Why Mitt Romney desperately needs a Sarah Palin

Whether he does it or not - and he probably won't - the best thing Mitt Romney (M-I-double tizzle) can do when it comes to a running mate is follow the template the McCain campaign used in 2008. He might win by playing it safe but his odds of winning exponentially increase if he balances the ticket with someone who energizes the base, not someone who neutralizes it.

If someone tells you that Mitt Romney inspires them, they're lying. Honest people will say voting for Romney is all about defeating Obama. In that regard, it's the John McCain redux. The Republican Party establishment is convinced that it can ride anti-Obama sentiment - and little else - to the White House. Avoiding a fight with the media or the incumbent - save for a few jabs - is the inexplicably defensive strategy the establishment types at the RNC think is the best one.

Consequently, in a race where the Republican nominee should be up by ten or more percentage points, Romney is on defense in a neck and neck race. With the Democratic Party's proclivity for electoral hijinks, that's a recipe for failure.

The Republican primaries saw the Republican establishment do one thing much better than the Tea Party - pick one horse and ride it all the way to the nomination. The Tea Party picked several horses and diluted its votes (Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich). Had it been a two-man race between Romney and any one of those candidates, the former Massachusetts Governor would have been a landslide victim.

Flashback to 2008; John McCain was no more inspiring that Romney is today. Prior to selecting his running mate - Sarah Palin - the base was admittedly deflated. Once McCain selected the Alaska Governor, life was breathed back into that base. She then proceeded to steal the show at the Republican Convention. The media's collective mouth was agape as McCain / Palin actually pulled ahead of Obama / Biden. She had to be destroyed and McCain didn't let her fight.

It wasn't until the stock market crash in September - coupled with McCain's ill-fated and counterproductive plan to suspend his campaign and head back to Washington to create the optics that he was engaged in fixing the problem - that Obama pulled away for good. Yet, there is a delusional narrative afoot  among establishment types that Sarah Palin dragged John McCain down, that she prevented him from winning and that selecting her was a mistake.

The truth is that selecting Palin was the best thing McCain did. She prevented a shellacking and actually gave him a chance. She so electrified crowds that McCain never seemed to hit the stump without her. He knew better and would have been thoroughly embarrassed by the contrast in crowd numbers and energy.

In fact, had Palin been allowed to be the attack dog Vice Presidents are supposed to be, McCain may have pulled it out. Instead, Palin was told to avoid Obama's achilles heel - Jeremiah Wright. It wasn't until late in the contest that she was permitted to go after Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers. It proved too little, too late.

Obama's achilles heel in 2012 appears to be operation Fast and Furious. Yet, Mitt Romney's avoidance of it is palpable; it's the elephant in the foyer.

The Romney campaign is faced with two choices based on two realities - reality as it is and reality as his campaign wants it to be. A paradigm that says Palin prevented McCain from winning is delusional because the exact opposite is true; she almost dragged him across the finish line. The base didn't want McCain in 2008 and it doesn't want Romney in 2012, which is exactly why "M-I-double tizzle" should pick someone who would do for him this year what Palin did for McCain in 2008 - make people want to buy a Mitt Romney bumper sticker.

The very first test would involve an answer to the following question:

Who could Romney select that would unhinge the mainstream media and drive it out of its collective skull?

The ensuing list would be a good place to start. People like Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, and Condoleezza Rice wouldn't be on it.

People like Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker would be.

If Romney selects a 'Mini-Mitt (double, double tizzle), the establishment's paradigm would be torpedoed with a loss to Obama. Unfortunately, so might the nation.

Video: SchmoYOHO Songifies Mitt Romney

The M-I-Double Tizzle likes lakes.

Bachmann fires off 16-Page letter to Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison

It looks like Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) may rue the day he decided to respond with a written letter to five congressman who have legitimate concerns about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration. In response to a 2-page letter from Ellison that accused Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) of only using one source to express concerns to five Inspectors General (State, Justice, DoD, DNI, and DHS) about the possible influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. Government, Bachmann sent Ellison a 16-page Bombshell.

Via SC Times:

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is asking how a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got security clearance given what Bachmann describes as the aide’s family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Bachmann also says an investigation of “potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration” of President Barack Obama’s administration is needed because of interactions between federal agencies and what she calls U.S. front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist group that recently came to power in Egypt.

The comments come in Bachmann’s new response to U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison’s call for Bachmann to back up the information on which she based a request for federal investigations into whether the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government.

In his July 12th letter, Ellison attempts to assert that the charges / claims made by Bachmann and four other Congressmen are based solely on one source - Frank Gaffney. Ellison attempted to smear Gaffney in the letter before ending the 2-page letter thusly:

Despite Mr. Gaffney’s record of unsubstantiated allegations, you appear to have based your letters to the Inspectors General on his views. 

I request that you provide my office a full accounting of the sources you used to make the serious allegations against the individuals and organizations in your letters. If there is not credible, substantial evidence for your allegations, I sincerely hope that you will publically (sic) clear their names.

In her 16-page retort, Bachmann refutes the notion that she only has one source and includes 59 new footnotes. Bachmann writes:

I do note that the facts we presented in the Inspector General request letters are based on information presented by U.S. Government officials in court documents, court evidence, correspondence and briefings with Congress and public statements, in addition to known media reporting. These letters were far from sole-sourced as you maintain in your letter.

While I can't speak on behalf of the other signatories of these letters, nor am I able to get into the private discussions and documentation received by the various House committees represented by the signatories on these matters that motivated these letters to the various Inspectors General, out of respect to you I am happy to respond to some of your concerns, provide the sources you ask for, as well as clarify a few points that may have been misunderstood or misrepresented.

Of all the areas of concern in the letters to the various OIG's, the subject of Hillary Clinton's closest aide - Huma Abedin - having familial ties to the Muslim Brotherhood may have struck the biggest nerve with Ellison. One of the sources Bachmann cites in her letter to Ellison is Jorgen S. Nielsen of the BYU Law Review:

Professor Syed Z. Abedin (Huma's father) took a different approach in dealing with the contemporary challenged to the traditional Islamic views. Trained in social science and being of Indian origin, Professor Abedin was the founder of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, an institution that had the quiet but active support of the then General Secretary of the Muslim World League, Dr. Umar Abdallah Nasif.

Incidentally, Nasif (Nasseef) is widely regarded as a Godfather of al-Qaeda. Bachmann continues:

For us to raise issues about a highly-based U.S. Government official with known immediate family connections to foreign extremist organization is not a question of singling out Ms. Abedin. In fact, these questions are raised by the U.S. Government of anyone seeking a security clearance.

Something tells me that this is far from over but Ellison has put himself in a bit of a box by penning a letter that puts him on the Congressional record as essentially, defending enemies of the United States (Hamas / Muslim Brotherhood).

For more about Ellison's letter, click here.