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"Like it or not, if Sarah Palin decides to seek our nation's highest office, she has a shot," Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign, writes in today's Washington Post, before offering Palin a list of advice on how to get there. Dowd draws a parallel between Palin and Obama, in that each are beloved by members of their own party, and not liked so much by members of the other: Polls show that Palin's favorability numbers are a mirror image of those of Obama. She is respected and loved by the Republican base, while Democrats despise...

Private meeting is one thing; cheap photo op is another. I don't mean to begrudge Billy Graham a Sunday afternoon visit from an admirer. I just wish he hadn't been used as a political prop. Picking up the paper Monday morning, I cringed at news of Sarah Palin spending the day with the evangelist at his home in Montreat. Especially cringe-inducing was the picture of Palin holding her special needs child, Trig, on her lap as mother and son shared what looked to be a less-than-spontaneous moment with Graham. It definitely wasn't a private moment, since a photographer had to...

Some interesting battles breaking out on Twitter this AM, even if I say so myself - having played a big role in fueling them! No need to link all the back and forth, but it amounts to a discussion about what works. The problem as I see it, is too many inside the Beltway Republicans have convinced themselves that they are all that. For some reason, they fear and look to shut down the Joe the Plumbers (who I personally feel has been over-played by now) and the Jackies from the recent Palin book signing dust up with Nora O'Donnell....

Frum points to the polls: I was interviewed on PBS last week about Palin’s book release. I said that Palin had an especially serious problem with women voters. This is just fact, again recorded in every survey...And yet this attested statistical fact is shrugged off with comments like, “when I saw her campaign in N.H., I was surrounded by moms with strollers”(continued)

Frank Rich is one political pundit who takes Levi Johnston’s empty threats against his former future mother-in-law Sarah Palin seriously. Though to most observers Johnston’s threats sound like false bravado, Rich’s Sunday hit piece on Sarah Palin's hit book suggested the former VP candidate is scared of what family secrets Johnston might spill. "Equally revealing is the one boldfaced name conspicuously left unmentioned in the book: Levi Johnston, the father of Palin’s grandchild. Though Palin and McCain milked him for photo ops at the Republican convention, he is persona non grata now that he’s taking off his campaign wardrobe. Is...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Republican National Committee will announce Monday that veteran political strategist Alex Castellanos will assume a senior communications role at the committee, an RNC official tells CNN. (snip) "Now the RNC has a new focus and direction - the 2010 elections," Castellanos said when reached by telephone. "And I am happy to help."

With liberal politicans, reporters pan for gold. With conservative politicians, reporters dig for dirt. The media spotlight that has been used as soft backlighting to illuminate President Obama and other liberal darlings doubles as a tightly-focused laser beam to attack Republicans. Just look at the recent issue of Newsweek magazine with its cover photo showing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wearing, of all things, running shorts. If you think that would be more appropriate on the cover of a magazine about running, you'd be exactly right -- it was a photo originally intended for Runner's World.It's not exactly a dignified...

God bless John McCain for having picked Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. McCain didn’t simply introduce a new politician into the national limelight, but someone who has already lapped him in public consciousness. Palin represents McCain’s most enduring political accomplishment. In tapping her, McCain unleashed the most volatile force into American politics since Joseph McCarthy. And unlike the saturnine McCarthy, Palin seems to succeed effortlessly at playing any role she assumes—in her latest incarnation as author, she produced a best seller even before her tome hit the bookstores, a particularly impressive accomplishment at a moment when the...

With so much attention being paid to Sarah Palin's book tour, the Fix decided to put our political nerd cap on -- okay, fine, we always wear it -- and go inside the numbers of where she's stopping and why. All told, the former Alaska governor is making 31 stops in 25 states. Florida will see the most of Palin (three stops), and she will make two appearances each in Texas, Ohio, Indiana and Idaho. Palin will not stop in the most populous state -- California -- or in another biggie, Illinois. She is sticking largely to Republican-friendly areas, as...

The former Alaska governor represents thwarted aspirations and brooding resentment. But she backs policies which would increase them. In the film, The American President, the president's speechwriter Lewis Rothschild (played by Michael J Fox) appeals to the commander-in-chief to take a firm, clear stand against the Right. "People want leadership, Mr President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone." he says. "They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand." The president...

NOBLESVILLE, INDIANA -- The real Americans were waiting in their Audis and Outbacks in the Hoosier rain. Already, the parking lot had been barricaded and the satellite trucks from the local television stations were in place and it still was going to be five hours before we would see the ex-mayor, ex-governor and existential hero of prairie patriots like all of us. I hauled up in my rented Nissan Versa, having driven from the Indianapolis airport in the downpour, and rolled down the window and talked to the people in the next space. --snip-- Jim and Lucy Roark said they...

