PrintDecember 2, 2009
The Palin Brand
Could British politics teach us something about Sarah Palin's political future? David Frum -- not my favorite conservative -- recently published What the Tories Have to Teach Us in Commentary Magazine. In it, he notes that the Conservative Party in the U.K., after suffering a massive defeat twelve years ago, has turned its fortunes around and is now expected to return to power next year. The turning point for Britain's Conservative party may have been a single slide in a PowerPoint presentation delivered at the party conference after the 2005 election defeat. Party chairman Francis Maude showed attendees the results of an opinion survey on immigration. When the Conservative position on immigration was described to a sample group, almost two-thirds approved. But when that same position was presented to a new sample group as the position of the Conservative party, support dropped by half. Perfectly good policy ideas were fatally tainted by association with a despised political...(Read Full Article)
