The Daily Kos pollster finds her in the lead:
Palin 21%
Gingrich 19%
Romney 18%
Huckabee 16%
Paul 5%
Pawlenty 5%
Thune 3%
Daniels 2%
Sarah Palin raised $469,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22 bringing her total for the year to over $3 million, Tim Crawford, SarahPAC's treasurer, told TIME exclusively. Crawford attributed the surge of funds to energy surrounding the midterm elections, Palin's endorsements and her TLC reality show “Sarah Palin's Alaska.” Her second book, America By Heart, came out Nov. 23.
The PAC spent $64,000 buying advance copies of her books, “just as we did last year” with her first book, Going Rogue, Crawford said. “They're a great fundraising tool for us.” Palin is in the midst of a two-week cross-country book tour.
Overall the PAC spent $581,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22. A larger percentage than normal was spent on contributions to political candidates, $244,000, as Palin tried to help her 81-endosed candidates over the Nov. 2 finish line. Fifty-five of them won.
All of the $469,000 was raised online or through direct mail. The former Alaska governor has had only two fundraisers for her PAC this year – the last one this past summer -- compared to Mitt Romney's nine. Crawford expects to file his report to the Federal Election Commission this afternoon.
These numbers are in addition to the $300,000 that she raised in the first half of October. It's great that she's on pace to match her numbers from last quarter during a time that is typically a dead period for PAC fundraising. Her numbers are even more impressive considering that she has pretty much done no fundraising.
You can donate to her PAC here.
Bristol stumbled into the finals dead last.
"There's lots of haters out there that are waiting for me to fail," she said.
At the wrenching end of the weeks-long contest that captured America's imagination, she did fail. Bristol Palin finished a miserable third behind real talent on a TV show too many of us watched on the off chance her paranoid, delusional, wack-job mom would be, well, a paranoid, delusional wack-job.
[..]
It seems to me that "hater," used by the lovely Sarah P. as a blunt instrument on people she has issues with, is an ugly word. In fact, in the "Somalian-to-Norwegian Dictionary and Cooking Guide," a hater is defined as somebody who disagrees or questions Sarah Palin about virtually anything -- or who does not like lutefisk. There is even a picture of her and a pot of fish. I'm not kidding.
To the Palins, using the term immunizes them from criticism. You disagree, you're a hater; your opinion, your point of view, means nothing. That's too bad. Hiding behind "hater" is a childish, transparent and fearful self-defense gambit that signals intellectual weakness and a lack of backbone; an inability to defend an idea or principle. It insulates its user to end discourse. It forecloses on compromise, and labeling someone a "hater" is the first step in dismissing and, eventually, dehumanizing them. It's not me; it's you.
Democratic Party front group Media Matters for America has published yet another attack on Republican Sarah Palin. This one a dishonest portrayal of media coverage of her recent slip of the tongue regarding the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
[...]
In a Thanksgiving Day message posted Nov. 25th on her Facebook page, Palin opened her post with a tongue in cheek send-up of President Barack Obama in which no fewer than ten of his verbal gaffes and misstatements were included and sourced.
[...]
Boehlert smears Palin, describing her as being nuts in some manner or form, “self-obsessed” and imagining things.
“Fox News’ Sarah Palin is now so consumed with every real or imagined media wrong against her that she’s to the point where she’s attacking the press for stuff they don’t even do.”
Even though Palin’s slip was reported in headlined stories by American and international wire services, as well as major news sites across America and around the globe, Boehlert claims “major American newspaper(s) did not turn the Palin/North Korea gaffe into a “major political headline,” did not treat it as news, and did not even mention it as news when it occurred.” Boehlert changes Palin’s assertion of major political headlines to major newspaper headlines, a sleight of hand that allows Boehlert to use Nexis to list major American news outlets that supposedly did not report on Palin’s slip:
“New York Times; Wall Street Journal; Los Angeles Times; Washington Post; New York Post; Houston Chronicle; Philadelphia Inquirer; Newsday; Denver Post; Arizona Republic; Minneapolis Star Tribune; Dallas Morning News; Cleveland Plain Dealer; Seattle Times; Chicago Sun-Times”
Boehlert also claims broadcast media did not cover Palin’s slip:
“What other news outlets ignored Palin’s verbal gaffe when it occurred? All three major networks–ABC, CBS, and NBC–as well as CNN, Fox News, PBS and NPR.”
However, Boehlert fails to note the story exploded on major news sites on the Web within hours of Palin’s slip.
Boehlert also conveniently fails to note that the faux scandal was initiated by his fellow Media Matters writer Oliver Willis.
