Republicans, flailing against the extremism they’ve cultivated, thought it wise to send Sarah Palin to Kansas to help Republican Senator Pat Roberts try to keep his senate seat from Independent candidate Greg Orman.
Palin gave her usual pep talk — including the requisite Palinism of “invicted” — to the “a couple hundred” attendees at a pancake breakfast with Senator Pat Roberts in Kansas Thursday morning. Palin told the crowd she supported Roberts because “he is a conservative.”
There wasn’t a lot of policy talk, but then, Republicans can’t afford policy talk these days. She did praise Roberts’ part in the government shutdown, though, which is very unpopular with all but hardcore conservatives.
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Per The Washington Post:
Palin praised Roberts as a rock-ribbed conservative “who will fight like our country’s future depends on it.” And the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee thanked Roberts for standing alongside Cruz in filibustering funding for President Obama’s signature health-care law, a move which resulted in the shutdown.
“He’s not wishy-washy on the fence like you know who, the other guy,” Palin said, a reference to Roberts’s opponent, independent candidate Greg Orman. “I am so thankful because we need those with that stiff spine, with the principles that are so invicted [sic] within them, that they take a side.”
Not all of Kansas was impressed. Resident Marsha Hayes told KWCH12, “Probably for me, going to see Sarah Palin would be the equivalent of having your teeth cleaned.”
Indeed. Hayes joins the majority of the country in this sentiment, as Sarah Palin is one of the most unpopular “politicians” in the country. In 2013, polls showed that Palin not only are Alaskans done with her, but if Palin ran in 2016 she would lose Alaska by 16 points to the Democrat Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical race. Ouch.
Michael Tomasky writing in the Daily Beast used the words “mediocre” and “malevolent” in the same sentence analyzing the Republican Senator, so it makes perfect sense that said Senator would align himself with Sarah Palin, who is a heady combination of both. Tomasky wrote, “The more one studies Roberts, the more one concludes that he is the kind of fellow that former Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska had in mind when he famously quipped that mediocre people are entitled to a little representation, too. Mediocre at best, malevolent at worst.”
What can be more mediocre and malevolent at the same time than throwing cowardly shots at the President, accusing him of being Hitler by referencing his fictional “national socialism”? This is Pat Roberts’ big plan to save his Senate seat. When you want to toss a dirty bomb, you call Sarah Palin.
But not everyone found Palin to be teeth cleaning bad. A starry-eyed Republican told KWCH that Palin was great for the Republican Party. A young man said he “loves” Sarah Palin. And that’s really the problem for the modern GOP, and it is definitely Pat Roberts’ problem in Kansas.
Pat Roberts is in jeopardy right now to Independent Greg Orman because Governor Brownback purged moderate Republicans from the state legislature 2012, causing many Kansas Republicans to rebel. Who led the Tea Party charge that is destroying the Republican Party? Sarah Palin.
In other words, Republicans have the crazy vote. They have the Tea vote. They have the frothing angry vote. The idea is to branch out from crazy to somewhere near the middle, so as to get a larger tent. One doesn’t do this invoking National Socialism and Sarah Palin.
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