Sarah Palin: Barack Obama stole the 'Change' theme from me
One of the more surprising claims in Sarah Palin’s new book “Going Rogue” is that her gubernatorial campaign of 2006 was all about “Change” and Barack Obama pinched this idea for his presidential run two years later. She writes on page 114:
Every part of our campaign shouted “Change!” A change in campaign financing: we ran on small donations from all over the state, mostly from first-time political donors, and we turned back some large checks from big donors if we perceived conflicts of interest. A change from photo-op stops to honest conversations with actual voters. A change from emphasizing politics to emphasizing people. A change from smooth talk to straight talk – even then.
We were amused a couple of years later when Barack Obama – one of whose senior advisers (come to think of it) had roots in Alaska – adopted the same theme. Kris [Perry, her closest aide] and I joked about it: “Hey! We were change when change wasn’t cool.”
Earlier in the book (page 6) Palin highlights her change credentials in 2006 by saying that “I figured that maybe between changing state government and changing diapers, we’d help change our corner of the world”.
The Obama adviser Palin is referring to seems to be Pete Rouse, who she describes on page 369 as having “lived in Alaska many years before, returning only on a couple of occasions over the last decade” but maintaining close ties to Democrats in the state. It could, however, be Anita Dunn, who worked for Palin’s opponent in that 2006 race.
Whoever she was referring to, I’d hazard that it’s highly unlikely the Obama campaign latched onto its “change” theme because Palin had used it – not least because “change” is one of the most unoriginal and meaningless campaign themes ever.
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COMMENTS
damn! now i gotta go buy the book
You dislike Palin, but you write good stuff elsewhere, so it’s strange to me that you’d feed your dislike with this phoniness as tho a victim of Palin Derangement Syndrome. Leave it to the David Brooks and David Frums. It would be an interesting column were you to examine the causes of that derangement in yourself. What’s your opinion of her interview with Limabaugh?
Geez, you’re really stretching here Toby. You’re right though; change is unoriginal, but Obama sure milked it. BTW, you lose credibility when linking to Spillius. Furthermore, of all the things in Palin’s book,…this?
Foreigners taking shots at The Palin? Bring it on…
Bimbo with a pumped up ego……very dangerous.
Toby, Gotta agree with Mark Adams. Bad PDS, man. And you’re so good in every other way. Why does Palin cause you to go off the rails?
So Palin and a cohort run a campaign based on a “Change” theme and two years later Palin and her cohort see someone else doing the same thing and have a laugh. Please, it’s not like they think no politician ever ran on “Change” (see Bill Clinton).
And the DT headline is…
“Sarah Palin claims she inspired Barack Obama’s ‘change’” By Alex Spillius and Meghan Cassin in Washington (your colleagues).
Not to belabor the obvious but, sorry, there’s no such “claim” made. Bad PDS.
But, you have to take it a step further. You say she’s claiming Obama’s people “STOLE”!?!? (that’s a felony) the “Change” theme?????
Come on, man. Go throw some cold water on you face. Get over it.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made here but this is ridiculous. Bad PDS.
Well we always knew Palin was a joke! but now we know from this she is the Joker in the Pack! – Why did she choose to wipe off the face of the earth the father of her grandchild? she was quick to use him in the campaign!
First, I don’t think Toby has Palin Derangement Syndrome. OTH, I’d never link to a Spillius article unless using it as an example of PDS, bias, bad journalism or some other such thing. Spilly has many ’syndromes’, Palin is the least of them. Maybe it’s Alex’s birthday and Toby is being nice to him. Who knows?
Second, Palin does nothing for me. That is, unless, you count inexplicably driving liberals and Europeans batsh*t crazy. In those instances, she is priceless.
BTW, I hear AP has assigned 11 reporters to ‘fact-check’ her book. They assigned ZERO to fact check Obama’s tomes. Amazing.Go Sarah! Shoot another wolf! Throw a live turkey into the wood-chipper! Give us a wink!!! Wooooo-hoooooo!
Toby doesn’t have Palin Derangement Syndrome. He is simply calling it as he sees it with regard to this particular advance excerpt from her book. Expressing surprise and noting that’s it’s unlikely that her 2006 campaign inspired Obama’s tactic is hardly symptomatic of derangement.
As for the title of the blog, Toby may have written it or it could be a new title or an edited version concocted by a copy editor. It’s happened before.
Count me as someone who had a problem with Palin taking the VP nomination with a pregnant teenage daughter – thereby depriving the daughter, the boyfriend and the grandson of privacy for the rest of their lives. Count me as someone who believes unwed pregnancies of teenage girls is destroying minority communities and is becoming way too prevalent through society – destroying the life of the young mother and giving her child or children virtually no chance at a decent life. I am not in any way demonizing Bristol Palin, but I can’t begin to understand the Republican and conservatives’ easy acceptance of putting this girl’s pregnancy into the mainstream as acceptable. I thought the idea is to get the message to teenage girls that unwed teenage pregnancy is not acceptable.
I agree with Toby. Candidates all over the place campaign on “change.” It is hardly a novel platform. Of course usually the media bothers asking the candidate exactly what kind of change he has in mind, especially when he speaks of “transformational” change, as Obama did. Of course nobody thought to ask Obama what he meant.
I do not have Palin Derangement Syndrome. I thought she was not ready for prime time, but, then, she had no notice she was going to be in prime time. So she didn’t do the months of prep work most candidates do before running for national office. Coming from Alaska, she especially needed the prep. She may sound a lot more prepared and knowledgeable as she does the homework. She will also probably do a lot better when not answering to handlers working for someone else. The one thing she needs no improvement on is giving convention speeches.
Got PDS?
Relax with a nice Broadway play:
UTERUS! : A Musical by andrew Sullivan
http://naturalfake.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/uterus-a-musical-by-andrew-sullivan/
“Whoever she was referring to, I’d hazard that it’s highly unlikely the Obama campaign latched onto its ‘change’ theme because Palin had used it – not least because ‘change’ is one of the most unoriginal and meaningless campaign themes ever.”
Ah, but just add “hope” to “change” and you get the most originalest and awesomest campaign theme evah!!!!
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