Roger Stone: Sarah Palin Had to Leave Alaska

Newsmax interviewed the veteran political consultant (and self-described "GOP hitman") to get his opinion on Gov. Palin’s resignation. Roger Stone’s an old shark in the political sea, someone who knows when there’s blood in the water—and despite what some folks would like to think, he doesn’t smell it here:

Roger Stone . . . believes the only way Sarah Palin could remain a viable presidential candidate in 2012 or beyond was to leave the governorship of Alaska.

“First of all, her administration is mired down by these nuisance lawsuits and ethics complaints from every garden variety left-wing nut paralyzing the state government,” Stone says, noting Palin is governor at a time when the drop in oil prices is contracting her state economy.

[. . .]

“There was nothing to be gained, nothing good that could come out of being governor of Alaska for another 18 months,” Stone tells Newsmax. “On the other hand, there’s no question Sarah Palin’s political imagery needs some repair.”

Stone says the unyielding assault of the liberal media attacking Palin for being homespun, plain spoken, middle class and simple, lead to her decision to repair the political damage. He notes Palin has the most valuable thing a politician can have in presidential politics: she has a favorability rating of more than 20 percent of the American people who say they love her, and more than 60 percent of Republicans.

“She has a national political base,” Stone says. “Mitt Romney does not have that; Haley Barbour does not have that; Charlie Crist doesn’t have that. None of the other potential presidential candidates who’ve been mentioned have that.”

[. . .]

“I think Sarah Palin has that opportunity,” Stone says. “She is hated by the media elite because of what she represents: a homegrown conservative and true outsider. She represents everything the media hates. They don’t believe that unless you went to Yale or Harvard or the right law school. Unless you’re from Washington or New York or the Boston-New York corridor, you couldn’t possibly know anything about America.”

Stone argues in the piece that all Gov. Palin needs to do is to get her message out so that America can see her as she is; he believes that the best way to do this is “a packaged, controlled environment”—which is to say, that she needs to have her own TV show. I’m not convinced, but he’s probably right that Fox would be falling all over itself to give her a job if she wanted one. For my part, I think she’d be better off on the campaign trail for the RNC and giving speeches all over the place, doing her TV work as a guest with folks like O’Reilly, Beck and Hannity. Either way, though, Stone’s right on the key thing: her base is there for whatever she decides to do.