If within the hierarchy (again those self proclaimed movers and shakers and the pickers of the winners and losers in a political primary especially ), if they keep making it so difficult on good average Americans with some commonsense solutions - if they make it so difficult, virtually imposssible to run for office - that's going to be the death of the GOP. They need to wake up and realize that. It's going to keep good people from running for office.Tammy Bruce had the perfect question:
They're not going to get me to sit down and shut up. If I believe its the right thing to do in running for president I am going to do so. But, these GOPers (who think that they have their thumb on the pulse of America and they're going to tell us instead of allowing competition that can breed success), if they're going to tell us who it is that can surface as an ideal candidate through a primary without letting the process work, then they're going to keep some really good people from running.
If they're afraid of you, Governor, how in God's name can they run the United States of America and face the evil bullies that are out their in the world? If they can't handle you, Governor, how can we allow them to take this nation?Sarah Palin referred to anonymous sources in giving Tammy's perfect question, the perfect answer:
You guys are going to cure the world's economic woes and [take] on these dictators who want to destroy us and our allies, but you can't put your name behind criticisms against somebody who's trying to do the right thing. If you can't put your name on criticism. It's a wimpy wimpy thing that they're doing.It is an exremely newsworthy and interesting exchange which starts at the 6:00 minute mark.
My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…
Of course, the paragraph above is based on a series of misstatements and verbal gaffes made by Barack Obama (I didn’t have enough time to do one for Joe Biden). YouTube links are provided just in case you doubt the accuracy of these all too human slips-of-the-tongue. If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe – even news anchors.
Obviously, I would have been even more impressed if the media showed some consistency on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline. The one word slip occurred yesterday during one of my seven back-to-back interviews wherein I was privileged to speak to the American public about the important, world-changing issues before us.
If the media had bothered to actually listen to all of my remarks on Glenn Beck’s radio show, they would have noticed that I refer to South Korea as our ally throughout, that I corrected myself seconds after my slip-of-the-tongue, and that I made it abundantly clear that pressure should be put on China to restrict energy exports to the North Korean regime. The media could even have done due diligence and checked my previous statements on the subject, which have always been consistent, and in fact even ahead of the curve. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? (And for that matter, why not just make up stories out of thin air – like the totally false hard news story which has run for three days now reporting that I lobbied the producers of “Dancing with the Stars” to cast a former Senate candidate on their show. That lie is further clear proof that the media completely makes things up without doing even rudimentary fact-checking.)
“Hope springs eternal” as the poet says. Let’s hope that perhaps, just maybe, they might get it right next time. When we the people are effective in holding America’s free press accountable for responsible and truthful reporting, then we shall all have even more to be thankful for!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
- Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin teases that she might run for president. But she is unqualified - not just in the (let me count the) usual ways, but because she does not know the country. She could not be the president of black America nor of Hispanic America. She knows more about grizzlies than she does about African Americans - and she clearly has more interest in the former than the latter.
And therein really lies the problem in the liberal media. Folks like Cohen and his ilk still see many Americas all divided by race and ethnicity.
This divide will only disappear when the Cohens of this world see America as one and stop using race as a political tool.
Sadly, I don't expect that will happen in my lifetime. How about you?
It's appalling that Palin and too many others fail to understand that fact - indeed so many facts of American history. They don't offer the slightest hint that they can appreciate the history of the Obama family and that in Michelle's case, her ancestors were slaves - Jim Robinson of South Carolina, her paternal great-great grandfather, being one. Even after they were freed they were consigned to peonage, second-class citizens, forbidden to vote in much of the South, dissuaded from doing so in some of the North, relegated to separate schools, restaurants, churches, hotels, waiting rooms of train stations, the back of the bus, the other side of the tracks, the mortuary, the cemetery and, if whites could manage it, heaven itself.
It was the government that oppressed blacks, enforcing the laws that imprisoned them and hanged them for crimes grave and trivial, whipped them if they bolted for freedom and, in the Civil War, massacred them if they were captured fighting for the North. And yet if African Americans hesitate in embracing the mythical wonderfulness of America, they are accused of racism - of having the gall to know more about their own experience and history than Palin and others think they should.
Did she [Governor Palin] ask about her [Michelle Obama] background? What it was like at Princeton? What it was like for her parents or her grandparents? I can offer a hint. If they were driving to Washington, they slowed down and stopped where the sign said "colored" - and the irritated Palins of the time angrily hit the horn and went on their way.
1. Well, what a great ride! Competition is good for everyone.Be inspired by those who step up to challenges & improve w/each step;Congrats Jen!
2. Congrats Jen,Kyle,Bristol,et al, for proving competition is GOOD! Remember: "They're going to criticize anyway, so you might as well dance!"
Sarah Palin says she is seriously considering a run for the White House, and she believes she could beat President Obama in 2012, the former Alaska governor told ABC News' Barbara Walters.
"I'm looking at the lay of the land now, and ... trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing," Palin said in an interview scheduled to air in full Dec. 9 on ABC as part of Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People" of 2010.
Asked Walters: "If you ran for president, could you beat Barack Obama?"
"I believe so," Palin said.
Sarah Palin, the biggest loser.
