'My Fellow Citizens, I Utterly Reject That View'

The full video is at The Miller Center for Public Affairs. See also Right Wing News.

I'm reminded of President Reagan after seeing this post at Instapundit. Americans are yearning for something deep again, not just economic growth, jobs and renewed economic prosperity, but something more fundamental: core values and a sense of destiny. We don't have Reagan anymore. But in U.S. politics today, more than anyone else, it is Sarah Palin who embodies that unabashed sense of mission, that clear righteousness in nation. The national attraction to Sarah Palin hearkens back to Reagan, and it is, as Nancy Gibbs notes at Time, a call to restoration: "Back to the Future: Sarah Palin's Restoration":

Too much of that Hopey Changey Thing yields a desire for restoration, to move forward by turning back. What's striking about the current revival is that it's led by our most emphatically modern master of the cross-platform political-celebrity mashup, Sarah Palin, as she calls for "not transformation but restoration with a 'Great Awakening' that we already feel emerging across America."

I like it. And I hope history confims the analogy. I look forward to the chance to hear Sarah Palin deliver a convention address as did Ronald Reagan in 1980:

More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values.

Never before in our history have Americans been called upon to face three grave threats to our very existence, any one of which could destroy us. We face a disintegrating economy, a weakened defense and an energy policy based on the sharing of scarcity.

The major issue of this campaign is the direct political, personal and moral responsibility of Democratic Party leadership --i n the White House and in Congress -- for this unprecedented calamity which has befallen us. They tell us they have done the most that humanly could be done. They say that the United States has had its day in the sun; that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems; that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities.

My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view. The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves. Those who believe we can have no business leading the nation.

I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose. We have come together here because the American people deserve better from those to whom they entrust our nation's highest offices, and we stand united in our resolve to do something about it.

The full speech at the link.