[GATOR NAVY]

Not really what the headline claims but it is an interesting look at Palin's current chance at beating Lisa Murkowski in the 2010 Alaska Senate primary.

[madprof98]

Everything possible has been done to destroy this woman. I’m surprised they didn’t ask how many Alaskans would prefer that she be beheaded.

[SolidWood]

Yaaaaawn... some new toys for the media to fool around. Since when is Palin running for Senate?

Also this revealing quote got my attention:

begin to gush in cult-like fashion about how wonderful she is

Unlike the gushing and fawning for the Obamessiah. LOL.

[LiberConservative]

Governor Palin could pull an 0bama by beating Murkowski in 2010 and then spend the next 2 years campaigning for President and building the conservative base. Hey, turnabout is fair play.

It would be really tough on her family, though.

[Lilpug15]

The assumptions and underlying factors of the polls and surveys are always left out. That’s why these polls are very misleading - a follow up question to this poll would be what people think about those in the senate or the changes of being president from being gov. vs. being a senator. That’s what I would like to know because I tend to believe that looking at the age group stats - those that have been around longer and know how politics work as repubbies and conservatives that the older age groups knows she has a better chance remaining gov. and therefore would rather have her there than in DC - because the younger age groups as you can see want her in DC that’s my indication there... sorry I’m rambling but you get the point :)

[FlingWingFlyer]

A partial list of "contributors" to the Alaska Standard. I guess Governor Palin is too busy to write for these guys. I sure do miss not being bombarded by "polls" now that the "election" is over.

Contributors

Dan Fagan

Rebecca Logan

Dave Stieren

Alex Gimarc

Glen Biegel

Penny Nixon

Andy Clary

Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Roger Maynard

[Northern Yankee]

Ask conservative Republicans across the country what they think of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the vast majority of them will begin to gush in cult-like fashion about how wonderful she is.

As oppose to the objective approach the media takes towards Obama. /Sarcasm off.

[St. Louis Conservative]

Sarah should stay as far away from the senate as possible, IMO. That place is a laughing stock. It has approval ratings in the teens, and is about to get more absurd with the likely additions of Al Franken, Caroline Kennedy, and whoever the Chicago Machine throws in there. She should stay in Alaska and concentrate on being a good governor.

[Seven plus One]

I don't like to see Republicans chewing each other up in primaries. You've got two strong candidates for different offices. Do another term as Governor, and if she still wants to be in the senate (which could be false anyway) run against Begich next time.

[TYVets]

The Alaska Standard the CNN, New York Times, AP etc of the north?

[PaleoBob]

It’s inconceivable to me that ANYONE would believe a WORD of ANYTHING the MSM has to say about Sarah Palin. How dumb would you have to be believe any of it?

[Dahoser]

In Alaska, registered Democrats are not allowed to vote in the Republican primary, but independents and non-partisans are.

What's the point of calling it a Republican primary if non-Republicans can vote in it?

[RobinOfKingston]

Aught eight notwithstanding, it is relatively rare to elect a senator directly into the presidency. The last time it happened was kennedy. Our friend Sarah will be better off to stick in the governorship and do a bang-up job there, than to get watered down among the 99 pygmies in the senate.

In all fairness, though, she still hasn’t returned the call I made with the intention of passing on my political advice.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If Sarah Palin has hopes of holding the White House in four years, according to our poll, she’ll have to run from the Governor’s mansion.

1. It's kinda hard to "hold the White House" when Obama is the incumbent.

2. Contrary to popular opinion, the Senate is not a great place to run for president from. I admit that it is a pretty good place from which to run for the presidential nomination of a party - but Warren G. Harding is the only example of a senator without executive experience defeating a governor in the general election.

   Senator Kennedy beat VP Nixon, but VP is political heir of the president but in no sense an executive position; one of them had to win. When Nixon beat VP Humphrey, one of them had to win, and when Senator Obama beat Senator McCain one of them had to win.

It would not be intelligent for Governor Palin to seek a Senate seat to further her chances of beating a sitting president in 2012. It would also be an unnecessary strain on her family.

[Josh Painter]

Tag-teaming Sarah Palin

What does a Sarah Palin critic and friend of Lisa Murkowski do when a poll shows that Palin would be the clear winner in a potential Senate race between the two women? Have another poll conducted which shows different results, of course. And that is just what has occurred in Alaska.

Dan Fagan is the Anchorage talk show host, columnist and blogger who had a big falling out with Gov. Sarah Palin and has been trying to tear her down ever since. Fagan's best friends in Alaska are the Murkowskis and Big Oil. Ever since Lisa Murkowski's father Frank was pried loose from the governor's job by Sarah, things between the Murkowskis and the Palins have been going downhill. The Murkowskis are still tight with Dan Fagan, however, and Lisa is a regular contributor to Fagan's blog The Alaska Standard.

Even after Palin upset Frank Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary, she still managed to get along with Fagan. But when Sarah Palin took on the oil companies, that was the final straw. Dan has never forgiven her for that unpardonable sin, and it's been open warfare ever since. Two Wall street Journal stories, here and here, are good background reads on the subject.

Meanwhile, tensions between Palin and the Murkowskis were further strained when the media tried to provoke open warfare between them by speculating about a possible Palin run for Lisa Murkowski's U.S. Senate seat. The Senator was not amused, and she and the governor had to release a joint statement to make at least a public show of unity.

But the media continued its talk of a potential Palin Senate run, even though it's not really in the Govenor's interests to challenge Lisa Murkowski for the seat. If Palin has some hidden desire to be a Senator, it would behoove her to wait until 2014 and take on Alaska's other Senator, a Democrat. No one is more aware of this than Markos Moulitsas, the publisher and founder of the hard left website Daily Kos. He is also quite aware of Gov. Palin's front-runner status for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, evidence for which can be found here, here, here and here. Also, Palin was impressive in helping Georgia's Saxby Chambliss retain his Senate seat by a margin that was much wider than expected, and she's a phenomenon nationally. If you think the Democrats don't fear her, you haven't been paying attention.

