Some Republican leaders prefer not to discuss Sarah Palin [Romney "laughing and smiling"] [McCain]

Politico ^ | 2009-05-03 | Jonathan Martin

[rabscuttle385]

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 laughing and smiling as he said it. His spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, called it only “a self-deprecating joke as to why there weren't more Republicans on the list.”

But Romney’s quip reflects the deep unease among many in the GOP establishment about the continued high-profile of Limbaugh and especially Palin. There is almost a sense of exasperation among many party elites over the media coverage the two polarizing figures get – attention which, in Palin’s case, is widely seen as a product largely of her good looks and tabloid-fodder family troubles.

“She’s bigger in the media than in reality,” lamented GOP consultant Mike Murphy, a longtime friend and adviser to John McCain.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Have you noticed that Sarah doesn’t make fun of any of these windbags? It’s they who gratuitously put her down. I wonder why.