Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who galvanized conservatives when she was selected as John McCain’s running mate in 2008, congratulated Mitt Romney on selecting a running mate in Paul Ryan who has similarly energized conservatives.
“Congratulations to Mitt Romney on his choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate,” Palin wrote in a Facebook note. “President Obama has declared that this election is about ‘two fundamentally different visions’ for America. Goodness, he’s got that right. Our country cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama’s fundamentally flawed vision.”
Palin made an important point about how the fiscal path the country is on will turn the country into California, which has seen some of its biggest municipalities declare bankruptcy. What happens in California, it is often said, is a harbinger of things to come across the nation. In many respects, California has often been out in front of the nation by a decade on many non-economic issues as well, such as on immigration and affirmative action.
Palin said when she thinks “about the direction our country is rapidly drifting in,” she cannot “help but look at California as a cautionary tale”
“The Golden State once boasted the entrepreneurial innovation of Silicon Valley, the American creative engine of the arts, economically powerful and beautiful cities from San Francisco to San Diego, and fertile farmlands that helped feed the nation,” Palin wrote. “Now it is descending into financial ruin accompanied by an exodus of middle class Californians leaving for other states. As one writer put it, California’s ‘fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product is red tape.'”
Palin wrote “Obama’s vision for America will make the rest of the country look like California, minus the beautiful scenery and warm weather”
According to Palin:
Obama’s America is today’s California – complete with $100 billion taxpayer funded bullet trains to nowhere; out of control environmental extremists who have destroyed family farms and left some of the most fertile farm land in America fallow in order to protect a three inch fish; permanent high unemployment; government policies hostile to small business job creators; crippling high taxes; an abysmal real estate market; bloated government that wastes taxpayer money; endless budget shortfalls due to massive unfunded liabilities; city after city declaring bankruptcy; and a state government run by, in the words of one Wall Street Journal writer, ‘a brothel of environmentalists, lawyers, public-sector unions and legislative bums.’
Palin then noted that Obama and Senate Democrats “don’t even have a fundamental blueprint — a budget! — to outline where they intend to take us as they merrily roll along with their out of control spending and constant increases of our debt ‘limit.'”
Palin pointed out that candidate Obama promised the country fiscal prudence, a smarter government, a plan for energy independents, the “most transparent administration in history,” and to unite all America, and decried reckless spending.
Instead, Palin wrote Obama has broken all of these promises and now must resort to cynically dividing the country “again and again in his efforts to win reelection by playing identity politics and class warfare and pitting one group against another” because he cannot run on his record.
“Please continue to focus on the presidential race and on helping Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, but it’s also imperative that we get involved in the nation’s important House and Senate races,” Palin wrote.