Modesto Bee: Valley GOP backs Sarah Palin visit

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State Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from San Francisco, has been trying to make political hay out of Sarah Palin's scheduled June visit to California State University, Stanislaus, where the university's nonprofit foundation signed her to speak at the school's 50th anniversary celebration. Yee says the foundation should disclose Gov. Palin's speaking fee, although the terms of her Washington Speakers Bureau contract with the foundation explicitly states that the fee is not to be disclosed.

Now the Modesto Bee reports that four GOP state lawmakers have jumped into the fray on Sarah Palin's side:

State Sens. Jeff Denham of Atwater and Dave Cogdill of Modesto with Assemblymen Tom Berryhill of Modesto and Bill Berryhill of Ceres wrote a letter to CSU Chancellor Charles Reed praising the foundation for bringing Palin to campus.

The foundation is charged with raising money to support the school, and it's technically not part of the university.

"As the old adage goes, sometimes it takes money to make money. The sold out (with a waiting list) event that features former Gov. Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker for the 50th Anniversary Celebration was clearly a stroke of marketing genius; one that will clearly help fund student scholarships and other campus activities," the lawmakers wrote.

Welcome to the party, guys.

- JP

Why the obsession with Gov. Palin's speaker fee?

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As we reported Tuesday, a state assemblyman from the People's Republik of San Francisco has his thong in a knot over the amount of the speakers fee that the CSU Stanislaus Foundation is paying Gov. Palin's agent, the Washington Speakers Bureau. Under terms of her WSB contract, the amount of the fee is not to be disclosed.

Meanwhile, the fallout from a dispute between Tea Party Nation's founder and one a disgruntled former member has led to a lawsuit has rekindled the fires surrounding the amount of the fee Gov. Palin was paid for her speech at the Tea Party National Convention in February.

Why are people, especially the Left and its media flea circus, so obsessed over how much Sarah Plain gets paid to deliver a speech? We don't recall this sort of hysteria about the fees that Bill Clinton or Al Gore charge for speaking. Has Palin Derangement Syndrome so rotted the brains of Gov. Palin's political foes that they can no longer concentrate on Things That Really Matter?

Update: Newspaper publisher Bill Mattos, who was a member of the California State University Stanislaus Foundation for over 15 years, writes in an op-ed:

"Many who oppose Palin’s visit want to know how much she will be paid (in recent speeches she has earned up to $100,000), but the foundation is prohibited from releasing that information per her contract. What those who care about the university should be asking is 'How much will we raise for the students.'"

Mattos figures Gov. Palin's appearance could bring in $200,000 or more to the CSU Stanislaus Scholarship Fund.

- JP

Speaking of Sarah speaking...

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In a Chicago Daily Observer op-ed warning his fellow Democrats not to count Sarah Palin out for 2012, Phil Krone mentioned that a half dozen or speaking engagements would provide Sarah Palin with more income than her former salary as governor of Alaska:

"...she had dozens, even hundreds of invitations to speak around the country, both party speeches on the rubber chicken and tea bag circuit, as well as the very remunerative speeches to national conventions and association meetings.

Than he sniffs:

Obviously she couldn’t command the $150,000 that former President Bill Clinton gets, but I’m sure she is getting at least $25,000 or $50,000 to speak to the warehouse owners association or groups like that."

"Obviously", Phil?

There was a time when how much a person got paid for their work was not a topic for either public or polite conversation, but those genteel days are sadly behind us. We can barely remember when it was safe to sit down with the kids in front of the TV and not have to be bombarded with endless chatter about all sorts of things, including the sexual escapades of professional athletes and late night talk show hosts. Nor were the commercials which interrupted the chatter so distasteful. Ads for feminine hygiene and masculine sexual performance enhancement products are a far cry from Tony The Tiger hawking breakfast cereal and Dinah Shore encouraging viewers in song to see the USA in your Chevrolet. 

How much Sarah Palin actually gets paid for her speaking engagements is a private matter between her and her agent, The Washington Speakers Bureau. Event promoters are not supposed to disclose the amount of the fees they contract to pay the former governor to speak, but some people just can't keep a secret, it seems. It was widely reported that Gov. Palin was paid something in the six figures for her first paid speaking engagement booked through the WSB in Hong Kong. 

Next thing you know, the Wide and Snide World Web was all abuzz with noise that her agent was asking $100,000 per speech and would have trouble getting it because some "experts" were quoted as saying that event promoters would balk at paying that much. The so-called experts were soon discredited, as all Palin naysayers eventually are, when a series of speaking engagements were announced for her, one after the other - a right to life fundraiser in Wisconsin, a college in the Ozarks, a chamber of commerce event in Kansas, another one in Florida, a logging convention in northern California, a Tea party convention in Tennessee, another one in Texas, et cetera. So much for event organizers "balking" at signing Sarah Palin to speak at their functions...

It has even been reported that up in Hamilton, Ontario, some people are going to pay her $200,000 to speak at a fundraiser for a children's charity. All of a sudden Bill Clinton's $150,000 speaker fee doesn't seem quite so awesome, now does it, Phil?

- JP

NY Post's Page Six Sarah Palin Smear Dismissed

When you know you are on a losing streak, you try to take out your opponent via the knees right? 

Well the New York Post, a liberal rag of mindless entertainment, decided to write a “I Hate Palin because I don’t think she can sell herself and I think she is dumb” article again. I think that the New York Post and their writers are scared that they are losing money… and have to print this drivel to get some money in.

