There’s growing speculation from former aids, political journalists, and even Rush Limbaugh himself that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is considering forming a third party alternative for conservatives. Palin, the former GOP vice presidential nominee who stunned the political world by resigning as governor two weeks ago with 18 months left in her term, also posted a link to a column speculating about such a move on her Facebook page. Two articles, one from conservative writer Tammy Bruce, the other from The Washington Times, suggest she may be considering leaving the Republican Party to form a third party alternative.
Radio show host Rush Limbaugh said Palin may leave the GOP and form her own because Republicans have “been just as mean-spirited to her as the Democrats” have. “When I watched her speech when she announced she was going to leave the governorship of Alaska, I didn’t hear the word Republican mentioned once,” Limbaugh said. – NewsMax
Dominant Social Theme: Palin to split from party.
Free-Market Analysis: We return to this theme again today because it is a story that has truly national significance. In the past we have noted that the Republican party is pretty well split between Libertarian Republicans and Conservative Republicans. The Libertarian Republicans did not in fact have a voice until Ron Paul (R-Tex) emerged as a powerful candidate in the 2008 elections. The trouble with the establishment Republican party is that the wing of the party that Ron Paul represents is strong and getting stronger. It appeals actively to conservative Democrats and would actually be a fairly strong base around which to coalesce.
The problem, then, becomes how to take back control of the Republican party – an admittedly damaged brand – without granting Ron Paul the control that he and his supporters wish to take. The conclusion of the leadership wing of the Republican party is apparently that they need to launch new faces and rebrand the party. Sarah Palin fits both needs. She is a relatively fresh face on the Republican scene (a woman, too) – and just to make sure that the rebranding is complete, she is likely to help launch a new party.
There are others as well. Another relatively fresh face on the national scene is Joe Scarborough, who has a new book out and a new radio show with Mika Brzezinski, the daughter of one of the founders of the Trilateral Commission and Secretary of State for Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Scarborough long ago took to branding himself a conservative rather than a Republican. Limbaugh refers to himself regularly as a Conservative, as do many other important spokespeople for the party. The shift in nomenclature began just as soon as Barack Obama won the election, literally the same day it seemed.
The second step of outflanking the Libertarian Republican movement – as we have said – is to create a new party, the Conservative Party. Since third parties are almost impossible to win with in America, the chances are good that this party shall exist in name only or shall be folded back into the larger Republican party at some point. It is actually a flanking effort intended to ensure that the Libertarian wing of the Republican party does not surge forward and become a fully fledged mainstream effort.
Why is all this so important? Because in a sense there are probably more differences between various Republican groups than between Republicans and Democrats. What are the differences between Conservative Republicans and Libertarian Republicans? Conservative Republicans are not strongly against the current central banking economy and are favorably disposed to project America’s militarism abroad and to the Homeland Security apparatus domestically. Libertarian Republicans would like to shrink government and its related appurtenances including the Federal Reserve.
We can see the dilemma that the Republican leadership has faced. The Libertarian wing of the Republican party is gaining strength. But the Republican powers-that-be are oriented around the nation’s military industrial complex. The battle that is being waged currently from a political standpoint is one to co-opt the agenda of Libertarian Republicans and then regraft that agenda onto a larger pro-military, pro-security platform. In order to do this, Republican leaders, in our opinion, are seeking new, undiscredited faces and are removing them temporarily from the party’s damaged brand.
Conclusion: Sarah Palin and Joe Scarborough are part of a much larger and very clever rebranding process that seems to be grass roots but in our estimation is being run by Republican power brokers. There are probably no accidents in politics as Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, and the current expansion of the “conservative” trend is no accident either. It is not aimed at the Democrats, or even Barack Obama so much as it is aimed at controlling what such power brokers believe is truly dangerous, Libertarian Republicans and Ron Paul.
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