Hillary Clinton: No Sarah Palin

I was honored to be at Sarah Palin's Rally, which drew a huge crowd, in Beaver County, PA. She was splendid. She compared "Joe the Plumber" with "Barack, the Wealth Distributor."

The following is an e-mail to many hundreds of my political allies -- some of them closer allies than others.

Right now, the election boils down to this: If John McCain prevails in Florida, Ohio, AND Pennsylvania, he has a fighting chance to win the election. If he doesn't, he won't. That means we need tens of thousands of people to go to JohnMcCain.com, use the Online Phone Bank, and call into those three states.

After Nov. 5, no matter what happens the day before, I intend to work with kindred spirits, particulary the people at http://moderconservative.com/ to build a huge organization of activists who will win federal elections in 2010, 2012, and beyond.

After Nov. 4, "NoBama Mission Bloggers" will cease to exist. There will be another organization with a new name, but (I hope) with a lot of the same players.

In this election year, I focused on Hillary Supporters who would consider voting for John McCain, and later for McCain-Palin. Frankly, I thought there would be more of them than turned out to be the case. I believed -- and was partially correct -- that John McCain's status as a military hero, a reformer, and independent spirit would have great appeal.

Some people receiving this note believed that it would be possible to "reform" the DNC and the Democratic Party. Honestly, I thought (and now I know) they were engaged in a fantasy. Who exactly was going to reform the Party? Barack Obama? Howard Dean? Jay Rockefeller? Bob Casey? John Kerry? John Edwards? Ted Kennedy? Hillary Clinton?

Those people apparently are quite happy with the Party as it is. They have all enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama, a man having no accomplishments in the past and showing little promise of any in the future.

My low point in dealing with Hillaryites came when I highly praised John McCain's naming of a strong woman as his vice presidential choice. One woman told me that by saluting Gov. Palin so highly I had made Hillary Clinton look bad by comparison.

Actually, I made no comparison, but if I had, my critic would have been right: HRC is NO Sarah Palin, not even close. Unlike Hillary, Sarah cannot be intimidated, cannot be made to toe the Party line, cannot be dismissed as someone who ever rode her spouse's coattails. She has the courage, compassion, and candor we should require in political candidates. "Country first" is the right motto for such an admirable woman and her remarkable family.

Gov. Palin has said that her goals for America are a society that promotes "freedom, tolerance/fairness, and opportunity." I don't know of any Democratic elected officials who share those goals. I know some individual Democrats do -- generally people in transition toward becoming either Independents or Republicans.

I believe Barack Obama (and Joe Biden) are the fulfillment of what Lyndon Johnson called "The Great Society." What that "Great" aim led to was a society in moral and cultural disarray, one where half the people are dependent on the other half. In that kind of society, concepts like freedom, tolerance/fairness, and opportunity become mere words.

In the future, I'll be dealing mainly with moderates and conservatives, almost all of whom will be either Republicans or Independents. In terms of candidates, I'll be looking for people of uncommon honesty and courage. Candidates who are poll-driven cynics and careerists will be the enemy, because they are so destructive of our country.

I wish John McCain and Sarah Palin all the best on election day. I will continue to work hard for them, and I hope all of you will do so also.

For some of you, this is a good-bye message. For others, it is a pledge to work with you to build a stronger America. But God bless to all.