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Pawlenty in Miami was publicly angry, agitated, and even cranky, possibly because he found himself at odds with the far more conservative tone of every other speaker here. Hundreds of RGA members, who paid thousands of dollars to attend this Conference, wildly applauded “red meat” conservative pronouncements by speakers and not the more moderate and conservative-jabbing words by Pawlenty. And then there’s his “Palin problem,” real or imagined, that hit the fan yesterday in front of the national media, possibly upon the insistence of Pawlenty himself, as the above-reported comments to CNN by an anonymous presidential aspirant indicate.

To my fellow bloggers: The next time you get an e-mail from someone saying it’s time to organize a conservative netroots, bear in mind that it’s these morons, by and large, whom that person wants you to support. The same people who couldn’t muster a judgment on the bailout independent of Nancy Pelosi being a big meanie, the same people who can’t organize a press conference without having it descend into backbiting and recriminations. Some Republican governors tell CNN they were not particularly happy with the way the Republican Governors Association press conference was executed Thursday, saying that they agreed...

Newsweek reports that "the day of the third debate, Palin refused to go onstage with New Hampshire GOP Sen. John Sununu and Jeb Bradley, a New Hampshire congressman running for the Senate, because they were pro-choice and because Bradley opposed drilling in Alaska. The McCain campaign ordered her onstage at the next campaign stop, but she refused to acknowledge the two Republican candidates standing behind her." Oh, really? First, John Sununu has a %100 pro-life rating from the National Right to Life Committee. Second, Jeb Bradley was not running for the U.S. Senate, he was running to represent NH's First...

I feel a strong need to get this message out there. Sarah needs our support. And those of you who are insulting her and saying she is "not smart" or "not Presidential material" are insulting all of those people who went out into the rain and cold to watch her over the last few months. You are putting the future of your party at risk. We may have a situation from the movie "Troy" develop within the GOP. We need to rally behind her. We need to stand up for her, because she took a lot of sharp cuts for...

As the implosion of the defeated Republican campaign continued yesterday, the landscape of American conservatism was dotted with signs that these were very strange times indeed. Rush Limbaugh, behemoth of rightwing radio, took to the airwaves to declare war on two enemies: Barack Obama and the Republican party. Bloggers at FreeRepublic.com, an internet hub for conservatives, announced a boycott of Fox News and John McCain's aides fell over one another to leak embarrassing details about the campaign to the press. Liberals, indulging in what the writer Andrew Sullivan termed "Palinfreude", were presented with a smorgasbord, ranging from the tale of...

RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper. We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details. We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates. It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.They'll just have to be stuck at CBS with Katie's failed ratings....

Wow -that is some savage cutting & gutting that Nicole Wallace has just performed upon Sarah Palin. Nicole & I crossed swords once, during the Harriet Miers nomination battle. Watching what Nicole can do when she is seriously annoyed, I am grateful that I got away from that fight with nothing worse than a few bumps and bruises .... That said: Some of these stories do not ring quite true to me, especially the story about Palin allegedly not realizing that Africa was a continent rather than a country. Apparently she did not grasp that "South Africa" was not the...

The Anchorage Daily News reports that Palin chatted with the press today in the lobby of the governor's office: The governor talked about her future role in national politics, her rocky relationship with Democrats and the anonymous criticism from McCain staffers who claimed she went on a shopping spree with Republican Party money and didn't know that Africa is a continent, rather than a country. "If there are allegations based on questions or comments I made in debate prep about NAFTA, about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context....

“It’s depressing,” said Steve Biegun, a veteran foreign policy hand who tutored and staffed Palin and travelled with her through the fall. “We worked our asses off. It was a tough campaign. Then we have this?” Biegun emphatically made the case for his much-maligned former boss. “I think she was fantastic. She just brought a special energy to our ticket. Look, I was there at those rallies.” Adds another former campaign aide: “You know what she did for us. She certainly solidified a hell of a lot of [previously unenthused Republicans].” “I’m appalled by it because Sarah Palin was one...

Palin fires back at leaks questioning her smarts Fri Nov 7, 2008 7:56pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired back on Friday against post-election claims by aides to Republican presidential candidate John McCain that she thought Africa was a country, not a continent, calling the anonymous sources "jerks." Palin, McCain's running mate in their unsuccessful White House campaign, told CNN the allegation "is not true." She said the leaks could have come from people who helped her with preparation for her debate against Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden. She said she remembered having conversations during debate...

