Free Republic

The election is two weeks away, but the campaign trail reviews of Sarah Palin already are in, and they aren’t pretty. According to multiple Republican campaign sources, the former Alaska governor wreaks havoc on campaign logistics and planning. She offers little notice about her availability, refuses to do certain events, is obsessive about press coverage and sometimes backs out with as little lead time as she gave in the first place. In short, her seat-of-the-pants operation can be a nightmare to deal with, which, in part, explains why Palin doesn’t often do individual events for GOP hopefuls. It’s not that...

CNN's new show “Parker Spitzer,” which made its debut Monday night, attracted only 454,000 viewers, a decline from the show it replaced, The New York Times reported Tuesday. The show netted 118,000 viewers in the 25-54 age demographic coveted by advertisers. The program features former New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer -- who resigned in disgrace in 2008 after a prostitute scandal -- and Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist, in a dual anchor format. It lagged well behind 8pm ET rivals “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News Channel and “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC. Those two shows drew audiences...

Here are two more data points from the weekend to back up my argument that the 2012 Republican nomination is not Sarah Palin’s to lose. First, the Values Voter Summit straw poll, a decent gauge of sentiment among the kind of activists Palin would presumably need to rally, in which the former Alaska governor racked up just 7 percent of the vote, trailing Mike Pence (who gave a barn-burner of a speech), Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Second, a new 2012 poll from Public Policy Polling, showing Romney leading with 22 percent, followed by Huckabee at 21, Gingrich...

With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, the fixation on the Republican Party’s chances for a comeback are evolving into speculation over the future of the GOP should the Tea Party make a serious indent on their collective persona. In light of this, Chris Matthews argued Friday night that the GOP’s biggest problem will not be President Obama or the Democrats, or even the Tea Party candidates themselves, but what to do about Sarah Palin, the candidate. “There’s no doubt in the world that she… carries tremendous clout when she endorses candidates,” Matthews conceded. But for the Party, that may not...

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic thinks it’s time for the Obama Administration to play the “Palin Card,” setting the former governor of Alaska up as the target for some Alinsky-style frozen personal polarizing. He dismisses fears that such Presidential attention will elevate Palin to greater national prominence: Elevate Sarah Palin? How much higher can she go? Everyone knows her. Some of Obama’s advisers have argued in the past that the attention paid to Palin by Americans in the last stages of the 2008 campaign is one reason why Obama was able to win so cleanly. Palin and the Tea Party...

The Ruling Class Hits Christine O'Donnell By Jeffrey Lord on 9.10.10 @ 6:09AM Breathes there a soul who doesn't love the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal? Who has not been delighted by National Review and its National Review Online? Well, yes, actually. Lots of souls, undoubtedly the finest of liberals and left-wingers in America. So to disagree with our friends at the WSJ or NRO is something we do in this space with some care. The Journal has lifted the editorial lamp to shine it on Delaware's Republican Congressman Mike Castle, engaged in what was once thought to...

If you are trying to sell books or magazines or get clicks for your website, Republican Party star Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps giving. This week, two new offerings provide glimpses of the former Alaska governor who generally avoids one-on-one interviews with the national political press. Vanity Fair has just released a lengthy, critical article from its forthcoming October issue titled, “Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury."The exhaustive article appears the same week as Meghan McCain is promoting her new book, “Dirty Sexy Politics.” The first-time author offers an outspoken daughter’s view of her father’s unsuccessful 2008...

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney, having met last weekend in New Hampshire with the staff of his 2008 presidential campaign, is preparing to embark on an aggressive schedule that will take him to more than 25 states in what is seen as a prelude to another possible White House bid. The two-month itinerary will launch a cycle of politicking for Republican midterm election candidates that will make Romney one of the nation’s most visible politicians in a year when he is not on the ballot.

FOR MITT Romney, running for president in 2012 looks a lot like running for governor in 2002. All he has to do is elbow aside a Republican woman, run against Democratic leaders and their liberal lockstep politics, and keep talking about the economy. Eight years ago, that was the Massachusetts game plan. After Romney thrust himself into the governor’s race as the can-do candidate with a Harvard MBA, acting Governor Jane Swift took herself out of it. Romney then turned Shannon O’Brien, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and the Democratic leaders of the Massachusetts Legislature, into the so-called “gang of three.’’...

Is O'Reilly in the tank for Romney? I realize this was a charity event, but O'Reilly's snarkiness towards all things Palin leads me to believe that Romney has already made his choice for 2012. http://twitpic.com/2gt3orCheck out Romney's twitter feed for more photos.

