Two Asheville residents are pushing Sarah Palin for 2012.
Republican voters Randy Thomas and Richard Bernier created a Web site — draftpalinforpresident.com — on Friday to encourage the Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential nominee to run in four years.
"As the 11th governor of Alaska, she has successfully fought the special interests, the lobbyists, the Big Oil companies and the good ol' boys network to reform a system that had bred corruption in her state," they write on the site's home page.
Bernier, a medical equipment salesman, told the Asheville Citizen-Times that they are hoping to get the same kind of "election machine" that helped Barack Obama in place early.
After appearing on CNN and MSNBC today, the site's membership jumped from 50,000 to more than 100,000 from all over the country, while it received about 15,000 pieces of electronic "hate mail," said Thomas.
He said the ultimate goal is to provide Palin with a list of supporters.
"She keeps talking about 'if God opens a door' for her, so we want to go to her and say here's a list with some names on it go for it," he said.
Thomas, who owns a Web hosting service, said he saw Palin speak in Asheville during the campaign and thought she was very approachable.
There is some precedent for this kind of effort. In February of 2007, a blogger named Adam Brickley created the "Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President" Web site.
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Re: Asheville men push Palin for '12
The old media and the liberal establishment smeared Palin because she terrified them with her popularity with voters. They fear her because she is off the teather of their influence and they think they run the show.