Jennifer Brooks: Sarah Palin's Side Trip
Via Jennifer Brooks at Tennessean.com:
The National Tea Party Convention wasn’t Sarah Palin’s first stop in Nashville on Saturday.Read the rest here. That Governor Palin attended this meeting is significant. Some in the media have said she hasn't been doing the behind the scenes work necessary for a potential future run. Her presence at Scooter Clippard's home is inconsistent with this meme.
Before she headed to Opryland to address a crowd of 1,100 ticketholders and some 200 national and international journalists, the former vice presidential candidate made a quiet detour to the Nashville home of B.C. “Scooter” Clippard, to meet some of the Tennesseans she’d want by her side if she does make a run for the White House in 2012.
“It’s amazing how people believe in her,” said Clippard, one of the state’s high-octane Republican fundraisers whose past efforts have funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns ranging from George W. Bush to Fred Thompson to John McCain. “I’ve gotten calls and emails from people who were in that room who would love to help her with her cause, who wanted to help her with donations to her PAC…I’m telling you, she radiates.”
About 30 guests came out to meet Palin and her 8-year-old daughter Piper on Saturday afternoon. The group ranged from gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey to country singer John Rich, who toured with the McCain/Palin campaign in 2008. Lee Beaman, president of Lee Beaman Automotive Group in Nashville, gave away his tickets to Palin’s Tea Party speech for a chance to see her up close.
“She immediately started asking a lot of questions about me,” said Beaman, who said Palin peppered him with questions about how he was coping withe recent Toyota recalls and how car sales were faring in the economy in general. “I kept trying to talk politics with her and she kept redirecting the conversation to talk about me. In one sense, it was frustrating because I wanted to talk politics. But on the other hand, how often do you find a politician who’s genuinely interested in what you have to say?”
(H/T Laurie)
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As someone who has, from time to time, sailed Tennessee's political waters, I can tell you - this is huge.
Ok
It is huge. I know a guy involved in TN politics and he says that this guy is THE heavy hitter. The MSM's going to cling to their screenplay. How do they know what she's doing behind the scenes if it's behind the scenes?
I love how she can even disarm the bigwigs.
What happened to C4P's Twitter? It seems to have disappeared.
That's the result of the valuable small town mayor experience. When I was reading the chapter in "Going Rogue" on the Wasilla mayoral years, the one thing that stood out for me the most was her gift of retail politics. I thought to myself, if she ever runs for president and wins, you can point back to her experience as Mayor of Wasilla. People mock her small town mayor years, but those were the POTUS-in-training years.
We all know that the media and all her supporters follow her movements pretty closely..... but I will bet you there are far more meetings and get-togethers like this that we have no clue about. What we see in public is probably only a small part of what she is up to.
Even if she decides for whatever reason not to run for President, I am not worried.... because she will be a positive force for conservative ideas for some time and will help influence candidates and programs for many years. As I posted the other day, she may actually be able to change more not being President because that is really a nice bullypulpit, but if the Congress and Senate don't follow you, you can't do a damn thing. She could change more as a powerful populist having the ability to force change.
Thanks Doug,
<span>OT: Caught Andrea Mitchell last night and had to laugh and cry at the same time... Laughing because Ms Andrea totally lost it in her school girl attempt at mocking Sarah and in the process reinforced Sarah's labeling her and all her cohorts as Lame Stream Media. As for crying, on second thought!... Im still laughing and gloating, used to be ashamed and apprehensive at loosing what used to be main media source independence in America, but no more!
FOX'y Sarah once again, as she did in the VP speech of the century, and now with the palm of her hand held out... said! we barbarians, we win-you lose!
Also caught Bob Beckel on Hannity... Im waiting for Shaun to have Sarah sitting right next to him on the great american panel... his ratings would blow the roof off... it would be like the VP debate where Biden met Sarah... his death panel of one!
