Reuters says Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has "flatly denied having any role in Senator McCain's loss in the Presidential election." When questions about running for president in 2012 Sarah Palin said that 2012 is a long ways away. She's right. Four years is a long time in politics but it's hard to imagine she won't eventually decide to run in 2012. Newsweek has already provided a playbook for Sarah Palin if she is planning on running. A CNN poll found that Palin and Huckabee top the lists of 2012 contenders. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also had some support in the poll.
Turkeygate: Sarah Palin Gives Interview In Front of Turkey Slaughterhouse
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin gave an interview ysterday shortly after pardoning a turkey at a Wasilla turkey farm. She gave the interview right in front of a Wasilla turkey farm employee who was busy slaughtering a turkey. He kept looking back somewhat surprised that the interview was still going on as he went about his job of slaughtering turkeys. Sarah Palin should have realized that this was a little too much reality for many Americans just a few days shy of Thanksgiving and an inappropriate backdrop for a post turkey-pardon interview. Turkeygate has led to an endless stream of hilarious headlines including "Turkey-Killing Fowls Palin News Conference." Even PETA blogged about it. (via E&P Pub)
McCain Aides: Sarah Palin Did Not Know Africa Was a Continent, Not a Country
The election is over and the blaming has started in full force in the McCain camp. Newsweek unveiled new revelations about Sarah Palin's shopping spree. The story quotes two high-ranking McCain aides who said Palin spent much more than $150,000 on clothing, that she answered the door to McCain staffers wearing only a towel and that she made low ranked staffers charge things on their credit cards for her. An angry aide summed up the incidents as follows: "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast."
But it gets worse. Fox News Channel political correspondent Carl Cameron today said there will be an "avalanche" of unflattering stories about Palin coming in the near future. Aides to McCain said Palin did not know that Africa was a continent, not a country and did not know what countries are in NAFTA (U.S., Mexico and Canada). And she threw temper tantrums, the aides said. Take a look:
Another aide told Bill O'Reilly that Palin did not know which countries made up North America. And this is who McCain chose as a running mate at the urgings of Bill Kristol? It's mind-boggling.
Sarah Palin has a new interview with ABC News' Elizabeth Vargas that will air on Good Morning America Thursday and 20/20 on Friday. Vargas asked Palin about her plans for 2012 if she doesn't win but Palin remained focused on the current election.
ELIZABETH VARGAS: If it doesn't go your way on Tuesday ... 2012?
GOV SARAH PALIN: I'm just ... thinkin' that it's gonna go our way on Tuesday, November 4. I truly believe that the wisdom of ... of the people will be revealed on that day. As they enter that voting booth, they will understand the stark contrast between the two tickets. ...
VARGAS: But the point being that you haven't been so bruised by some of the double standard, the sexism on the campaign trail, to say, "I've had it. I'm going back to Alaska."
PALIN: Absolutely not. I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that ... that would ... bring this whole ... I'm not doin' this for naught.
Sarah Palin is probably thinking about her political future with the McCain-Palin ticket down so far in the polls. However, she's not going to slip up and start talking about 2012 with the election just days away. Even so Palin saying she's "not doin' this for naught" possibly referring to a run in 2012 left a senior McCain aide speechless. John McCain and Sarah Palin appeared together in Pennsylvania yesterday and both remain optismitic about their chances on November 4th.
The two mavericks John McCain and Sarah Palin appeared together in Pennsylvania in an attempt to battle ongoing accusations that there is a rift between the McCain and Palin camps. McCain focused on taking shots at Obama's tax plan and Obama's comments that he would redistribute wealth. The goal of the McCain campaign now is to win Pennsylvania. The consesus is they have given up on states like Colorado and Michigan. The one big problem with a Pennsylvania strategy is that most recent Pennsylvania polls show Obama with a 10-point lead. The McCain camp believes they can close this big gap before Election Day next week.
Politico reports
that tensions between the Palin and McCain camps are rising during these final weeks of the campaign. There are also reports that Palin is off the reservation and is ignoring her talking points, putting forth her own opinions.
Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.
"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.
"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.
*****
Between Palin's internal detractors and her allies, there's a middle ground: Some aides say that she's a flawed candidate whose handling exaggerated her weak spots.
"She was completely mishandled in the beginning. No one took the time to look at what her personal strengths and weaknesses are and developed a plan that made sense based on who she is as a candidate," the aide said. "Any concerns she or those close to her have about that are totally valid."
But the aide said that Palin's inexperience led her to her own mistakes:
"How she was handled allowed her weaknesses to hang out in full display."
Palin has been talking more to reporters lately, but it's hard to see how she can make up for past mistakes at this late date. The current electoral map has Obama winning in a virtual landslide. The minute the economic crisis hit, it became very clear that Mitt Romney would have been the better VP pick.
Mitt is smart, he understands finance and economic policy: the campaign could have put him front and center from the first day. He could speak fluently about economic policy without needing to study up the night before and could have had daily press conferences during the time that Congress was dithering around on the bailout package. Instead the McCain camp had Sarah Palin, who is so out of her depth on economic matters it's shocking. That was a major misstep by the McCain campaign, and probably sealed the deal for Obama.