What cracks me up is how the NY Post is just frothing at the mouth concerning the speaking circuit and the amount of one hundred thousand (100,000) per speaking engagement, which if you think about it really isn’t that much.

Per NY Post:

Palin's bookers are said to be asking for $100,000 per speech, but an industry expert tells Page Six: "The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot."

Now, seeing this, we all understand that speaking engagements are going to “cost”. But if you book a building, with around 1500 seats would be about 67.00 a piece. BUT since you have to have money to rent the building which could be 25,000 for a day, which would cost in the amount of 17.00, I don’t see how this would be a problem? People pull out 100 dollars for just about anything anymore. So charging 100 to 150 dollars per speaking engagement, per person really isn’t that bad.

Also, let us talk about Speaking Engagements that include a nice dinner. Everyone knows you buy the plate before hand for whatever speaking engagement it is. So let’s say you want to hear Sarah at one of these. It is all priced out via the building it would be in, the price of employees, food and set up as well as the strip down and the speakers cost as well as the commission. Well we have all seen these types of dinners where you can pay up and including ten thousand (10,000) dollars per plate! So a room for 500 people. You have 100,000 for speaker, 50,000 for food and service, 15,000 to rent facility. So round it up to 200,000 thousand for cost of all and the cost of the plate for the Dinner Speaking Engagement is a whopping 500.00 dollars per person!

Whoa. I think the New York Post should have thought this through before they typed their smear article out.

-u

Editor's comments:

Page Six, the section of the NY Post where the smear appeared, is nothing more than a big gossip column. Gossip columnists hate Sarah Palin as much as radical leftists do because she is the antithesis of the Hollyweird glitterati they love so much. Their stock and trade is rumor and innuendo, not facts, which are (or at least used be) the stuff of journalism. The NY Post has traditionally been the most conservative of New York's three major newspapers, and the Palin-bashing engaged in by Page Six has more in common with the editorial content of the NY Daily News than the serious (i.e., news) sections in the Post.

Even liberal New York magazine, where no fans of Sarah Palin are to be found, dismisses Page Six's anonymous "source" in its Daily Intel column, titled "Why We Doubt ‘Page Six’’s Sarah Palin Story":

This story is suspicious for a few reasons:

1. The source is openly hostile to Palin, belittling her in almost every quote, so his/her intentions seem fairly suspect. Calling Palin a "blithering idiot" and saying the only people who'd want to hear her speak are "interested in moose hunting" doesn't really add credibility to your claims.

2. Politico reported about a month ago that Palin had received over 1,070 speaking invitations, which is a lot.

As was the case with Levi Johnston's Vanity Fair smears, even liberals aren't buying Page Six's pack of lies because it simply defies common logic. In light of the heavy demand for former Governor Palin  as a speaker, the gossipists' claims are pathetic.

- JP

The 24-Hour Rule (Update: WSB Confirmed)

Dan Riehl assumes that the AP's Asia story is legit:

"Any would be prominent figure that allows a bogus story to fly across the AP and go not knocked down within 24 hrs doesn't have the people around them to be successful. So, I'm assuming this is legit at this point."

Sarah Palin signed with the Washington Speakers Bureau, as was reported Monday. The Bureau is the former governor's exclusive agent for all speaking engagements as of yesterday. One could now reasonably expect, if the Politico story is correct, that questions concerning Palin's reported Asian speech should be directed to the Bureau, given the silence from Meghan Stapleton.

Which is what we have done. A telephone call placed to the Washington Speakers Bureau Monday was not returned. We sent an e-mail inquiry to the Bureau Tuesday morning asking for  confirmation of both the Politico story and the AP report.  An update will be posted when we have confirmation or denial.

We have pontificated before on how important it is to a public figure to have control of his or her message. Dan's post just underscores that this is still an issue for Sarah Palin. If the Washington Speakers Bureau is now representing the former governor, we believe that will be an important step for her in gaining full control of her message.

Update: The Washington Speakers Bureau has revised its website to include the following banner headline:

"SARAH PALIN: Selects Washington Speakers Bureau for Exclusive Representation"

No copy yet, just the headline, but it confirms at least part of Mike Allen's Monday Politico report.

- JP

WSJ's John Fund: Speakers Bureau a big plus for Palin

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund says that Sarah Palin is getting the reputation of being a "no-show." We don't think that's entirely fair, but it has become the media narrative. Sarah Palin has few aides, and their plates are more than full. They simply don't have the time or resources to get on top of every story that is being pushed by the state-controlled media and every promoter who wants to use the former governor's image and her name to sell tickets to their events.

If what Politico is reporting is true, Fund says, all that is about to change:

"Last week, organizers for an Alaska initiative that would require that parents be notified before any child got an abortion reported that Ms. Palin had agreed to appear at their kickoff event but now wouldn't show. Ms. Palin's staff insists she wasn't invited, and that she was out of the state."

"Normally, such incidents can be put down to a 'she-said, they said' kind of dispute. But the Alaska no-show marked the fourth time in recent months that an anticipated Palin speech had fallen through because her staff insisted she had never confirmed it. Here's hoping Washington Speakers Bureau, which apparently already is booking events for her... will now be able to minimize the crossed signals."

Signing with the Speakers Bureau is a smart move by the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, and it doesn't come a day too soon, in our opinion.

- JP