Bottom line... happy beyond words for Sarah, she's providing Americans of all persuasions a reality check!... a "<span>Bridge to Reality<span>" as our beloved <span>Brianus.B</span>so eloquently coined it yesterday... Sarah provided the plan for the bridge through faithfulness to her God and country, we her loyal followers, are supporting and encouraging her as we together are now seeing it actually built... every Sarah event and interview and speech and her magic personality of poking fun and humor to all who care to play the game.</span></span></span>
SIgn Sarah's virtual facebook Birthday Card! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=296766922019&ref=mf#!/event.php?eid=296766922019&ref=mf
This is really interesting news. She is making tons of right moves these days. It has to tick the media off that she is not following the path they have set out for her :)
IMO, a great FNC piece for Sarah to develop/produce/narrate would be to criss-cross the country and interview at least five dealership families who were forced by Big Brother to close down their Chrysler, GMC, etc dealerships last year. Most of these families' dealerships were multi-generational. She could interview the sales people, mechanics, etc who all lost their jobs almost overnite.
BTW, Sarah didn't mention this in her book, but in Kaylene Johnson's book "Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Politics Upside Down", Kaylene wrote that as Mayor of Wasilla, she had a candy jar with the names of her constituents, and each day she would pick a name and go to their house and ask them what concerned them. She LISTENS, and she cares. The major complaint about Obama and Washington these days is that they don't listen. See the contrast and how the mood of the nation is longing for someone like Sarah?
My nephew and brother-in-law will be at the Daytona 500, at the invitation of a NASCAR exec. They have really good seats in the grandstand. I hope they get to see Sarah.
Reading the comments on this Nashville paper article makes me sad for this country.
I blame the NEA (the edumication organisation, not the arts one). If Obama had not have come along, they'd still be trying to invent him.
The Beamans are one of Nashville's most successful family dynasties. They own several automotive dealerships, a Pepsi bottling franchise, and a host of other businesses. Getting his endorsement would be no small thing.
Check it out! I added my handgate photo to her virtual card! LOL
I'm betting that almost all the negative comments come from Chicago, NY, Los Angeles, and not from TN
Like I wrote on an earlier thread: this is the story of the day. She did this in Iowa, too. This is the thing that tells me she is definitely running. She's mastering the personal relationships with the heavy hitters and talking economics and business with them that lets them know that she cares <span>about what their business and their interests are going through.</span>
She's willing to go to bat for American Capitalism. That means a lot to these people. They don't want a squish. They want a Reagan. These guys all backed RR back in the Day, and they need to believe again.
Just like Nixon in '65.
I love gardunne's idea. Can we somehow find a way to get that point across to Sarah's team? This would be wonderful.
If you follow Sarah's schedule all of these days you can see she met with tons of 1st tier/2nd tier heavy hitters. Salina? She arrived a day earlier. Don't you think she met some of these hitters. What about in Texas. After the Perry rally don't you think she went with him and had a Super Bowl Party with some heavy Texas hitters. Then in Redding California. She arrived and disappeared for a couple of hours. Don't you think she met some hitters in California. Folks just because she is avoiding DC doesn't mean she is not connecting across America.
Not only were they shut down, but several top dealerships were shut down, dealerships who were still making money and had not business reason to be shut down.
There was a little noise about this last year, but never widespread. Another HUGE story the agenda-driven media ignored...
not = no
Actually, the arts one IS to blame as well.
I have witnessed this first hand. Before her keynote address last Friday, the Chamber of Commerce in Salina, Kan. showed a 5-6 minute video about local businesses. Many in the audience, and even folks up on the stage with Sarah at the head table, tuned out the video and were chatting. People were by and large ignoring the video on the large screen.
But not Sarah. Sarah cranked her neck to the side to see every second of the video. I watched her. Her eyes remained on the video. It was actually a telling picture. Almost nobody among the head honchos was watching the video but HER. I watched her with fascination. She took notes about some of the people in it. Who else would give a darn? The people in that video weren’t famous — they were just local business owners; some of them owned larger corporations. But it’s not like Salina, Kan. is critical to Sarah’s political future. Kansas always votes Republican for president. Yet, she gave people the respect of listening to their stories. If I were someone featured in that video I would have been impressed. Because Sarah DOES listen. She DOES care. We see it over and over and over again. That’s someone I would love to see representing the people in DC.
Oh, but maybe some of those business owners WILL be critical to Sarah's future. That's the thing. Sarah shines in retail politics because she genuinely care, but that genuine caring translates into political power. It's a virtuous cycle.
I can find it in a search, but when I go to the page it isn't there. All the C4P tweets are gone. Twitter glitch? Someone better investigate.
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