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Former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said Thursday he has read Sarah Palin's book and has no regrets about picking her as a running mate. (snip) He also said if Mrs. Palin decides to run for president in 2012 and becomes the Republican Party nominee he would vote for her. "I hope she has every success," Mr. McCain said. "She's still pretty popular."

Former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said Thursday he has read Sarah Palin's book and has no regrets about picking her as a running mate. "I felt honored to have Sarah," said Mr. McCain, Arizona Republican. "There's no doubt she energized our party and America. She's doing it today." His praised came one day after defending top campaign advisers Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, whom Mrs. Palin criticized in her book, "Going Rogue: An American Life." Mr. McCain said during the interview Thursday with The Washington Times' "American's Morning News" radio show that Mrs. Palin is a "political force in...

Depictions ‘took place entirely in her imagination,’ says Wallace. NBC NEWS and NEWS SERVICES NEW YORK - Former McCain campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace says Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" is "based on fabrications," and that the basis for Palin’s depictions of her and former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt as villains "took place entirely in her imagination." In a statement to The Rachel Maddow Show, the former McCain spokesperson repeatedly used the word "fiction" to describe Palin's narrative and echoed criticisms by other former McCain staffers. "She [Palin] probably has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better...

John McCain has asked his former campaign aides not to speak out against the charges Sarah Palin levels in her book, NBC news reports. This news comes after a number of former staffers anonymously blasted Palin's recount of the 2008 campaign. "John McCain offered her the opportunity of a lifetime, and during the campaign it seems that, for all of her mistakes, she is searching for people to blame," an aide said last week. "We don't need to go through this again." Even as NBC reported McCain's request, they included another swipe at her book from a former campaign aide....

“Going Rogue,” the title of Sarah Palin’s erratic new memoir, comes from a phrase used by a disgruntled McCain aide to describe her going off-message during the campaign: among other things, for breaking with the campaign over its media strategy, its decision to pull out of Michigan and for speaking out about reports that the Republican Party had spent more than $150,000 on fancy designer duds for her and her family. In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign...

Sarah Palin says she was blindsided by Katie Couric's devastating interviews last year because John McCain's aides lulled her into thinking the CBS anchorwoman was a fan. In Palin's new book, "Going Rogue," the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee reveals that her handlers talked up Couric as a working mom - just like her - who was struggling with low self-esteem and even lower ratings. Couric liked and admired her, advised campaign media honcho Nicolle Wallace. The interviews would be a nice favor. The scouting reports were so sympathetic, Palin writes, that that she almost began to "feel sorry" for...

The rumors are true, according to Sarah Palin: The McCain-Palin campaign was not a happy family. Palin in book: McCain aides kept me 'bottled up'

<p>In her new book, according to the Associated Press, Sarah Palin alleges that the McCain campaign gave her a $500,000 bill to pay for the campaign vetting her for the VP nod. She also makes the charge that the McCain camp said they would have paid all the bills had they won, but since they lost, the bills were her responsibility.</p>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/11/02/GA2009110203745.html

Now, instead of being embroiled in the Democrat’s lose-lose health care mess (a debacle that she no doubt would have been smack dab in the middle of as Vice President or as a senator), she has mostly been isolated from the political misfortunes of the Democrats. Those political misfortunes could very well cost the Democrats dearly in 2010 and could force Obama out in 2012 unless he is able to recover quickly. If Hillary can make it through the next few years without making any major foreign policy gaffes, she can launch a political comeback and tout these years as...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A top adviser from John McCain's presidential campaign who has criticized Sarah Palin's odds as a 2012 presidential candidate defended Wednesday the decision to pick her as McCain's 2008 running mate. Steve Schmidt, who was chief strategist for the Republican's campaign during the 2008 election, said choosing Palin — then a little-known Alaska governor — helped the GOP gain ground against the Democrats and Barack Obama. "I believe to this day that had she not been picked as a vice presidential candidate, we would have never been ahead, not for one second, not for one minute,...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A top adviser from John McCain's presidential campaign who has criticized Sarah Palin's odds as a presidential candidate in 2012 is standing by the decision to pick her as McCain's running mate in the 2008 election. Steve Schmidt, who was chief strategist for McCain's presidential race, said Palin helped McCain as a running mate in the 2008 race. Schmidt earlier this month said that Palin would be a catastrophe for the GOP if she's the party's presidential nominee in 2012.

Former presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.) acknowledged on CNN's State of the Union Sunday that tensions flared during his campaign between senior strategist Steve Schmidt and those allied with his running mate, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. "With a high-pressure situation, there's always tensions that develop within campaigns," McCain said in a video excerpt posted online. "And there were clearly tensions between Steve Schmidt and people in the Palin camp." Schmidt has recently become a vocal public critic of Palin, predicting that a presidential run by her in 2012 would prove "catastrophic" for the Republican Party. McCain did not criticize Palin...

