Friday, April 2, 2010

Palin Charms Midland, Texas

Great article in My West Texas:
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Conservative or Liberal, Right or Left, or somewhere in the vast spectrum of gray between Red and Blue, how on Earth could anyone not like - either be inspired by, bemused by, awed by or appalled by - Sarah Palin?

Not only is she an arousing and invigorating political wonder with evangelistic zeal and the moxie and alluring looks of a 46-year-old youthful cheerleader smartly attired, but Sarah Palin is an entertaining and spirited revolutionary yelling for a return to constitutional government and, were it attainable, self-reliance.

That is an image of the spirited Sarah Palin.

Across the nation (and in Midland last week), Sarah Palin is delivering a hellfire message, laced with homey frills and cutesy phraseology, that evokes attention: "You Betcha!" and "How's that 'hopey-changey' thing working out for you?" and "Our government is supposed to be working for us."

Her tone is upbeat and optimistic, though she does lament the nation's woes.

"We've had enough (of big government and big-government spending), and we want to take our country back," she declares to her exuberant audience. Her political rainbow is a "government that allows us to live as we choose" and does "not tell us how to live...."

Midland's Clayton W. Williams Jr., West Texas rancher, oilman and adventurer who was the Republican Party's 1990 candidate for Texas governor, said Sarah Palin is "presidential material."

Williams, "very impressed" by the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, said he "liked her wit. I liked her appearance, and I now think she's presidential material. I like her conservative stance. She's definitely got the intelligence and nearly two more years to continue to grow. She's already grown a lot since she was the VP candidate. Her bearing is such that I think she'd make a good president."

Her self-esteem seems intact and booming. As both the literate and unlearned populous surely knows, she is not by disposition a quitter, though she did bow out of the Alaska governorship (2006-2009) to pursue personal and political interests following her bold run for America's vice-presidency in 2008.

One of her favorite poets, Robert Service, the "Bard of the Yukon," penned in the poem "The Quitter":

"It's easy to cry that you're beaten - and die; It's easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight - Why, that's the best game of them all!

Just have one more try - it's dead easy to die, It's the keeping-on-living that's hard...."

"She's sharp as hell," said Midland investor Tom Sloan, apparently somewhat smitten by this "good, God-fearing lady. Anybody who sits down with her will like her, whether you happen to agree with her or not. I guarantee you: If she runs for president, I will vote for her. She's very conservative and very, very intelligent." Furthermore, "Nobody is going to push her around."

While he noted that he "doesn't know enough to comment about her," retired Midland sports editor Ted Battles said, "All I know, she made quite a splash when she came to Midland."

Last year, Midland ranchers T. O. Midkiff and wife Carol Ann Midkiff invited Sarah Palin and her husband to join them and friends in their annual September Dove Hunt around the Midkiff community southeast of Midland. They couldn't make it. Sarah Palin personally wrote Carol Ann Midkiff, who penned the invitation, and said "I loved the invitation . . . . Thank you so much for thinking of us. All the best . . . . God bless."

"She is the most common-sense person we've had around Washington or anywhere else in a long time," T.O. Midkiff said. "She speaks and talks sense. And she's not hard to look at, either."

His wife agreed with him, saying that Sarah Palin delivered "a wonderful speech" in Midland without benefit of a teleprompter, was "darling with the little children" in a question-and-answer session, and "she has pretty legs." In fact, Carol Ann Midkiff said Sarah Palin is "pretty (all over)."

Connie Harris, who organized a group of youthful "cheerleaders" sporting pink "Palin Event Staff" T-shirts in Midland, characterized Sarah Palin as "fresh" and particularly found her appealing as a "mom."

Sarah Palin's appeal to America is in "her logical, common-sense approach, her viewpoint and her genuinely natural sincerity," said Denise Kelly, conservative Republican stalwart. "She is an encourager and an optimistic problem-solver who has a gift for spreading the conservative message."

Vivacious and personable, Sarah Palin stokes her popularity by staging herself, a one-act political vaudevillian and pacemaker, with grit and flair.

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