Governor Palin Welcomed at CPAC

Governor Palin spoke at CPAC on Saturday, delivering the Keynote address to an overflow crowd, and  her address was enthusiastically received, but I noticed something else.  Not everybody in the room was there merely to hear her speak, as a segment of the audience serenaded her with their rendition of “Happy Birthday,” as Saturday was indeed her birthday.  There was a brief incident a few minutes into her address when some “Occupiers” who had made it into the room made a ruckus.  Never satisfied to let anything go by without negative drama, “Occupiers” created some sort of disturbance, and were immediately overpowered by the crowd, and then Sarah Palin, with “USA USA USA.”  The Occu-pests were escorted quickly from the room and Governor Palin pointed out to the crowd how easy it had been to win.

There were many highlights in this speech, far too numerous to catalog here, but I’d like to bring your attention to a few.  She discussed the fact that our country is in trouble, and that we must be united to restore it.  She warned:

“We are not red Americans, we are not blue Americans; We are red white and blue, and President Obama, We are through with you!”

The crowd roared their approval, leaping up to yet another standing ovation.  When it came to the theme of her speech, it was clearly to rev up the crowd for the election season ahead, and citing the lack of a federal budget for more than one-thousand days(actually over 1100 now,) she said of his spending priorities, simply:

“He mucked it up!”

Again the crowd applauded on its feet in collective approval.  She went on to talk about the decline of the nation at the hands of Barack Obama’s government, and of the looming disaster hanging over all our heads, for generations to come, she vowed:

“So help me, God, it is not a future we will ever accept!”

In one instance, she likened the corrupting tendencies of the permanent political class in Washington DC not to a “swamp,” but instead to a “hot tub with jacuzzi.”

Governor Palin is an astonishingly effective public speaker and politician precisely because she believes in America, and in constitutional conservatism, but more importantly, because she communicates with the raw force of simple ideas that have withstood the tests of time and crisis.

She said that once the nomination battle had concluded, she would support any of these because Obama must go.  That united the crowd that clearly suffered a divide along the lines of the various contenders, because all then stood in a rousing standing ovation.

This has been my only discomfort with the speech, because here was one  politician who clearly motivated and inspired the over-sized crowd(minus the aforementioned handful of Occu-pests, who were inspired in another way.) None of the Presidential contenders who made speeches at CPAC this week had attracted this kind of crowd, nor this kind of enthusiastic support.  This leads me to a conclusion and some of my readers may again chastise me for it,  but the question is aimed squarely at the GOP establishment, and to a certain degree, at us:  I believe we are running the wrong candidate, because among all those still in the race, none of them have roused quite this level of overwhelming support.

Governor Palin is able to inspire people because they perceive her as real, genuine, and sincere, and she connects with them in a way I haven’t seen in a politician in a long time, if ever.  To see her sidelined in 2012 is disheartening to many, and having talked to a few who were in the room, the end of her speech was a sort of let-down, because, as one asked me directly: “What are we doing?  Why isn’t she our candidate?”

Having replayed the speech two full times, and having now examined closely the reactions of the crowd, I can’t help but agree with my friend.  The establishment may not like her, but the grass-roots conservatives love her, and the GOP establishment’s attempts to diminish her is a strategy they undertake at their own peril.  Governor Palin is able to rouse audiences from their seats, and conservatives in general from complacency, and even the Occu-pests cannot resist her, the last of these drawn like moths to a flame singing their wings.   It’s not possible to ignore that while some in the media, and in the party establishments have claimed she is “irrelevant,” today’s keynote address and the response of the crowd clearly demonstrates the fallacy of that meme.

Well done indeed, Governor Palin, and Happy Birthday!

Here is the complete video, in three segments(Courtesy the Barracuda Brigade):