[Bret L]

Where Does Sarah Palin Stand On An Immigration Moratorium?

By Peter Brimelow

"We were in rural Arkansas, staying with my wife’s grandparents, when the news broke that Sarah Palin was the GOP 2008 Vice Presidential pick. Lydia’s grandfather had been showing his gun collection to her stepson, Alexander, and there were, as I recall, sixteen (16) of them laid out at the foot of the stairs, where they stayed for the rest of our visit.

Neither grandparent had ever heard of Palin, but her effect on them
was electric. They instantly identified with every aspect of her—the
blue collar husband, the church membership, the intense family life,
the son entering the Army as an enlisted man (most American soldiers
do not go to West Point, duh), the (undeniably principled) decision
not to abort the Downs syndrome child, the outdoorpersonship. They
even became enthusiastic about the GOP campaign, which they had
previously regarded with deep depression.

McCain-Palin swept Arkansas by 20 points. But what seems to have been
missed in all the uproar about Palin’s just-out autobiography Going
Rogue, and for that matter in much of the commentary about Obama’s
"historic" victory, is that McCain’s wild gamble nearly worked
nationwide too. After Palin’s selection, Real Clear Politics for
example showed him decisively leading Obama in opinion polls and the
Electoral College through much of September—until the blight of Bush,
the McCain campaign’s own utter uselessness, and the worst financial
crisis in eighty years, prevailed.

This is not, as VDARE.COM grumpily pointed out at the time, because of
anything Palin has said on immigration, or on anything much else for
that matter. She is a cultural rather than a political phenomenon. But
she is none the less powerful for that.

Of course, it works both ways. The extraordinary visceral hatred of
Palin obvious in the treatment of her candidacy and her book is
equally cultural in origin—with the arguable exception of the abortion
issue, which is a litmus test issue on the left much more so than on
the right.

The plain fact is that Palin, who says she is half-Irish Catholic and
half WASP, is literally a creature from the black lagoon as far as
much of America’s elite is concerned. For example, she remains
scandalously unashamed that it took her five years and a couple of
regional schools to get her college degree—she had to work her way
through, she points out in exasperated tones—whereas Ivy League
acceptance has become a sacred identity ritual for what Charles Murray
has called the cognitive elite (and for its much-pressured
children).

But the truth is that only about 40% of college degrees are earned in
four years. And nearly a third (29%) of all degrees are earned by part-
time students. So in this respect, as in so much else, it is Sarah
Palin who represents the American experience.

The Palin furor, which Megan McArdle has wittily dubbed "Palinoia", is
simply more evidence that the U.S. is becoming a heterogeneous empire.
Just as Kevin MacDonald has identified the phenomenon of "implicit
communities", into which people group themselves without really
knowing why, so the historic American nation has identified
instinctively with Palin. And its frankly alien ruling class—
epitomized by the Obama Administration, which was decisively rejected
by American whites—has not.

I have now read all 413 pages of Going Rogue—which, given its tight
security. I can guarantee most of its critics have not—and can report
that it’s impressively written and organized, a great credit to
Palin’s ghost, Lynn Vincent, and, it must be said, to Palin, who
presumably had the good judgment to select her. (Typical of what
passes for debate in the U.S. elite, Vincent has been guilted-by-
association as anti-gay and has responded by outing her own sister,
noting that she chose her as a member of her wedding party). It also
shows considerable political discipline, never criticizing McCain
directly, carefully highlighting her support for Israel, suppressing
all mention of the controversy over whether she supported Pat Buchanan
in the 1996 Alaska primary. (She did. Buchanan, with typical chivalry,
has allowed her to deny him).

Going Rogue is also completely convincing, to me, in explaining
Palin’s surprise resignation from Alaska’s governorship. She was
simply overwhelmed by spurious (as in dismissed) ethics complaints,
the costs of which she nevertheless had to absorb personally. The
Palins are not wealthy and it was just too much. Apparently many
commentators simply do not realize that this sort of thing is typical
of the modern managerial state and its legal bureaucracy. Of course,
it means that only the wealthy and sociopathic can risk public office,
and it’s a reason why I called, in my most unpopular article ever, for
vastly increased emoluments for elected officials. It should be noted,
however, that Palin doesn’t seem aware that, as Craig Roberts has
pointed out, Exxon was very similarly coerced over the Exxon Valdez
oil spill.

Two of Going Rogue’s observations struck me as particularly acute.

She perceptively describes Ronald Reagan’s governing technique: "pick
your core agenda issues and focus on those" and have "a steel spine".