Sarah Palin has inspired Hank Williams, Jr. to write a song. Some on the right might enjoy the song because it has plenty of red meat. Below is the video clip of Hank Williams, Jr. singing his song at a Sarah Palin rally at the Richmond International Raceway. You can read the full lyrics here. ABC's Political Radar said Hank once sang the song with the line "Why do you hunt? God why do you fish? How can you be so smart and be such a good lookin' dish?" Either Hank was flirting with the Governor or he just needed a word that rhymed with fish.
Sarah Palin dropped the puck at the Philadelphia Flyers hockey game and was roundly booed by the crowd. A few fans were cheering but the booing was overwhelming and just went on and on and on. The Times hockey blog said that the boos were "resounding (almost deafening)." Here's the video clip:
Saturday Night Live recreated the Joe Biden-Sarah Palin debate and it was very funny. Queen Latifah played Gwen Ifill. Tina Fey is so good at her Sarah Palin impersonation that it's just eerie. She's hilarious. And SNL ratings are up 46% from last year. Take a look:
Katie Couric recently quizzed the Vice Presidential candidates on what they think of current Vice President Dick Cheney. Joe Biden said there aren't many good things that Dick Cheney has done. He did say that Cheney has done harm by "shredding the constitution" and condoning torture. Sarah Palin admires Dick Cheney for his support of the troops. She said the worst thing Cheney has done was when he accidentally shot someone during a hunting trip.
For something more lighthearted take a look at Biden's and Palin's favorite movies.
Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America, with the government's blessing and help. The stock market is heading south as the country's financial woes seem to be getting worse. But what's getting more coverage than these stories are the seemingly endless scandals surrounding Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. The latest? She installed
a tanning bed in the governor's mansion.
This morning NarcoNews reported that that a tanning bed had been installed in the governor's official residence in 2007, sourcing a Department of Transportation employee familiar with renovations at the mansion. This evening, Politico's Ben Smith reported that Palin had paid for the tanning bed with her own money.
Now, Palin's own gubernatorial spokesman Bill McCallister has confirmed to TPMmuckraker that a tanning bed had been installed in the governor's official residence in 2007, and that it wasn't paid for with state funds.
"She paid for it herself," McCallister told TPMmuckraker. "It was surplus from a local athletic club."
The news of Palin's luxurious purchase -- beds can cost as much as $35,000 -- presents a sharp contrast to the blue-collar persona she projects on the campaign trail.
She owns a tanning bed. She can see Russia from parts of Alaska. We've now read an in-depth profile of her hairdresser by The New York Times. Clearly, we don't need to know any more about her. It's not like she could become the leader of the free world or anything.
John McCain is under fire for not properly vetting Sarah Palin before picking her as his running mate. For one thing, he's completely negated his argument that Obama doesn't have the experience to be president. Sarah Palin, who could be a heartbeat away from being the most powerful person on the planet, has been on the national political stage for all of six days. She's clearly not qualified: she's served as mayor of a tiny town and then for a mere twenty months has been governor of a state with a population less than that of the District of Columbia. This is obvious to GOP insiders. But McCain's choice has forced them to grit their teeth and rally to the cause, with hilarious results. Take a look:
Republicans and Democrats alike are still reeling from John McCain's shocking announcement Friday that he was choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate. So what do we know about Sarah Palin?
--She's only been in office for one year and eight months.
--When asked about the Surge in Iraq, she responded "surge? What surge?" She has no stated foreign policy positions, other than a video of her speaking to her Church about the Iraq War being a mission from God.
--She supported the Bridge to Nowhere until it became a national joke, then she quietly allocated the funds elsewhere.
--Billed as a tax cutter, she actually raised the sales tax and instituted a windfall profits tax on oil companies when she was governor.
--She loves to hunt and has photos of her next to a bloody caribou she shot and of a bearskin of a bear she shot. She loves to eat moose stew and caribou burgers.
--She used to smoke pot (it is legal in Alaska, although not under federal law) but said she has stopped smoking. Her comment in an interview was "I can't say, like Bill Clinton, that I didn't inhale."
--Her husband had a DUI at 22, and is a champion snowmobiler. He works for an oil company in the winter and is a fisherman in the summer.
--She has five children, including a four month old infant who has Down's Syndrome.
--She is rabidly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in cases of incest or rape.
--She opposes all sex education and birth control for teens.
--She has an unwed 17 year old daughter who is four months' pregnant.
--She said in an interview that she doesn't know what a Vice President does.
--John McCain had talked to her on the phone once before he invited her to Sedona, chatted with her and then offered her the job.
--She was raised in the Pentecostal Assembly of God church. She is an evangelical Christian.
--Reporters are still investigating whether it's true she first received a U.S. passport in 2007.
-- Her mother-in-law commented to a reporter "I don't see what she brings to the ticket."
Well, there you go. What else could we possibly need to know about a woman who is a heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world? Heckuva job, McCain.
Sarah Palin has a 
Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America, with the government's blessing and help. The stock market is heading south as the country's financial woes seem to be getting worse. But what's getting more coverage than these stories are the seemingly endless scandals surrounding Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. The latest? She 