That seems to be the consensus of the grandees inhabiting Washington and New York and pockets of glitter beyond. There is a variety of interpretations of the midterm Republican wave emanating from the wine bars of upper Manhattan and the salons of Georgetown, but most include the notion that for Sarah Palin, this election was the political equivalent of the hit ABC show "The Biggest Loser." When push came to shove, she stood on...principle?
Media and political elites may disagree on the many consequences of what the president called a "shellacking" by the voters, but they largely agree that the biggest loser was Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin has once again been flagged for her unwillingness to play the game according to how the media and political professionals want it played. For them, it is a game, with taxpayer dollars as Monopoly money. But for Sarah Palin, it's about beliefs and values and service -- which disqualifies her, in their view, from life between the political lines. Sure, she won -- having helped more than sixty candidates to victory -- but, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out, the political and media elites are "a little miffed" at how the Tea Party and Palin put principle ahead of politics. C'mon, lady -- professionals don't do core beliefs!
It was her principles that represented the biggest negative for Karl Rove, whom Lee Cary of American Thinker characterized as the "lead consigliere for the Republican bluebloods." Rove attacked Palin as unfit for political leadership after she insisted on endorsing candidates based on their beliefs in limited government and traditional values. Principles, he sneered, are for amateurs; professionals believe in winning. In response to the attack of the former Bush advisor and Fox News analyst, Hot Air blogger Allahpundit reminded him that she is effective in large part because she is "authentic and unpretentious." Exactly, Rove thundered in return: those qualities have no place in Washington!
Immediately following the election, the nation's elites went on Sarah Palin Alert. They have worked hard to strip taxpayers of hard-earned dollars and make Washington, D.C. the center of wealth, with six of the ten wealthiest counties in the United States bordering the Beltway. And it was Karl Rove who slammed his foot down on the accelerator of government spending during the Bush presidency, handing Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama a government poised to careen out of control. And it has: now that great centralized motor vehicle bureau known as the federal government has twice as many $150,000-a-year bureaucrats as it did when Obama took office, all extravagantly paid to scowl, fill out forms, and say "no" to the hapless citizens underwriting their million-dollar homes.
Small wonder that Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, a veteran of almost two decades inside the Beltway, looked at the Tea Party-inspired Republican sweep and saw only danger...from Sarah Palin. He said of her Herculean effort in creating a Republican wave: she cost us the U.S. Senate! Stop her! he screamed. And the media answered with a barrage of articles offering advice on how to stop Palin. For example, a former Wall Street Journal editor who had bolted when the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, bought the news outlet and put an end to its leftward drift laid out a plan to "derail Palin for 2012."
The mainstream media have been only too happy to oblige, for, as Allahpundit reminds us, Sarah Palin represents virtues alien to political and media elites. Should God offer a new beginning and utter the words, "Let there be honesty," a new Left Behind series would begin in empty Ritz Carlton meeting rooms and mainstream media offices all over the East Coast. Remaining would be the Sarah Palins of the world, the people who think Manolo Blahnik is the name of the guy who dishes up those great fish tacos from the truck just inside the entrance to the state fair. That's why the media elites immediately joined the Republican political establishment to highlight the "urgent task" resulting from the midterm victory: "Stop Sarah Palin."
[...]
Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker and the disgraced former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, have put together a show that is mainstream media right down to its "bomb" in the ratings. Parker lets us know that she is proud to have led the "assassination" of Palin in the days following the Alaska governor's vice presidential nomination. Rove is right to slam Palin, for she has "earned her ridicule" for her outrageously extreme positions. Palin believes that abortion is wrong, that Israel is courageous and admirable, that traditional family relationships are a strength and blessing, and that God is a part of all that is good and true -- extremist positions, Parker claims, repugnant to the real heart of America...Washington, D.C. This "dangerous" woman represents a "fresh terror" for "establishment Republicans," who, like Parker and Spitzer, are professionals. This election has now put the professionals on alert: Palin must be stopped.
[...]
And so Parker and Spitzer join with Noonan and Rove and others of the political establishment to stop the greatest threat to come out of the midterm Republican victories: Sarah Palin. By winning, she has lost, for they all understand that there's no hope of her joining them, of compromising her principles.
And so expect Rove to go after Sarah Palin again and again and again. And expect him to wear his black socks while doing so. You betcha!
The ratings are in, and it looks like “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is a hit. TLC says nearly 5 million total viewers tuned in to the premiere of the series.
In case you haven’t seen our previous coverage, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is a documentary series from producer Mark Burnett and starring former Alaska governor and Fox News Channel contributor Sarah Palin.
TLC says 4.96 million total viewers tuned in, including 1.8 million adults 25-54, and 1.6 million adults 18-49, two of the network’s key demos. That is the best premiere in network history with regards to total viewers, beating the 2003 debut of “What Not to Wear.”
Going Rogue: An American Life
by Sarah Palin
America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag by Sarah Palin
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