One should be given combat pay for defending Sarah Palin in Manhattan. The other evening at a lecture, a so-called distinguished author of political tomes reflected on the declining state of conservatism and cited Sarah Palin as the reincarnation of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who stirred the ire of the country by accusing a huge swath of the State Department as being card carrying communists. Hearings were held and eventually the Senator, an authentic alcoholic, was exposed as a liar and a fraud, chastised by the Senate and tossed into the rubbish bin of history where he belonged. The ugly comparison...

An anti-Palin screed somehow ended up on Psychology Today's website. I know, I know, it's shocking that Psychology Today could sponsor something that is less science than it is PC, hatespeak against conservatives, what with psychology being so scientific and all -- but, there you have it. Penned by one Bella DePaulo, the piece really has little worth as a work of science and is little but a political rant filled with name calling and hate for Governor Sarah Palin and anyone that might support her. In the piece Palin is termed a "special liar" by the writer and conservatives...

Sarah Palin is back, using her book, Going Rogue, as a prop. From all indications she ain't going away -- which may be why passions, pro and con, are so intense about her. There seems no middle ground when it comes to Palin -- some of it understandable, most of it puzzling. If she's a ditz, an airhead as some insist, someone without the depth or substance to be president, why worry about her? The electorate will catch on. So why do Democrats slag her at every opportunity? If she's a genuine threat to be a contender for power on...

Martha Stewart: "She's so confused. Anyone in like that in government is a real problem."

Friend -- Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn. It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term "Death Panels" -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists. Whatever lie comes next will be widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups and others who are trying to defeat reform. As we approach the final sprint on health reform, we can't afford more deception and delay. We need...

Despite San Francisco Bay Area bookseller claims that Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue" is "not for thinking people", the Amazon numbers say otherwise. On a mission to show that Palin's book is selling much worse than, say, the idea of reading Osama Bin Laden his Miranda rights, the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed several local booksellers to find out how well sales of "Going Rogue" were not going: "Our customers are thinking people," said Nathan Embretson, a bookseller at Pendragon Books in Oakland. "They're not into reading drivel." "Anything like that we wouldn't carry," said clerk Emily Stackhouse at Cover...

Link only, per FR copyright rules

“Conservative” pundit David Frum, new kid on the block at failing cable giant CNN, has outdone Liberal harpies like Heather Mallick and Rachel Maddow in Trashing Sarah Palin, Round Two. As thousands lined up in Michigan to meet Sarah Palin at a Going Rogue book signing last night, Frum was on News Hour with Jim Lehrer. “This is a woman who has got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals,” Frum told reporter Judy Woodruff. “And we see that in the way that men like her much more than women do.” Incredibly Frum, draped in cobwebs...

Army officials plan to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg on Monday, saying they fear the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama. Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum told The Associated Press on Thursday that Army officials had decided to keep media away from Palin's book promotion at the North Carolina base. SNIP McCollum said the Army did not want the event to become a platform for Palin supporters to express political opinions "directed against the commander in chief."

As GOP former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin kicks off a national book tour this week, there are some unlikely voices cheering "You go, girl!" - hard-core Democrats and progressives who hope Palin's 15 minutes of fame lasts all the way to 2012. "She's a legend in her own mind, the dream candidate, the dream opponent," said satirist Joey Green of Los Angeles, author of the tongue-in-cheek "Sarah Palin's Secret Diary," which hit the shelves just as Palin herself is hitting 20 cities to push her memoir, "Going Rogue." Green, a former National Lampoon contributing editor who describes himself as...

This girl is probably around 15 years old, and MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell starts hammering her on Sarah Palin supporting the bailout...This is a sight to behold..(Video)...

Sure seems that way: Undercover project: Please participate quickly! by Bob Johnson Share this on Twitter - Undercover project: Please participate quickly! Wed Nov 18, 2009 at 12:25:51 PM PST NOTE: This diary will self-destruct within the hour. Copy the dialogue box below the fold and post it across the Internet. BarbinMD's current front pager on Palin's latest idiocy got me thinking about a little payback for Palin's part in promoting the "death panels" nonsense. By linking to the Politico story on Palin's appearance on Limbaugh's radio show, highlighted in Barb's post with this graph: Palin painted the race as...

It has often been said that today's rank-and-file conservative is "anti-elite." I've always been uncomfortable with that characterization because — in my experience — conservatives are quite respectful of certain kinds of elites, like elite soldiers, elite athletes, and talented musicians and other artists (provided those artists don't believe that their abilities also provide them with unique insight into, say, health-care policy or war strategy). The elite that conservatives tend to disdain is the contemporary intellectual (or academic) elite, not because intellectual excellence isn't obtainable or worth respecting but because we look at what what passes for academic thinking these...