She's appeared at Tea Party rallies across the country and long been considered the movement's de facto leader, but a new CNN poll out Friday suggests Sarah Palin isn't the group's clear favorite for the White House.

It is a truism of modern media that few subjects draw more attention than politics. If you're a savvy journalist or blogger looking to attract page views in today's 24-hour news cycle, the shortcut to success requires slapping some political "analysis" on to whatever story you're covering, like so: "University releases groundbreaking cancer study: What does it mean for Obama?" Of course, I've been guilty of this to some extent in my (young) journalism career. And having spent the past few months interning at a national news outlet with a website that has scores of competitors, I understand all too...

Former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney - believed by many political observers to be a clear GOP front-runner in the 2012 presidential race - is virtually in a dead heat with contender Sarah Palin, according to a new CNN poll. The poll shows Romney only 3 percentage points in front of former Alaska Gov. Palin, within the margin of error. “It’s a pretty open contest, and that’s interesting in and of itself,” said Suffolk University political professor John C. Berg. “It means the primary contest will be tighter.” Only months from the unofficial start of the 2012 presidential campaign, Romney...

Is the Sarah Palin backlash beginning? Unlikely, but this remark from Rep. Jack Kingston on “America’s Morning News” radio show this morning is further evidence that the GOP is far from united behind the former Gov. of Alaska. Kingston told the hosts that he wished Palin would “butt out of primary races” because “what she is doing is dividing the Republican party at a time when we don’t need to be divided.” Of course, one might argue it’s that very division that Palin has used to her best advantage. Or that she has done a good job creating the perception...

I listened to the clip of Kingston's appearance on Bill Maher from 8/7/2009 with Darrell Isssa and Arianna Huffington. At 6:10 of the clip the exchange begins and lasts about a minute. Maher reads a portion of Sarah Palin's facebook post on Death Panels and invites Kingston to comment on it: Palin's facebook excerpt: "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,”...

The good old boys just don’t get it. Jason Mattera of Human Events, captured Georgia Congressman John Kingston this morning giving a sexist and blatantly stupid tirade against Sarah Palin for her endorsement of Karen Handel who lost a very close primary in Georgia last night. Appearing on “America’s Morning News” with John McCaslin and Amy Holmes, Georgia Republican Rep. Jack Kingston urged Sarah Palin to stay clear of endorsing candidates in the primaries. “What she’s doing is dividing the Republican Party at a time when we don’t need to be divided… He continued: “Karen Handel is a very decent...

Remember four months ago when she was demanding that they remove her name from an RNC fundraising invitation to donors? Some pol-watchers at the time took that as a sign that she was trying to distance herself from the Republican brand. (“Who wouldn’t want to be sort of seen as more of an outsider and that’s how she’s positioned herself.”) Fast-forward to today and suddenly she’s signing letters on their behalf. What gives? Two theories. One: She’s turned out to be such a good soldier and is so favorably disposed to Michael Steele that she’s willing to do a fundraising...

And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off. It is, obviously, self-referential to quote yourself, but I do it to make a point. I wrote the following on New Year's day, 1994. America 16 years ago was a relatively content nation, though full of political sparks: 10 months later the Republicans would take the House for the first time in 40 years. But beneath all the action was, I thought, a coming unease. Something inside was telling us we were living through "not the placid dawn of a peaceful age but the illusory calm before stern storms."

As the video popped-up this week of far-left, ultra wealthy, and privileged CBS “News” anchor Katie Couric going after then Governor Sarah Palin while mocking the names of her children, it reminded me all over again how much Palin is owed an apology from the “leadership” of the McCain campaign. This anti-Palin “let them eat cake” video rant by Couric (filmed the day McCain announced the traditional values Palin as his running mate) serves as further proof that most in the mainstream media are not only liberal and unethical, but dangerously out of touch with everyday Americans and everyday life....

Katie Couric, whose real name is Katherine Anne Couric, mocked the names of Sarah Palin’s children during a rehearsal in her studio. Her comments, made during the 2008 presidential campaign, are being discussed in the blogosphere today after being leaked. “Where the hell do they get these names from?” she asked, referring to Palin children Trig and Track, sending her crew into peals of laughter. I have some new names for CBS. In a tragedy in Louisiana this Monday, six young teenagers drowned. Their names were: Takeitha, JaMarcus, JaTavious, Litrelle, LaDairus and Latevin. These, like the names of Palin’s children,...