Opinion
Conservatives to Palin: We're in love
By: Jeff Dufour
Editor at Large/Columnist, "Yeas & Nays"
09/01/08 8:12 PM EDT
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| Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin comes off the stage to greet the crowd after appearing with Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., not in photo, during the 'Road to the Convention Rally' at the Erwin J. Nutter Center Friday, Aug. 29, 2008 in Dayton, Ohio. With her are her children Bristol, left, holding Trig, and Willow, center. McCain introduced Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate at the event. |
Across the Republican coalition, talking points are taking shape around Sarah Palin. And it’s a love affair. At a National Journal breakfast on Monday, economic and social conservatives of all stripes agreed that Palin would be an asset to John McCain’s ticket.
Former Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., said her speech will be the “turning point of the convention.”
“She came up in Alaska,” said the American Conservative Union’s David Keene. “And that’s not softball they play up there.” In response to a question of whether she’d face a minefield in her debate with Joe Biden, he added, “No worse of a minefield than Barack Obama faces every time Joe Biden opens his mouth.”
Bass even suggested she has a future should McCain lose. “Anything short of a total flameout makes her a viable candidate [for president] in four years,” he said.
But Palin may have her biggest fan in MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson. The pundit confessed Monday that he was “blinded by love” when it came to the Alaska governor. Why? “Because I’m a hunter, I’m a sportsman and I love women who hunt and fish,” Carlson told an audience gathered at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. “She lives in a part of the country that I admire, and when you see her holding a 30-pound sockeye salmon, I think, ‘I love you.’ ”