Michelle Obama put the final nail in the coffin in the idea of Hillary Clinton becoming her husband's vice-presidential nominee, according to a new book. Author Christopher Andersen reported that Mrs Obama favoured Joe Biden, the president's eventual choice. "Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House?" she reportedly told her husband. "Could you live with that?" Mr Obama later thought of the masterstroke of appointing the woman he narrowly defeated as his secretary of state. According to the New York Daily News , Mrs Obama was "fascinated" by the choice...

Mayor Bloomberg said Tuesday he never thought he was on the short list to be Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate last year -- even though a new book claims he was one of the six finalists for the coveted slot. McCain's staff took Bloomberg's chances seriously, the book claims -- especially when they were told to set up a short podium for the still-secret vice-presidential candidate. "When I told them to lower it for someone who was 5-7, they thought it was Bloomberg," McCain aide Davis White says in "The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary...

Sen. John McCain said he is saddened Sarah Palin has been the subject of "vicious attacks" but said his former GOP running mate has a promising future in the Republican Party. In an interview with CNN's "State of the Union," McCain said he believes Palin made the right decision by stepping down from her post as Alaska's governor 18 months before her first term was up and said he was upset that the ex-veep candidate continues to be the victim of searing criticism. "I respect Sarah Palin," McCain said in an interview that aired Sunday. "I appreciate her and her...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. John McCain says he sees Sarah Palin continuing to play a major role in the future of the Republican Party. McCain says he respects the decision that his 2008 vice presidential running mate made to resign as Alaska governor. The Arizona senator says people make decisions based on what's best for them and for their families. And he says he thinks Palin "clearly" made the best decision. McCain says he thinks she will continue to be "a force" within the GOP. Palin intends to write a book and try to build a right-of-center coalition. Her long-term...

It’s just like the old Huey Lewis song from “Back to the Future” where the occasional doo-wop performer sings about going back in time. Because hearing John McCain this morning sticking up for Sarah Palin makes it feel like the 2008 campaign season again. It’s like McCain has morphed into Marty McFly. And Palin is perhaps, George McFly. And the media, maybe, is Biff. Then again, this analogy might be an abject failure. Regardless, McCain — appearing on CNN’s State of the Union said he was “…saddened by the fact that there are still such vicious attacks on her and...

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore, John McCain had this to say about Governor Palin: If the market crash was the low point, I ask him for his best memory from the campaign. “The high point, I think, was the convention, the selection of Sarah Palin, and the enthusiasm that was generated all over the country.” His fondness for Mrs. Palin and her family strikes me as from the heart; he believes she was a net asset for the ticket. “Let’s face it,” he says, “she galvanized our base in a way that I couldn’t. Everywhere...

John McCain is red in the face and hopping mad. I’m sitting in his office in the Senate Russell Office Building, and he’s just rushed in after delivering a speech on the Senate floor where he seethed about the earmarks in the Homeland Security Bill. “Can you believe they are putting $6 million of pork into Homeland Security?” he asks with his trademark clenched-fists. [...] He says he has worked to keep his relations with President Barack Obama “cordial,” but he pulls no punches criticizing the president’s economic policies. [...] He certainly was dealt a lousy hand. .....Why did he...

Voting rate dips as older whites stay home About 63.6 percent of the nation's eligible voters cast ballots in November WASHINGTON - For all the attention generated by Barack Obama's candidacy, the share of eligible voters who actually cast ballots in November declined for the first time in a dozen years. The reason: Older whites with little interest in backing either Barack Obama or John McCain stayed home. Census figures released Monday show about 63.6 percent of the nation's eligible voters, or 131.1 million people, voted last November. Although that represented an increase of 5 million voters — virtually all...

In a speech that has electrified the pro-life movement, Alaska governor and John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, touched on her own family’s personal pro-life decision. While 80 to 90 percent of pregnancies involving Down syndrome babies end in abortion, the Palin family chose life. “And in April, my husband Todd and I welcomed our littlest one into the world, a perfectly beautiful baby boy named Trig. From the inside, no family ever seems typical,” Palin said. “That's how it is with us,” the governor went on to say. “Our family has the same ups and downs as any...

In the mail this morning was an advanced copy of Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson's extremely well-reported history of the 2008 presidential campaign: The Battle for America is what the two veteran Posties have called it. The book will be published on August 4; Balz and Johnson will talk about it on Meet the Press on August 2. There are plenty of scoops, and I can't resisting sharing just one involving a critical phase of the campaign in early October of 2008. Whose idea was it for Gov. Sarah Palin to attack Barack Obama as a guy who "pals around...