So kos figured that the best way to make trouble for Sarah Palin is to exploit the tensions between the governor and her political rivals in Alaska. Understanding that Palin has as many enemies in the Republican Party as she does among Alaskan Democrats, kos commissioned an opinion poll by Research 2000 which showed Palin with a double-digit lead over Lisa Murkowski in a potential match up for Murkowski's Senate seat.

Here's where Dan Fagan re-enters the picture. His Alaska Standard website commissioned a poll by a local company which shows results completely different from those of the Research 2000 survey. Fagan's poll, conducted by Dittman Research, shows:

Palin would have a tough time beating Murkowski. In fact, in a Republican primary, Murkowski would defeat Palin soundly, by a margin of 58 percent to 31 percent.

Contrast this result with those of the kos-sponsored poll which shows Palin soundly defeating Murkowski by a 55 percent to 31 percent margin, and it's clear that something is amiss here. Which of the two polls is correct?

It doesn't matter. Fagan's poll numbers provide him with the justification he needs to headline an Alaska Standard article declaring:

New poll shows Palin no longer Alaska's most popular politician

Do you see what is going on here? The Democrat left is exploiting internal rivalries within the Alaska Republican Party in an attempt to weaken Palin's front-runner standing with Republicans nationwide. That some of Palin's harshest critics are self-described conservatives matters not at all. When the political left and their media allies shout "Jump!" the response from Palin's GOP enemies is always "How high?"

This is the nature of the forces arrayed against Sarah Palin to cripple her politically, whatever path she may take - remaining Governor, taking a detour through the U.S. Senate or challenging Barack Obama for the presidency. No matter which path she chooses, she will have to fight not only the Democrats and their media, but her Republican enemies and their own media. These Alaskan "conservatives" are only too willing to conspire with their ideological opposites to defeat her. But Sarah Palin has faced long odds before and emerged triumphant. She will need a maximum effort from her supporters to be successful in whatever she chooses to do in the future.

- JP

Sarah Palin for President

[GipperGal]

Let me tell you all a little about Dan Fagan. This guy hated Palin from the moment she ran for governor.

Here’s an excerpt from Kaylene Johnson’s bio of Palin:

Meanwhile, the [Republican] old guard didn’t know what to make of the young populist candidate, especially when she began moving up in the polls despite their best efforts to either discredit her or support her opponents.

‘Anyone who was part of the establishment fought against her. [Talk show host] Dan Fagan clawed, fought, ridiculed, embarrassed, and deliberately misrepresented Sarah,’ Bailey said. Disparaging remarks on radio programs sometimes backfired. Fagan showed up at the Palin campaign headquarters one morning to clarify a point before his daily show. Waiting at the front desk was a man who took one look at Fagan and dug out his checkbook. ‘This is your fault,’ he said, waving his checkbook in the air. ‘Every time you bash this woman on the air, I’m down here writing another $500 check. Cut it out.’” [emphasis added]

He's always been out to destroy her and her credibility. Here's Palin ripping him a new one on his radio show. It's quite amusing. The guy is a gutless worm.

Oh, and he is also the one that Palin's Lt. Governor Sean Parnell mentioned in one of the private emails that was released after it was hacked. In that particular email, Parnell bemoaned the fact that Dan Fagan had targeted him and was slinging crap at him. Parnell had tried to change Alaska's lifelong Congressman Young in the Republican primaries. Idiots like Dan Fagan like keeping corrupt old pork politicians in place.

I'm sorry to say this, but the Alaska GOP establishment is everything that's wrong with the GOP. If they hate Palin, then she's fine by me.

[upsdriver]

I hope the hell Sarah Palin doesn’t run for the Senate. What a waste of her talent, to join that collection of turds.

[an amused spectator]

Written by Dan "Fagboy" Fagan: The Curious Case of Dan Fagan’s Levi Johnston Op-Ed in the Anchorage Daily News

Fagboy is a serial Palin hit-piece guy, and the Left apparently loves his "homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, Exxon-loving WATB" self because he hates Palin.

[curth]

Comment left at http://thealaskastandard.com/?q=node/232#comment-605 the host of this garbage poll:

If you don’t get the results you want, conduct your own poll
Submitted by curth on Sun, 01/04/2009 - 9:04pm.

This poll is pure BS. The Daily Kos, the DAILY KOS of all things, conducted a similar poll only a few weeks ago and unbelievably, got very unsimilar results. Obviously those who sponsored the poll on this site, did not like seeing that Governor Palin would win a Senate race by a 55-31 margin, so they made up their own poll.This poll here is nothing but another hit piece against Governor Palin.
Hopefully she’ll stay as Governor and avoid the cesspool that the US Senate is.
See the Daily Kos poll here:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/19/163122/92/701/674605

[Chrisie]

The Daily Kos - not a Palin fan - had Palin leading Murkowski by a huge margin.

It’s interesting to see how favorably skewed this Dittman poll is toward Murkowski. It only takes a few minutes worth of research to dig up all the contributions Terry Dittman and David Dittman have given to the Murkowskis (both Frank and Lisa) over the years including a $500 donate to Lisa Murkowski as recent as May 2008. David Dittman’s contributions to Frank Murkowski go back almost 30 years to 1980.

Also, Dittman was Frank Murkowski’s paid pollster until the whole VECO debacle. So, just how accurate is this poll? If a lay person can find enough information on the Internet in five minutes to question the validity of this news story, how come you can’t?