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday strongly defended the top advisers from his 2008 presidential campaign in the face of sharp criticism from his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin. McCain, in a telephone interview with Reuters, singled out campaign manager Steve Schmidt and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace for praise after Palin blasted the pair in her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." "There's been a lot of dust flying around in the last few days and I just wanted to mention that I have the highest regard for Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace...

I’ve read some misguided partisan ranting before, but the piece, “Gone Rogue” (how original) by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas is in a class by itself. That it passes for a news story is telling of how detached the elitists in media really are. Nothing exceptionally newsworthy is going on (a book tour!), yet we are witnessing a foaming hysteria from all fronts of the liberal establishment. And, we must ask: Why? Sarah Palin is merely promoting her book. The degree to which the left fears Palin is astonishing. The former governor isn’t even talking about running for office and yet Newsweek...

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...

Sarah Palin is the beneficiary of the vast left-wing conspiracy. Palin is selling a book. Nothing sells books like attention. Lefties love to attack Palin. Attacks create more attention for Palin and her book. I suspect she will show as much gratitude to her critics as she has shown to the person who made her, John McCain. --snip-- I noticed Kate Snow’s report on ABC News’ website about a conference call that McCain held with his top aides. Snow quoted an aide describing the call this way: “He apologized to everyone on the call for people having to go through...

Ever since Sarah Palin entered the national political arena last summer as the Republican VP nominee, she has caused sheer panic in the hearts and minds of the Leftist Liberals in America. Accordingly, the Leftist media is hell-bent on doing all they can to discredit Palin’s accomplishments and destroy her character at any cost. Even now, much effort and energy is being expended to deceive the American people regarding her considerable achievements. Her popularity among conservatives is astounding, and many believe that she will get the 2012 endorsement for the presidency. The Left and its State-Run Media Minions are now...

No force on Earth can stop Sarah Palin from becoming our very own "lite" version of Eva Perón -- a glamorous and tragic legend, minus the tragedy. Eventually, some clever composer will write a blockbuster musical about her life and times. Stage directions will include: "SARAH fires gun. MOOSE dies." It's futile to try to ignore Palin, however noble the effort may be. She's a phenomenon, and it hardly matters that so many people believe she augurs the final dissolution of American politics into a big, frothy bowl of mush. The republic will survive even her. Anyway, she's unlikely ever...

Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss. Jauss is known as the father of critical reception theory. According to Jauss, every book is read in a social context. In his view, the reader's attitudes, beliefs, values and judgments are just as important as the text. Sometimes more. Palin probably didn't set out to write a book that tested Jauss's thesis. But, in so many ways, the reaction to "Going Rogue" is as interesting as its content. Palin's memoir is...

She may be hugely polarizing, but Sarah Palin’s the odds-on favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, thanks to the party’s winner-take-all primary system. The party establishment may not want Palin, but if she can maintain, say, 35% support in a multi-candidate field, she could win a few states and rack up an insurmountable lead early, Walter Shapiro of Politics Daily writes. Normally the GOP counts on South Carolina to weed out fringe candidates, but Palin is mainstream enough to win the conservative state. So if party insiders don’t want another Goldwater on their hands, they’ll either have...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Fewer than three in 10 Americans think Sarah Palin's qualified to be president, according to a new national poll - the least of any of the five potential candidates included in the survey. But another woman tops that list in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday: two-thirds of the public thinks that Secretary of State HIllary Clinton's qualified for the Oval Office. That's more than Vice President Joe Biden, who's currently next in line for the presidency. According to the poll, 28 percent of Americans say Palin is qualified to run the White House, with seven...

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....

Republican 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's highly anticipated book tour kicks off Monday afternoon with the airing of her wide-ranging chat with talk show queen Oprah Winfrey. (snip) Although the 418-page best-seller doesn't come out until Tuesday, the Associated Press already has obtained a copy and assigned 11 reporters to comb through it to publish a pre-emptive "fact check" that has outraged her supporters because several items in it relied more on analysis than black-and-white facts. For example, one of the "fact check" items criticized Mrs. Palin for writing in the book that she was driven by "purpose" rather than...

The self-described 'rogue' is anathema to the party establishment but manna from heaven to the grass roots. In a Republican Party hoping to rebound in 2010 on the strength of a newly energized and ideologically aroused conservative grass roots, Sarah Palin's influence is now unparalleled. She was the one who popularized the notion that Democrats advocated "death panels" as part of their healthcare plan, a charge that helped ignite conservative opposition to reform. More recently, in a special congressional election in upstate New York, Palin's endorsement of Doug Hoffman, an unknown, far-right third-party candidate, helped force a popular moderate Republican...

