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In the mail this morning was an advanced copy of Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson's extremely well-reported history of the 2008 presidential campaign: The Battle for America is what the two veteran Posties have called it. The book will be published on August 4; Balz and Johnson will talk about it on Meet the Press on August 2. There are plenty of scoops, and I can't resisting sharing just one involving a critical phase of the campaign in early October of 2008. Whose idea was it for Gov. Sarah Palin to attack Barack Obama as a guy who "pals around...

Whether you like her or hate her you have to admit that the treatment Sarah Palin received in the press has been unfair and unprofessional. So its no surprise that one of the reasons that Sarah Palin gave for her resignation last week was the horrible attacks she and her children have received from in the press. These attacks were not based on policy, from the very beginning they were personal. Here teenage daughter's pregnancy became press fodder, she was accused of not being the mother of her own child and Fox News token liberal Alan Colmes claimed that Sarah...

On AOL Politics Daily, long-time White House reporter Carl Cannon bluntly declared that the political press gave Sarah Palin a raw deal in the 2008 campaign, and seriously failed to scrutinize Joe Biden, especially his fact-mangling and odd statements in the vice presidential debate. Cannon summed up: In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same...

The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign. At issue is a question that was never resolved following McCain’s loss in November: Who in the McCain campaign was secretly trashing Sarah Palin to the press?

"She's [Sarah Palin] got this book deal. She's obviously not going to write it. They already announced she's going to collaborate on it, what an embarrassment," MSNBC's Chris Matthews said on "Hardball" Wednesday evening. "One of these I told you books the jocks do. Why they do it like this? She can't write. We have a collaborator for her," he continued. Matthews ended his rant by complaining she will get the title of "author" now.

Gov. Sarah Palin has signed a book deal with HarperCollins Publishers for what is described as her memoir. "There have been so many things written and said through mainstream media that have not been accurate, and it will be nice through an unfiltered forum to get to speak truthfully about who we are and what we stand for and what Alaska is all about," Palin said in an interview today in which she announced the deal. Palin and HarperCollins would not say how much she was being paid. Asked why, the former Republican nominee for vice president said she didn't...

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...

A handful of readers took note of this passage in my story on Steve Schmidt's and David Plouffe's appearance in Delaware last week: [Schmidt] explained his decision to deny Palin an election night speech as a nod to the fact that the concession is a “singular moment” in American public life. “It begins the process by which power is transferred peacefully,” he said. Asked blogger DougJ: "Is Schmidt implying that Palin would have given an incendiary speech that would have, in some small way, disrupted the peaceful transfer of power?" I hadn't really heard it that way, but it seemed...

(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

It may be, a colleague notes, a fitting coda to the McCain campaign: He apparently rejected his first choice as a running mate, Joe Lieberman, in part based on a faulty legal opinion. McCain lawyer and vetter A. B. Culvahouse said last week that West Virginia law could have barred McCain from nominating a Democrat as his running mate in the key state, knocking Lieberman out of the running.

HBO Films has optioned "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," an in-the-works Harper Collins book by political writers Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The pay network has hired "Blood Diamond" scribe Charles Leavitt to adapt the behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential election from the perspective of the candidates and their respective camps. Halperin is editor-at-large at Time magazine, and Heilemann is national political correspondent for New York magazine. They will be consultants for the film. The book will be published early next year. Heilemann and Halperin have covered other presidential...

Closing a loop on the campaign finance side of the Sarah Palin clothes saga, the Republican National Committee late last month filed an amended report detailing exactly which disbursements were clothing purchases for the Republican vice presidential candidate and her family. The amended report shows that the committee paid about $23,000 for clothing in the three weeks before and after Election Day — which is actually $7,000 less than previously reported. That new report brings the total Palin clothing costs paid by the RNC down and also makes it easier to spot clothing purchases that had previously gone undetected. For...

Palins Get Ready to Spill By Kim Eisler Published Monday, April 06, 2009 Alaska’s Republican governor, Sarah Palin, has retained DC Democratic power player Robert Barnett to sell her presumed memoir of the 2008 campaign. The expected seven-figure book advance will make it easier for Palin to pay for travel to the “lower 48” for political events and then a presidential run. The book could put Palin into a 2012 race with President Obama, who used the same lawyer and the same strategy—a big advance and a book—in part to back his early campaign efforts. During the 2008 Democratic campaign,...

She knew? You betcha, says the baby daddy of Sarah Palin's grandson. The Alaska governor most likely was aware before her daughter, Bristol, became pregnant that the teenager and her hockey hunk boyfriend were having sex, Levi Johnston said in a bombshell new interview. "I'm pretty sure she probably knew. Moms are pretty smart," said Johnston, 18, the father of the governor's first grandchild, in an interview that will air Monday on "The Tyra Banks Show." Johnston said he and Bristol Palin practiced safe sex "most of the time."

<p>The husband of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says the Republican Party's lavish spending on her wardrobe during the presidential campaign was "out of our control."</p> <p>In the May issue of Men's Journal, Todd Palin was asked about the more than $150,000 that the Republican National Committee spent on clothes, accessories and beauty services for the GOP vice presidential nominee. He defended his wife, saying she was focused on preparation for her debate with Joe Biden.</p>

Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Ferragamo. These were just a few of the designer labels Sarah Palin wore during her 2008 campaign. Where are many of these infamous clothes now? In trash bags! Yes, you read that right. In the g-a-r-b-a-g-e. Well, in garbage bags, to be more specific. NewMajority is reporting that roughly $150,000 worth of clothing worn by Sarah Palin during her Republican vice presidential bid is stuffed in trash bags at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C. Palin promised to donate her wardrobe to charity following the campaign, and she did give the clothes to...

Maybe they were those "open-minded Christians." [49 sec. YouTube-linked CNN video at the original]

In 'Sarah Palin: Poised to Become America's First Female President', Recaldo Ochoa explores the life and times of a politician he believes was wronged by the media. He reintroduces Americans to an exceptional American woman, Governor Sarah Palin, who has the character, the qualification, the attributes--intelligence, judgment, leadership ability, and experience--and the unprecedented historical opportunity to become the first female president of the greatest nation on earth.

"50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin, mostly Sarah Palin..."

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has no illusions about the 2008 White House race. "God bless them," McCain said Thursday at the Heritage Foundation when reminded of the tens of millions of people who voted for him last year. "Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin - mostly for Sarah Palin," McCain said to an eruption of laughter. But "there was a sizable majority of the other party returned to Congress. And, elections have consequences. Elections have consequences. And these consequences we are seeing now in full display."