Whether you like her or hate her you have to admit that the treatment Sarah Palin received in the press has been unfair and unprofessional. So its no surprise that one of the reasons that Sarah Palin gave for her resignation last week was the horrible attacks she and her children have received from in the press. These attacks were not based on policy, from the very beginning they were personal. Here teenage daughter's pregnancy became press fodder, she was accused of not being the mother of her own child and Fox News token liberal Alan Colmes claimed that Sarah...

On AOL Politics Daily, long-time White House reporter Carl Cannon bluntly declared that the political press gave Sarah Palin a raw deal in the 2008 campaign, and seriously failed to scrutinize Joe Biden, especially his fact-mangling and odd statements in the vice presidential debate. Cannon summed up: In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same...

The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign. At issue is a question that was never resolved following McCain’s loss in November: Who in the McCain campaign was secretly trashing Sarah Palin to the press?

"She's [Sarah Palin] got this book deal. She's obviously not going to write it. They already announced she's going to collaborate on it, what an embarrassment," MSNBC's Chris Matthews said on "Hardball" Wednesday evening. "One of these I told you books the jocks do. Why they do it like this? She can't write. We have a collaborator for her," he continued. Matthews ended his rant by complaining she will get the title of "author" now.

Gov. Sarah Palin has signed a book deal with HarperCollins Publishers for what is described as her memoir. "There have been so many things written and said through mainstream media that have not been accurate, and it will be nice through an unfiltered forum to get to speak truthfully about who we are and what we stand for and what Alaska is all about," Palin said in an interview today in which she announced the deal. Palin and HarperCollins would not say how much she was being paid. Asked why, the former Republican nominee for vice president said she didn't...

In the latest instance of a high-profile GOP member taking a passing swipe at the party's 2008 vice-presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney jokingly dismissed Sarah Palin’s inclusion on TIME’s list of influential people in an interview broadcast Sunday. He asked, was “the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people?” . . . . . Romney, who was appearing with House Minority Whip Eric Cantor as part of a party re-launch the two are organizing with other prominent Republicans under the banner of the National Council for a New America, was...

A handful of readers took note of this passage in my story on Steve Schmidt's and David Plouffe's appearance in Delaware last week: [Schmidt] explained his decision to deny Palin an election night speech as a nod to the fact that the concession is a “singular moment” in American public life. “It begins the process by which power is transferred peacefully,” he said. Asked blogger DougJ: "Is Schmidt implying that Palin would have given an incendiary speech that would have, in some small way, disrupted the peaceful transfer of power?" I hadn't really heard it that way, but it seemed...

(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

It may be, a colleague notes, a fitting coda to the McCain campaign: He apparently rejected his first choice as a running mate, Joe Lieberman, in part based on a faulty legal opinion. McCain lawyer and vetter A. B. Culvahouse said last week that West Virginia law could have barred McCain from nominating a Democrat as his running mate in the key state, knocking Lieberman out of the running.

HBO Films has optioned "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," an in-the-works Harper Collins book by political writers Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The pay network has hired "Blood Diamond" scribe Charles Leavitt to adapt the behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential election from the perspective of the candidates and their respective camps. Halperin is editor-at-large at Time magazine, and Heilemann is national political correspondent for New York magazine. They will be consultants for the film. The book will be published early next year. Heilemann and Halperin have covered other presidential...

Closing a loop on the campaign finance side of the Sarah Palin clothes saga, the Republican National Committee late last month filed an amended report detailing exactly which disbursements were clothing purchases for the Republican vice presidential candidate and her family. The amended report shows that the committee paid about $23,000 for clothing in the three weeks before and after Election Day — which is actually $7,000 less than previously reported. That new report brings the total Palin clothing costs paid by the RNC down and also makes it easier to spot clothing purchases that had previously gone undetected. For...

Palins Get Ready to Spill By Kim Eisler Published Monday, April 06, 2009 Alaska’s Republican governor, Sarah Palin, has retained DC Democratic power player Robert Barnett to sell her presumed memoir of the 2008 campaign. The expected seven-figure book advance will make it easier for Palin to pay for travel to the “lower 48” for political events and then a presidential run. The book could put Palin into a 2012 race with President Obama, who used the same lawyer and the same strategy—a big advance and a book—in part to back his early campaign efforts. During the 2008 Democratic campaign,...

She knew? You betcha, says the baby daddy of Sarah Palin's grandson. The Alaska governor most likely was aware before her daughter, Bristol, became pregnant that the teenager and her hockey hunk boyfriend were having sex, Levi Johnston said in a bombshell new interview. "I'm pretty sure she probably knew. Moms are pretty smart," said Johnston, 18, the father of the governor's first grandchild, in an interview that will air Monday on "The Tyra Banks Show." Johnston said he and Bristol Palin practiced safe sex "most of the time."

