Free Republic

Sarah Palin is making her priorities clear – celebrity feuds trump visiting early states and building an organization. Much was made of Palin’s hire of Mike Glassner as her chief of staff, but since then her operation has not begun to look any more like a campaign in waiting. Continue Reading She has yet to hire additional staff to make a political play. And the contrasting 2012 storylines today serve as good a reminder as any recently of just how far Palin is from running for president. In Iowa, five presidential candidates of various stature are participating in one of...

ROCK HILL, S.C. — As Sarah Palin wonders whether to run for president, she might want to talk to people in places such as South Carolina. She'd find her star fading, and her prospects daunting. Republicans still like her, but now they openly question whether she could or should be nominated for president, let alone elected. At a recent gathering in South Carolina, the site of a crucial early presidential primary next year, party activists said the former Alaska governor didn't have the experience, the knowledge of issues or the ability to get beyond folksy slang and bumper-sticker generalities that...

WASHINGTON—The tax deal now before Congress has kicked off the first real debate of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, with several prospective candidates heralding the package as a victory for taxpayers and others criticizing it as a costly stimulus bill in disguise. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have both come out sharply against the measure, which President Barack Obama hammered out last week with Senate Republican leaders. Both cite the deal's price tag, with Mr. Romney saying it will heap billions more onto the nation's debt load. Supporting the package are former Arkansas Gov....

My first piece on potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates focused on the big names that most Americans are familiar with. As I noted, it is very typical for these candidates to be out front two years away, when the campaigning is just beginning and that polls this early rarely coincide with what actually happens. I will note that I received far and away the most emails from supporters of Mike Huckabee who vehemently believe he will be the nominee. It also leaked that same week, that White House staff asked off the record whom they felt they would be facing...

BRADENTON – If you were watching election coverage on television last Tuesday, you probably heard the saying, "the 2012 race for the White House starts tomorrow," at least once and for a very simply reason – it's true. Presidential elections are a three-year process, the fist portion taking place off the grid for the most part, as potential candidates feel out respected advisors and party heavyweights before beginning to setup the complicated (and expensive) apparatuses required of the next step. That next step has arrived. Those who have already made up their mind and whose current position would not suffer...

Two years after entering the nation’s klieg lights Sarah Palin is the subject of a detailed and sometimes scathing profile in next month’s Vanity Fair. The portrait that emerges is one of a willful, often-paranoid, sometimes vengeful woman with a terrible temper and a knack for folksy soundbites, who knows her strengths, saw her moment in the spotlight and has grabbed onto it with both hands. Or as Vanity Fair’s Michael Joseph Gross puts it “anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath.”