George Will on Sunday refuted Peter Beinart's claim that former governor Sarah Palin is the Republicans' George McGovern.
As NewsBusters previously reported, Beinart appearing on ABC's "This Week" claimed the GOP today resembles the Democrat Party between 1968 and 1972 when McGovern took it over and moved it so far to the left that it no longer represented the views of average Americans.
This ended up harming the Democrats in the long run leading Beinart to conclude, "The Republicans will do great in 2010, but I think Sarah Palin is really the Republicans' George McGovern."
Will smartly responded (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):
GEORGE WILL: But eight months ago, the worry was the worst case analysis for Republicans was that the Tea Party energies would be diverted in a third party candidacy splitting the conservative vote in this country. Sarah Palin, think of her what you will, has brought them into the Republican Party, and they are one of the main reasons for what is going to be probably decisive in November and that is the enormous enthusiasm and intensity gap that favors the Republicans this year.
Indeed.
The fear of the conventional wisdom punditry months ago was that the Tea Party would be so divisive it would result in third party candidates splintering the conservative vote. So far the only such "insurgents" have been sore losers within the GOP establishment like Florida's Charlie Crist and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski who refuse to be good Party members and get on board the winner's bandwagon.
Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford made a similar point on Sunday's "Reliable Sources":
The thing about the Tea Party that strikes me is it's very similar in particularly their fiscal conservative views to the Perot movement. And this argument that they're bad for Republicans doesn't wash as much with me because as least they're inside the Republican Party. The Perot people were outside the party and much more damaging to Republicans.
Exactly, which means that liberal media members like Beinart continue to either misunderstand what's going on with this movement or just choose to dishonestly misrepresent it in order to assist the Party they really support.
Readers are encouraged to review Brent Baker's "Tea Parties Will Lead to 1964-Like Goldwater Debacle...No, Make that a 1972-Like McGovern Drubbing."
