True North

Saturday night, I watched Sarah Palin deliver a spell-binding, stirring speech that, I suspect, reached well beyond the GOP's traditional conservative base. In doing so, Sarah Palin demonstrated that this movement isn't confined to the Republican Party, though she emmphasized that the "Republican Party would be very smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible."

One of her best lines was about Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts:

The White House blames their candidate, and Nancy Pelosi, she blamed the Senate Democrats, and Rahm Emanuel, he criticized a pollster. And yet again, President Obama, he found a way to make this all about George Bush. When you're 0-for-3, you'd better stop lecturing and start listening.

Gov. Palin spent a substantial amount of time during opening portion of her hour-long speech criticizing President Obama's foreign policy, first saying this:

Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at great risk. To win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.

After that, she leveled this shot on President Obama's SOTU speech:

It's no wonder that our president only spent about 9 percent of his State of the Union address discussing national security, foreign policy, because there aren't a whole lot of victories he can talk about.

The best tweak she gave to President Obama, though, was this line:

Well, a special hello to the C-SPAN viewers. You may not be welcome in those health care negotiations but you have an invitation to the TEA Party.

NRO's Robert Costa reminds us in this post of another Palin tweak of President Obama:

"The tea-party movement is about the people" and "it's a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter."

Here's another great snippet from her speech:

I am a big supporter of this movement. I believe in this movement. I've got lots of friends and family in the lower 48 who attend these events and across this country knowing that this is a movement and America is ready for another revolution and you're all a part of it.

Simply put, Sarah Palin is in touch with the American people. She knows how worried people are about the Democrats' lack of spending discipline. She gets it that there are times when bipartisanship is overrated, that there's times when fiercely defending the principles that our Founding Fathers and our great leaders since have espoused isn't just the right thing to do but the only thing to do.

Most important in Gov. Palin's speech was her exhorting those gathered in the hall and those watching on TV to make the movement about policies, not personalities. During her speech, she also talked about returning to free market principles and living within the limits of the Tenth Amendment. She staked out solid federalist ground.

During the speech, I couldn't help but think that having Sarah Palin visit your district will yield more positive results than visits from President Obama or Speaker Pelosi.

A post on Gov. Palin's speech simply wouldn't be complete without mentioning her tweaking the Obama administration's secretiveness. At one point, she criticized Vice President Biden's transparency committee on tracking stimulus money, saying that she tried getting information on the meeting, only to find out that the transparency meeting "was held behind closed doors."

Simply put, the GOP nomination is her's barring something unforeseen happening. She's a rock star. More importantly, she's shown an ability to connect with people of all political stripes since entering the national stage 18 months ago. Her fiscal conservative credentials are solid. Her willingness to take on corruption wherever it's found is well-documented. Her pro-life credentials are impeccable. Federalists, constitutionalists and libertarians won't have any difficulty supporting her.

Whether she runs or not in 2012, there's no denying the fact that she'd start with an incredible GOTV army and impressive base of support, not to mention the fact that she'd have incredible fundraising abilities.

In summation, there's no question that Saturday night's speech to the National TEA Party Convention will elevate her standing with middle class voters and people who've become frustrated with government's desire to control people's lives.

After last night, there's no questioning where the pecking order starts with in the GOP.

Comments welcome at LFR.