Conservative mdia knew Palin before pick

Dave Jamieson:

When Senator John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate two Fridays ago, the first-term governor and would-be vice president was a complete stranger to the vast majority of Americans. But, as we soon found out, she had already charmed not just her fellow Alaskans and a devoted University of Colorado at Colorado Springs undergraduate student--the one who launched "Draft Sarah Palin" early in 2007--but also some of the most influential members of D.C.'s conservative establishment. Who were her earliest boosters in the chattering class, and how did they fall so hard, so fast?

The love affair officially began in June 2007, when a 936-foot ship, bearing some of the country's leading conservative pundits, cut through the Alaskan seas. It was The Weekly Standard's annual summer cruise, and though Fred Barnes, the magazine's executive editor, could expect to lead some panel discussions with former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson and perhaps enjoy the ship's Vegas-style lounge, he didn't imagine he'd wind up writing a glowing profile on the next star of the Republican Party.

"I had no plan to stop and see her," Barnes says now. "I wasn't that ahead of the curve."

Someone from an Alaska Republican women's club arranged a social meeting, figuring Barnes and company would find a lot to like in the governor. "This wasn't The Nation cruise, after all," says Barnes. Indeed, Barnes found Palin "quite impressive and likeable and smart and pretty." In his piece that followed, entitled "The Most Popular Governor," he saluted the newbie politician's "eye-popping integrity," running down her impressive scorecard on bread-and-butter conservative issues, like fiscal accountability. The Weekly Standard would become one of Palin's strongest proponents leading up to the veep nomination, with editor Bill Kristol eventually stepping out in June to name her the smart choice.

Rising gas prices gave Palin the opportunity to impress another key Republican constituency: the pro-business, oil-friendly, anti-regulation wing of the party. Back in January, Palin had penned an op-ed for The New York Times arguing against the idea of protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. As governor she had been unequivocally advocating for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)--a proposition that McCain had been opposing, to the dismay of many in the conservative base. But here was an attractive, plainspoken Alaskan, with a blue-collar husband in the oil business, who seemed dying to drill in her backyard.

Such credentials won Palin some highly influential admirers, most notably Larry Kudlow, the host of CNBC's "Kudlow & Company," and Rush Limbaugh. Touting her oil stance on his show in late June, Limbaugh gushed, "Here is a female Republican who is willing to gut it up." (Just a few months earlier, Limbaugh wasn't sure how to pronounce Palin's name, though he'd seen a photograph of her. "She's a housewife," he said back in February. "Before that, she's a babe.")

Kudlow, who describes his attitude on ANWR as "drill drill drill," says he hadn't heard of her until this spring. "Somebody tipped me off to Palin--I can't remember who. He just said, 'You ought to get her on your program. She'll defend [drilling in] ANWR, and nobody else will.' She came on the program, and we hit the bid pretty fast." Kudlow even managed to coax Palin into chiding McCain over his early anti-drilling stance. "I had interviewed everyone over the course of a year who was running for president or vice-president, and to tell you the truth, her knowledge and delivery on-air really impressed me. She has a better grasp of the energy story than anyone, and she has an attractive personality." Kudlow named Palin his favorite pick in late July.

In one of his columns in early June, influential conservative columnist Jack Kelly did the same. Kelly acknowledged Palin's relative anonymity, but argued there was nothing for conservatives not to love. Undeterred by her lack of big-office experience, Kelly painted her as a reform-minded fiscal conservative with the perfect personal background--Sarah Barracuda the hoops star, a mother of five with an NRA membership. He proclaimed her the "one potential running mate who has virtually no downside." Yet, like others, Kelly says he hadn't heard of Palin until just a few weeks before lending his support. He says a friend who was an ardent fan of Palin's urged him to take a look at the governor.

"A lot of liberals don't understand: Real Republicans are disgusted with the Republican Congress because it was corrupt and it was cowardly," Kelly now says, as surprised as anyone by McCain's choice. "Sarah Palin took on a corrupt Republican establishment in Alaska. Ask the normal rank-and-file Republican what they think of people like Ted Stevens, and you'll get them fuming. Sarah took them on and beat them. That's why she's a conservative folk hero."

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They all got it, but Kelly really nails her appeal to those of us disgusted with the way Republicans in Congress squandered their majority on bridges to nowhere. There is a real hunger for a Congress that will just stop it. She is also right on the energy issue and the voters are on the same side. She seems to be the only one who gets its on this issue and she is not going to be dissuaded by a bunch of goo-goo environmentalists.

Jamieson also discusses her appeal to other conservatives including Glenn Beck.