Has Sarah Palin Forfeited the Role of Uniting Conservatives?

I believe that Governor Sarah Palin had the potential and many opportunities over the last 3 years to unite us in much the same way that Ronald Reagan did when he built his coalition between 1976 and 1980. The fact that she did not isn’t because Governor Palin herself is divisive, but because we Conservatives are a cantankerous and factious bunch who tend to eat our own and fight over degrees of commitment to the principles we hold dear.

“We’ll keep our God, we’ll keep our guns, we’ll keep our Constitution.”

Palin gave what should be a unifying,  landmark speech at the Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC). She warned against turning on our candidates,

  “We know that the far left and their media allies can’t beat us on the issues, so instead, they distort our records,” she said. “They’ll even attack our families. Let’s not do the job for them. OK, Republicans? OK, independents?”

The news contains report after report about Palin’s passionate speech to an overflow crowd who cheered her with even more passion.  Human Event’s Tony Lee is not the only one who asked, “. . . how many who were listening to the speech were coming to the realization that Palin should be the GOP nominee for president?”

The problem is that Palin refused to be the candidate. Worse, she still has not supported any of the candidates, and her words at CPAC are being used to “do the job.”

Palin delayed her announcement about whether she would run for too long, adding to – or at least enabling – the very division and conflict within the Conservative movement that she told us to avoid in her CPAC speech.

While Mitt Romney,Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum were visiting Iowa and New Hampshire long before announcing their candidacies, Palin coyly deferred any commitment to running. The very loyal and enthusiastic Palin supporters went on the attack against anyone who looked like a possible candidate in their hope that she would run. The rhetoric continued even after the announcement that she would not run, with those same supporters interpreting Palin’s comments to justify building up or tearing down through many re-shufflings of the front-runners.

And now, rather than calling for unity among Conservative voters, Palin seems to be supporting a brokered convention. Well, just as I called for her to make a decision about running for President, I’m asking her to use her power and skills to bring us together behind one of the Conservatives, whether an announced candidate or not.

I have a little crush on Big Government’s Andrew Breitbart. In “The Undefeated” documentary on Sarah Palin that was released last year by Steve Bannon, Mr. Breitbart chastised the rest of the Republican men for their failure to defend and protect Governor Palin. And Mr. Breitbart delivered my favorite line of the entire week in his speech on the “silver pony tail gang,” that morphed from the anti-war movement to the Occupiers : “Ask not what the candidate can do for you, ask what you can do for the candidate!”(full video here)

Governor Palin, please join Mr. Breitbart and me in our march against the Occupiers and Barack Obama.