And she writes waspishly of "’campaign professionals’…my first
encounter with the unique way of thinking that characterizes this
elite and highly specialized guild. In Alaska, we don’t really don’t
have these kind of people—they are a feature of national politics.
Naturally enough, as the experts, they are used to being in charge…"

Comment has centered on Palin’s criticism of McCain campaign manager
Scott Schmidt, who unimaginatively but typically strove to keep her
caged up. What I find especially telling is that Schmidt’s first
meeting with Palin centered on (of all things!) the Iraq War: he
actually gave her "books on the subject, plus stacks of videos to
review as we travelled from city to city so that I could review the
war’s history at 35,000 feet". Palin not unreasonably thought the
campaign should be talking about the economy, then already in
recession.

The intellectual exhaustion of the Bush Era GOP consultants is plain.
The patriotic response to the war may have facilitated the implicit
Sailer Strategy of 2002 and 2004, but by 2008 it was done.

However, I believe both parties suffer from these "campaign
professional" parasites. They are an important hidden factor in
American politics, driving politicians to do irrational things, like
chiggers driving caribous to jump of cliffs. Right now, I think this
"guild" is an important reason that the immigration issue has not
surfaced, both for NIH reasons and because of the fear of being black-
balled by their Beltway colleagues, regardless of whether it would
work for their candidates.

So where does Sara Palin stand on immigration? The issue is
completely unmentioned in Going Rogue. But, somewhat to VDARE.COM’s
surprise, we have to thank Rush Limbaugh for surfacing it in his
November 17, 2009 interview: Rush Interviews Governor Sarah Palin

When Limbaugh asked Pain about combating unemployment, he got a worthy
but boringly boilerplate answer that could have come from Steve
Forbes:

RUSH LIMBAUGH: We have 10.2% unemployment. We see no end in sight.
The administration and others are suggesting next year could be just
as bad with unemployment going up to 11%. What would you do
differently than is being done now?

GOV. PALIN:…What we need to do is shift gears and really head in
another direction because what we're doing right now with the Fed,
it's not working. We need to cut taxes on the job creators. This is
all about jobs, creating jobs. We have to ramp up industry here in
America, and of course reduce the federal debt, quit piling on and
growing more. But those commonsense solutions there, especially with
the cutting taxes on the job creators, that's not even being
discussed. In fact, increased taxes is the direction it sounds like
Obama wants to go.

Of course, the unemployment antidote that is really not "being
discussed" is an immigration moratorium. The 15.7 million unemployed
in America have to compete against TK million legal immigrants still
pouring in each year. But I don’t altogether blame Palin for not
mentioning the idea because I’m sure she’s never heard of it. (And
she won’t hear of it if it’s up to her alleged discoverer, neocon
immigration enthusiast Bill Kristol, although it may be a hopeful sign
that his name nowhere appears in Going Rogue.)

In contrast, however, Palin is surprisingly up to speed on the
Minority Mortgage Meltdown.

Still, amazingly, Limbaugh went on to ask Palin a direct question
about immigration:

LIMBAUGH: Thirty seconds: Immigration. Can you do it in 30 seconds
before we have to go?

GOV. PALIN: I can't do it in 30 seconds but just know that... You
know, let me put it simply: Illegal immigrants are called "illegal"
for a reason. We need to crack down on this. We need to listen to the
border states where the governors there have some solutions and we
need to get serious about that.

Our Alaska correspondent Ryan Kennedy wrote a sophisticated version of
the instinctive-support theme for us when Palin was nominated last
August, not without resistance from other VDARE.COM writers. He wrote
me about this exchange:

"Rush asked her about immigration in general and her instinct was to
talk about enforcement and imply others didn't want to enforce the
law. She coulda launched into amnesty babble. So she showed a little
bit of tooth. But way too little for the audience she was speaking
to.

"But the comment about the border governors shows naiveté and/or
ignorance. None of those guys want the laws enforced. They're either
too scared of their militant Hispanic groups, or they honestly want
the country swamped.

"Of course that Rush only gave her 30 seconds. I wonder if that was
on purpose? I get paranoid sometimes with guys like Rush on this
issue."

He added in response to my query:

"No I haven't given up on her. But my opinion of her is far, far
lower than when I wrote that fan column a year ago. [An informed
Alaska source, also an immigration patriot] is still a die-hard fan
and I respect his opinion. But I kinda see her as still on the fence."

We have it on the authority of Newsweek magazine that Sarah Palin is a
"problem". I leave the last word to my fellow immigration patriot Ryan
Kennedy:

"Imagine the reaction if she had served up a big plate of red meat for
our kind."

If you want to email or print out, format by clicking on this
permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/pb/091120_palin.htm

[Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!]

On Nov 21, 2:21*am, Bret L wrote:
Where Does Sarah Palin Stand On An Immigration Moratorium?

Do you really care, Bratzi? I mean aside from your fantasies about
humping her, of course.