News has been circulating around GOP insiders for weeks that McCain campaign honchos Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt were planning to blame Sarah Palin for McCain’s loss. This was expected to be an effort to punt the blame for their own failures to the side of the ticket that was most popular with the base, attracted the largest rally crowds, and scared the living bejeepers out of the opposing party.

In an e-mail statement to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, a top aide to Palin said: "This is so unfortunately and, quite honestly, sickening. The accusations we are hearing and reading are not true and since we deny all these anonymous allegations, there is nothing specific to which we will respond." [snip] Palin herself told CNN last night: "They're unnamed sources and that says it all," calling the people behind the leaks "small, bitter people." [A list of key McCain staffers is below]

“If they’re an unnamed source, then that says it all. I won’t comment on anybody’s gossip, or allegations that are based on anonymous sources. That’s kind of a small, evidently bitter type of person who would anonymously charge something foolish like that, that I perhaps didn’t know an answer to a question. “So until I know who was talking about it, I won’t have a comment on false allegations.”

Bill O'Reilly's calculate move to have Chris Cameron come onto his show with unnamed and unsourced gossip was for one reason and one reason only! Mr O just wants to get Palin on his show. Palin would get huge ratings right now, and he knows it. So--what does he do? He airs baseless gossip, and claims he is just reporting news. It is merely up to Palin to come on air and dispute it. I AM ON TO YOU BILL! Save your "news" for protecting Edwards and Jesse Jackson!

Regarding another stinging criticism, Stapleton claims that the Fox News report Thursday -- that quoted unnamed sources inside the now defunct McCain campaign, saying Palin didn't know Africa is a continent -- was taken out of context. Stapleton says that during a briefing session, someone asked Palin to explain the McCain-Palin stance on an issue, and as she was responding, "in the middle, she said, ‘country of Africa’ and somebody instantly wrote it down, and said, 'Oh, my God, she thinks it's a country.'" But Stapleton insists, "She knows it's a continent. It was just a human mistake, just like...

Palin, who flew into Anchorage late Wednesday night from the campaign trail, was at home in Wasilla on Thursday and not giving interviews, while an aide sorted through luggage to identify campaign clothes purchased by the Republican National Committee. That clothing, which cost the RNC $150,000 or more, is the source of much of the infighting that has dogged the end of the McCain-Palin campaign. Anonymous aides have described the purchases as a Palin shopping spree that went even further than previously reported, including staffers using their own credit cards to clothe her. Palin supporters tell a different story. Stapleton,...

Here is video of McCain aide Nicolle Wallace on the Today Show with Matt Lauer this morning where she talked about the accusations against Gov. Sarah Palin. Wallace has been accused of being one of the leakers inside the campaign, putting out damaging information against Gov. Palin. With Lauer, Wallace said Gov. Palin "did nothing wrong," but she did not flatly deny the accusations against Palin, nor did she deny sharing information with the press. . . . . (Watch Video)

Phoenix Office: 5353 North 16th Street Suite 105 Phoenix, AZ 85016 Main: 602-952-2410 Fax: 602-952-8702 Tempe Office: 4703 South Lakeshore Drive Suite 1 Tempe, AZ 85282 Main: 480-897-6289 Fax: 480-897-8389 Tucson Office: 407 West Congress Street Suite 103 Tucson, AZ 85701 Main: 520-670-6334 Fax: 520-670-6637 Washington Office: 241 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Main: 202-224-2235 Fax: 202-228-2862 I call on Captain John S. McCain, USN (ret.), Republican, Senior Senator from Arizona, to put a stop to the public smearing of your erstwhile running mate, Governor Sarah L. Palin, Republican from Alaska. Governor Palin committed herself and her...

Gov. Sarah Palin returned home in defeat to Wasilla, Alaska, today - leaving behind eyebrow-raising tales about towel-clad appearances and internal campaign feuds. [...] Among the stories reported by Fox News and Newsweek magazine:-- She showed up in front of John McCain campaign aides "wearing nothing but a towel";-- She sent campaign staff on a shopping spree for her family that insiders described as the "Wasilla hillbillies looting Nieman Marcus from coast-to-coast";-- She was so shockingly ignorant of basic civics that aides prepping her for her single debate realized she didn't know that Africa is a continent and not a...

Michael Reagan says that despite reports in the media about bad blood between the Sarah Palin and John McCain camps, Palin is not the reason McCain lost the presidential election to Barack Obama.