http://nymag.com/news/politics/69130/index1.html
2012: How Sarah Barracuda Becomes President
“The unpredictability and the peril would increase exponentially with Palin in the mix. This scenario might seem bizarre, but we live in bizarre times. At a moment like the present—when American politics is wildly polarized and unstable, populist fervor has gripped the right and left, and the economy continues to flatline—it’s worth contemplating how much weirder things might get in 2012, and whether that weirdness could be so extreme as to make the unthinkable thinkable.
To wit: President Palin, anyone?”
“In a normal presidential cycle, Romney would be the clear Republican front-runner. His operation is top-notch. His PAC raked in $5.1 million in the first three quarters of the year, more than any other prospective candidate. And since he finished as runner-up to John McCain in 2008, it is, as they say, his turn—a quality that usually matters hugely in a party that has long operated in accord with the principle of primogeniture. Yet, for all of his dogged efforts, Romney has failed to solidify his status as the man to beat. A recent NBC News–Wall Street Journal poll found that his favorability among conservative voters is just 30 percent.
The reasons are myriad, but paramount among them is his role in enacting a health-care law in Massachusetts that bears a striking similarity to the controversial (and loathed on the right) federal overhaul that Democrats passed this year. Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole’s campaign in 1996, argues that Obamacare in 2012 will be “what Iraq was to the Democrats last time, the defining issue and a fault line in the party”—one that may well prove as harmful to Romney as Hillary Clinton’s vote authorizing the war was to her in 2008. Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, likens Romney’s history on health care to “a boat anchor attached to his leg,” which he needs to get rid of “or [his candidacy] doesn’t work.” Can he do it? “Yeah, just explain it was the crystal meth,” Norquist cracks.”
Romney, the RINO establishment and the Left are going into cardiac arrest at the thought of this...
Sneak Peek: Meet the Extended Family on Tomorrow Night’s ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’
by Lorie Byrd
This week Sarah Palin’s Alaska is all about family and fish. The Palins visit Todd’s family in Dillingham and at a fish camp in Ekuk. And they do a lot of fishing. Sarah and Todd’s son Track is back from Iraq and eager to make money following in his father’s fishing footsteps. But first he has to prove to his father that he can be the next of the great Palin fishermen.
In addition to watching Track catch fish (or not catch fish), Todd’s Eskimo grandmother, Lena, teaches Willow and the other girls in the family how to process the fish properly. Willow describes the scene as being covered in blood (and fish guts) and says she doesn’t think any of her friends do this. She is a good sport though and pretty good at it.
Later at the fish camp in Ekuk, after learning to process salmon for smoking, Piper says “I think I’m the best fish fileter in the whole third grade.”
The episode shows the Palin side of the family (5 generations) and what a big part of their lives fishing is. Willow celebrates her sweet sixteen birthday with a family party at her great grandmother’s house. The most powerful moments in the episode though focus on Trig and his teenage cousin Matthew who both have Down syndrome.
Sarah chokes up and tears up (and so did I) when talking about her visit with Matthew because it gives her a look at Trig in ten years. She says she hopes that Trig will be embraced by others and treated just like the other kids and talks about how Trig is the heart of her family and how much he teaches them all. This is an emotional side of Sarah Palin that her fans have not seen — at least not to this extent.
This is the most “real” of the episodes so far. The family is not fishing with brown bears or climbing mountains or visiting a commercial fishing operation. They are hanging out with family, fishing on their own boat with their own nets the way they supported their family for many years. They are visiting cousins and working alongside them in the fish camp. This shows the background of hard work and family that shapes Todd and Sarah Palin’s world view. http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lbyrd/2010/11/27/sneak-peek-meet-the-extended-family-on-tomorrow-nights-sarah-palins-alaska/