I would not do it. Going to war with the Associated Press is as dumb as going to war with Fox News. Sarah Palin should leave the criticism of the media to others. We like our leaders a little above the fray. From her Facebook: The book tour starts this week, and I look forward to it! I’m most looking forward to meeting many of you, shaking your hands, and telling you, “Thanks for loving America.” I’ll give you a scoop here and tell you what’s on the book’s Dedication Page -– it’s dedicated to you — Patriots -– who...

When Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage there was a lot of talk about her distinctive way of talkin', you betcha. Heck, she moved to Alaska when she was too young to speak and grew up in the small town of Wasilla, but doggone it, why did she talk like someone from the movie "Fargo"? Three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists tackled the conundrum in a research article to be published in the Journal of English Linguistics next month. The answer lies in something that happened in the 1930s. During the presidential campaign, almost every aspect of Palin's life,...

Thousands of radical conservatives crowded on to the steps of the Capitol yesterday to voice their anger over Democrat spending plans and yearning for the presence of the one person they really wished was there, but wasn’t: Sarah Palin. The former Governor of Alaska has emerged from Tuesday’s off-year elections as a front runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and the embodiment of grassroots social conservatism in most of the “lower 48” states, as well as her own. The trouble for her supporters is that, for the time being, she is available only as a disembodied presence on her...

I received an e-mail from a very reliable source here in Alaska that there may be a story about to break on Sarah Palin's son Trig. The source received a hand written letter in the mail with the following statements: Get word to S.P. Mitt R. paid off They have photos, copies + signed statement RE: Trig Now I have to question who would have such information? And would the information be manufactured? And now for my hunch if the information in the letter is true on Romney.. With Palin's book coming out in a few days and who she...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - John McCain's former presidential campaign manager Steve Schmidt is the latest McCain adviser to cry foul over accusations Sarah Palin has penned in her yet to be released memoir "Going Rogue." Excerpts obtained by The Huffington Post characterize Schmidt in an unfavorable light, particularly in reference to the prank phone call Palin received from someone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Right away, the phones started ringing," Palin writes. "One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. 'How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president...

A former top adviser and spokeswoman to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign is pushing back against comments reportedly made by Sarah Palin in her new book. Nicolle Wallace tells CNN that Palin's account of an ill-fated interview with CBS's Katie Couric during the 2008 presidential campaign is not true.

“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's new book "Going Rogue" is set for release on Nov. 17 and with that will likely come a media blitz of epic proportions. However, based on the cover of the Nov. 23 issue of Newsweek, someone felt a response was warranted. The wizards of smart at Newsweek took an image from a shoot of Palin that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine for the cover and splashed the headlines, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" and "She's Bad News for the GOP - and For Everybody Else, Too." ...more (with bare-legged Palin cover)...

On the Friday edition of Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan featured fake photos of Sarah Palin during a mocking segment on why Americans are fascinated with the former vice presidential candidate. While listing the show’s top ten reasons, Ratigan showed a doctored photo of Palin’s head on the bikini-clad body of a woman holding a weapon.

The Governor just posted this to her Facebook page: "As you probably have heard, the AP snagged a copy of my memoir, Going Rogue, before its Tuesday release. And as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book. Keep your powder dry, read the book, and enjoy it! Lots of great stories about my family, Alaska, and the incredible honor it was to run alongside Senator John McCain. We can’t wait to hit the road and meet so many on the book tour! See you in Michigan first... -...

As you probably have heard, the AP snagged a copy of my memoir, Going Rogue, before its Tuesday release. And as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book. Keep your powder dry, read the book, and enjoy it! Lots of great stories about my family, Alaska, and the incredible honor it was to run alongside Senator John McCain. We can't wait to hit the road and meet so many on the book tour! See you in Michigan first... - Sarah Palin

<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>

Leadership: As Palin jousts with Biden on energy independence, the government reports that we lead the world in energy reserves. From oil to gas to coal, we are sitting on prosperity. So why are we importing anything? One of the interesting sidelights of the NY-23 race was an exchange on energy independence between Vice President Joe Biden and the former governor of energy-rich Alaska, Sarah Palin. Biden, who came in to campaign for Democrat Bill Owens, was reminded of the issue of energy. "The fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin thinks the answer to energy was 'Drill, baby,...

David Plouffe slammed Sarah Palin on Sunday for her role in the Republican Party and the NY-23 race, saying the GOP was hanging up a sign, “No moderates need apply,” that will marginalize the party for years to come. Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, said of Palin on NBC's “Meet the Press,” “I think we should thank John McCain for picking her.” “What’s going on in the special election in N.Y. 23, I think, is a remarkable phenomenon that could affect our politics for years to come," Plouffe said. He added that Palin, who endorsed the conservative candidate over...