The Going Rogue Tour: What To Look For

The always helpful Andrew Malcolm, with some things to look for as Sarah Pain begins promoting her memoir Going Rogue, which is due to be released Tuesday.

First, the Barbara Walters interview is a win-win for Sarah Palin:

Walters might happen to mention some of her favorite moments with Palin every few minutes on "The View" this week, which also happens to be on ABC.

It's a match made in PR heaven: A politician whose supporters can't wait to see....

...her and the politician's critics who can't keep themselves from watching either, if only to collect critical things to say about her because she's so unimportant.

So Sarah Palin won't be forced to sit down at the table with insufferable characters like Whoopi Golberg and Joy Behar, yet Babs will be at that same table talking up how well the interview went and how much she liked Sarah Palin despite the fact that the politics of the two women are 180 degrees apart. Like we said, win-win.

Sarah Palin... she's the most recent ex-governor of Alaska who's trying to become the second successive U.S. president to use an electrifying political convention speech to launch a very longshot run to the White House.

[...]

The modern public road to the White House usually starts with a book. Or two. Or three. Ask the current guy, the son of a single mother who even wrote about his past drug use and still got elected.

Palin, however, has a lengthy image rehab road to travel first in the minds of many Americans.

Turns out for 20 years Palin faithfully attended and financially supported a church where the minister gave racist rants denouncing America as the devil and Americans and Israel as evil. And when videos of those "sermons" showed up, the Republican claimed never to have noticed such disturbing words during those long hours of attentive devotion in the pew every week.

Oh, wait. No, that was Barack Obama. Not Palin. And the shocking tapes came from opponents within his own Democrat party. He won anyway.

But Andrew digresses....

Oprah got first crack at Palin on today's show because of her audience clout. And today's show with Palin sure won't hurt her ratings.

Gritting her teeth, Barbara Walters had to settle for second crack. But her interview will be sliced and diced five times all week on various ABC platforms, ending with the whole conversation Friday on "20/20."

[...]

So this weekend the ABC promotional machine (think Disney owners) released video clips of Palin and stole a little pre-Monday thunder and a lot of online buzz.

New York and Washington and their political-media folks are accustomed to thinking of themselves as the nation's capitals of clout. But mid-week in a savvy move by HarperColllins and the woman from Wasilla, she will set out in her book bus across middle America. Bitter smalltown people who cling to their religion and guns like, sniff, quaint smalltown people tend to do.

Tuesday Palin's on-air with Rush Limbaugh and his millions of minions in their cars and kitchens. All Palin's people on their home turf. Not to mention the folks at Fox News where, oh look, more than a third of the audience is Democrats; they might buy a book if they're among the employed still.

Now, just offhand, where do you think Palin's arrival, presence and book would make a bigger splash -- a Fifth Avenue cocktail party, a D.C. hotel soiree or some Sam's Club in Putzville, Pennsylvania? Bingo!

Read Andrew's full Top of the Ticket post here.

- JP