“The Power Of Palin” – Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Jack Kelly: “Her Critics Have Shot Their Bolt” and Their “Conventional Wisdom” Is Badly Mistaken

Columnist Jack Kelly, writing in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, lays it on the line with a brilliant analysis of,  as he puts it “the power of Palin”  where he sets out that, where she is concerned, “conventional wisdom” has it all wrong. 

He demolishes the arguments against her candidacy “she has left it too late, doesn’t have any organization, has done no fundraising and etc.” Clearly, as he points out, none of these so called arguments hold water, and are in no way any sort of impediment to her announcing a campaign run

Another, highly significant point he makes , is that her critics, especially after the 24,000 emails fiasco, have shot their bolt in respect of possible criticism against her, whereas, as I also set out previously, the likes of e.g. Michele Bachman are going to be hit with a whirlwind of slime the likes of which she has never encountered. Whether she and her campaign can stand up to the for a year remains to be seen. But with Palin, we know she has stood up to the worst campaign of vilification ever mounted and not only is still standing, but standing strong.

Here are some of Kelly’s main points:

According to the conventional wisdom, it may be too late for her to run. Ms. Palin’s done no fundraising, hasn’t built a campaign team. Republicans who supported her are drifting to active campaigns, chiefly that of Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.The conventional wisdom is more conventional than wise. Candidates start early to build name recognition and need a campaign organization to get supporters to the polls.

Sarah Palin has 3.2 million followers on Facebook — about 800,000 more than all the declared GOP candidates combined. Palinistas tend to be the sort who would crawl over ground glass to vote for her. She has less need of a get-out-the-vote operation than any political figure in modern times.The Republican National Committee’s new rules favor late entrants. There will be more delegates in 2012 than ever before. A higher proportion will come from heavily Republican states. All but a handful will be selected after March 1. In the four February contests, 129 delegates are at stake — 23 fewer than in Texas alone.Delegates in the early states must be selected by proportional representation, the RNC says. So whoever wins these contests probably will wind up with fewer than half. After March 1, delegates may be selected on a winner-take-all basis.

The early contests are unlikely to produce a clear frontrunner, but will winnow the field. This is most important for debates. It’s stretching the term when seven or eight candidates are on stage. Cut the field to three or four, and debates have real meaning.

Debates will matter more in 2012 than ever before — especially for Sarah Palin. Thanks to nonstop denigration from the news media and Hollywood celebrities, she polls worse against President Barack Obama than any other GOP candidate. A CBS poll June 8 indicated 54 percent of Republicans don’t want her to run.

A new documentary, “The Undefeated,” opens with a montage of vicious things celebrities have said about Ms. Palin. Viewers at the premier in Pella, Iowa, Tuesday were shocked.

But efforts to portray Ms. Palin as a shrill, stupid snowbilly backfired on the journalists who sought the release of 24,000 emails from her time as Alaska governor.

Liberals hope their sliming of her will keep Ms. Palin from running. But it may be the most important reason why she should.

Prominent journalists already are trying to do to Ms. Bachmann what they did to Ms. Palin in 2008.

Many “mainstream” journalists have abandoned all pretense of fairness, but still expect to be treated as if they were honest brokers. Most Republicans oblige them. Sarah Palin doesn’t. She uses social media to bypass news media “gatekeepers.” That’s one reason so many journalists hate her. They seethe even more because Ms. Palin uses their obsession with her to make them look ridiculous, as she did during her bus vacation in the Northeast last month.

But her critics have shot their bolt where Sarah Palin is concerned. They’ve already said every bad thing they could say about her.

“The Undefeated,” strives to set the record straight. The people in Pella who saw it liked it very much. But most Americans won’t see it.

Which is why debates will be so important if Ms. Palin runs. In them, she’ll either conform to the caricature of her — or demolish it.

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