Palin's Fans and Foes Keep Her in the Spotlight: RIGHT, LEFT: Conservative Group to Air Commercials; Opponents Call for Answers.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 12:00 PM
(Source: Anchorage Daily News)By Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska
Nov. 25--A California-based conservative group that hammered Democratic Sen. Barack Obama during the presidential election is launching a string of commercials this week praising Gov. Sarah Palin.
Designed to counter what the group calls attacks on Palin -- a potential presidential candidate in 2012 -- by "media elites," the ads begin airing in Alaska today.
But Palin's critics have been just as busy.
A group spearheaded by local left-leaning bloggers says the governor still has to answer for the findings of an abuse-of-power investigation finished during the campaign, and are pressing lawmakers to take action next session.
The group, Alaskans for Truth, says the Legislature ought to censure Palin for breaking ethics rules and hold hearings on whether the governor and her husband told investigators the truth.
First, the commercials.
They're paid for by a political action committee called the Our Country Deserves Better Committee, which originally formed in July to defeat Obama's presidential bid.
On its Web site, the political action committee talks about stopping illegal immigration and liberal judges, and says the country needs a president who embraces a "culture of life."
The plan was to disband after the election, said chief strategist Sal Russo, but supporters voted in an online poll to keep going.
"We thought a good thing to start with was your governor was being maligned by too many media elites and political pundits," Russo said in a phone interview Monday.
The committee is spending $50,000 on the ads in Alaska and plans to air spots on national cable and network TV too, Russo said.
"We're saying we want her to continue to be a leader of the Republican Party, that we need her," he said.
The ads should hit local television this morning and appear across the state during prime time Wednesday and Thursday -- in time for Thanksgiving. Palin, whose stance on social issues such as abortion lean hard to the right, has left the door open to a potential presidential bid in four years. She was the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket with John McCain, which Obama defeated on Nov. 4.
The Our Country Deserves Better Committee made headlines during the campaign for airing footage of Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and holding a multi-state "Stop Obama" bus tour.
The group's chairman is Howard Kaloogian, a Republican who served in the California State Assembly from 1994 to 2000. Together with Russo, he worked on the successful 2003 effort to recall Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis.
