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Sarah Palin And Occupy Could Be Friends

CPAC culminated with a dozen standing ovations for Sarah Palin. The queen of conservatism told the audience, “The President says small Americans, small-town Americans—we bitterly cling to our religion and our guns. You say, I say, we say—keep

CPAC culminated with a dozen standing ovations for Sarah Palin. The queen of conservatism told the audience, “The President says small Americans, small-town Americans—we bitterly cling to our religion and our guns. You say, I say, we say—keep your change. We’ll keep our God. We’ll keep our guns.”

Throughout the three days of CPAC it didn’t really matter what a speaker said from the podium; if they hated on Obama or talked about guns, Washington insiders, the liberal media, God or Reagan, they were hailed by the audience.

Every major candidate did their best to bring all those factors into their speeches, but Palin, not a candidate and surprisingly still relevant, did it best.

On her 48th birthday, she extolled Washington’s wealthy and joked with Obama’s slogans to the amusement of her adoring audience. At one point a group of occupy protesters attempted to mic-check her mid-speech, but were drowned out by loud chants of USA! USA! then Sarah! Sarah!

Washington Post.

Back then, she was flirting with running for President and she also pitched an economic plan. She called for an end to tax loopholes, corporate welfare and bailouts.

Today, she didn’t delve into economic policies, instead choosing to stay focused on attacking Obama and hyping up the conservative base.

But just the brief mention of crony capitalism was important. Even her restraint to not criticize the protesters (she told the audience they won after the protesters left) meant she might understand her Tea Party and their Occupy share similar populist ideas. The roots of the real Tea Party lie in a backlash against the bailouts.

If there’s going to be dramatic change in the political system it’s going to take more than one side screaming at the other, clinging to their guns or to their tents. And while it’s easy for Democrats to belittle the Tea Party as an astroturfing movement and for the Republicans to belittle Occupy as stinky vandals, it’s far more difficult to build coalitions behind common causes.

I was happy to see protesters and conference attendees debating amicably on the sidewalk across from the hotel as I left CPAC. After three days of listening to unquestioned attacks on liberals from Republicans, it was nice to see legitimate conversations.

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