<p>The husband of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says the Republican Party's lavish spending on her wardrobe during the presidential campaign was "out of our control."</p> <p>In the May issue of Men's Journal, Todd Palin was asked about the more than $150,000 that the Republican National Committee spent on clothes, accessories and beauty services for the GOP vice presidential nominee. He defended his wife, saying she was focused on preparation for her debate with Joe Biden.</p>

Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Ferragamo. These were just a few of the designer labels Sarah Palin wore during her 2008 campaign. Where are many of these infamous clothes now? In trash bags! Yes, you read that right. In the g-a-r-b-a-g-e. Well, in garbage bags, to be more specific. NewMajority is reporting that roughly $150,000 worth of clothing worn by Sarah Palin during her Republican vice presidential bid is stuffed in trash bags at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C. Palin promised to donate her wardrobe to charity following the campaign, and she did give the clothes to...

Maybe they were those "open-minded Christians." [49 sec. YouTube-linked CNN video at the original]

In 'Sarah Palin: Poised to Become America's First Female President', Recaldo Ochoa explores the life and times of a politician he believes was wronged by the media. He reintroduces Americans to an exceptional American woman, Governor Sarah Palin, who has the character, the qualification, the attributes--intelligence, judgment, leadership ability, and experience--and the unprecedented historical opportunity to become the first female president of the greatest nation on earth.

"50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin, mostly Sarah Palin..."

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has no illusions about the 2008 White House race. "God bless them," McCain said Thursday at the Heritage Foundation when reminded of the tens of millions of people who voted for him last year. "Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin - mostly for Sarah Palin," McCain said to an eruption of laughter. But "there was a sizable majority of the other party returned to Congress. And, elections have consequences. Elections have consequences. And these consequences we are seeing now in full display."

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Some of Sarah Palin's former campaign aides are frustrated with the Alaska governor for remarking in a lengthy, freewheeling speech that she had refused to pray with them before last October's vice presidential debate. Palin told the story in a speech to a GOP dinner in Alaska last Friday. "So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said of the moments before the debate. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find...

I have been reading a lot of the anti-Palin comments on Free Republic lately. For one I find them very depressing. These people usually start out with comments like "I like Governor Palin, BUT I think the media has ruined her". or bring up Tina Fey. Or some other nonsense about Palin not being able to win states "outside of the bible belt". As if red states and blue states are graved in stone. I think we need to stand up for Sarah and rally behind her. It is depressing. But the best thing that can happen for Sarah Palin...

Hollywood filmmakers are ruminating about taking on the 2008 political season. Towering personalities, scintillating stories, and epic clashes abound. The stories of the 2008 political campaign are pretty stimulating. We had the aging Democratic establishment in the form of the Clintons taking on the fresh young face in Obama, not to mention the first black candidate of note. We also had a close fought Democratic primary that went to a nail biting finish. On the GOP side we had the amazing emergence of the hockey mom from Alaska. Heartwarming family woman, popular governor, tender mother of a special needs child....

Hollywood screenwriters nominated for awards eyeing Palin's story Herald Globe Sunday 8th February, 2009 (ANI) New York, February 8 : Alaska Governor might have failed in her Vice Presidential bid, some Hollywood scriptwriters are so fascinated by her that they are planning films on her. It so emerged when screenwriters nominated for awards this year were asked to choose the 2008 even they would most like to turn into a screenplay.

WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- Today leaders of the Susan B. Anthony List responded to the recent discovery of a plot by liberal internet activists to attack www.teamsarah.org , a community dedicated to advancing the values that Sarah Palin represents in the political process: "Team Sarah recently uncovered a plot by liberal activists to frame our community for harboring hate speech and bigotry," said Emily Buchanan, Executive Director of the Susan B. Anthony List and Team Sarah Site Administrator. "Liberal extremists at www.somethingawful.com concocted a plot to join Team Sarah under false pretenses and intentionally provoke our members by posting incendiary and...

Biden shushes wife after secretary of state slip By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON – The wife of Vice President-elect Joe Biden let it slip to Oprah Winfrey Monday that her husband had a pick of two jobs in the Obama administration. Jill Biden said President-elect Barack Obama gave Biden the choice of being secretary of state or vice president. The vice president-elect tried to hush his wife as soon as the words came out of her mouth, with a loud "shhh!" that sent the audience into laughter. The Bidens made a surprise appearance on Winfrey's show, recorded at...

Announced on his show this morning, I can't wait! I know fellow Sarah followers will want to tune in. January 19th, the day before inauguration day.

Her spokesman claims he doesn’t know if she was or not, but come on. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his controversial running-mate, will not attend the dinner, Bill McAllister, a Palin spokesman tells Mother Jones… Was she even invited? “I don’t know if she was invited,” McCallister says. Don’t know? How could that be? It’s hard to miss an invitation from a presidential inauguration committee. For its part, Obama’s inaugural committee has declined to say whether an invitation was sent to Palin. Repeated phone calls to its press office produced no answer to this simple question… If Palin was left off...