not only gave a flat speech but may have handed the election to Obama with his buddying with him after the New Jersey hurricane Sandy disaster. And how is the Establishment’s bright star Christie doing now? Not so good according to noted analyst Harry Enten at Nate Silver’s “FiveThirtyEight” site.
If Romney had stated that Palin would have a prominent role in his administration, if he had given her a prominent role in the campaign, especially in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Colorado which four winnable states would have given Romney, who lost them all, the presidency.
If Palin had been let loose to campaign on her own to attack Obama without handlers, unlike Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt’s disastrous handling of her.
If those simple, common sense strategies had been put in place the millions of conservative voters who stayed home might have held their collective noses and voted for Romney like they did for McCain. Even those who did not vote for Romney because he is a Mormon might have voted for him if Palin had been given the high campaign profile she deserved.
Romney made no use of Palin because he and his advisers were cowed by the MSM into believing in they would lose if they attached her to their campaign. And how did that work out?
If Palin doesn’t run in 2016, or if she enters the lists and doesn’t get the nomination, the GOP candidate, and especially the Republican establishment, would be utterly foolish and utterly cowardly to repeat the mistakes of 2012 and exclude her. If they do they will deserve to lose, again.
