Politico: First stops on 'America by Heart' book tour revealed

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With Gov. Palin's second book offical release date of Nov. 23 less than two weeks away, many of the governor's supporters have been waiting for news of a new book tour. Wait no longer. According to Politico, the America by Heart book signing tour will kick off in Phoenix on the 23rd, and stop in 16 cities over a nine-day stretch:

Among the destinations sure to get buzz: Des Moines and Spirit Lake, Iowa.

Palin’s strategic schedule includes a stop in Tulsa, Okla., on “Black Friday” — the day after Thanksgiving — and then four more stops during that big shopping weekend.

The tour has more of a heartland concentration than the 35-city tour for her memoir “Going Rogue” (the best-selling nonfiction book of 2009) and adds such markets as Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The venues include the giant book chains — Borders, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. But the former Alaska governor will also sign books at all-American locations like Walmart, Sam’s Club, Costco and Kroger.

[...]

Here’s the list of stops:

Nov. 23: Phoenix, AZ
Nov. 26: Tulsa, OK
Nov. 27: Norfolk, NE.
Nov. 27: Des Moines, IA
Nov. 28: Andover, KS
Nov. 28: Dallas, TX
Nov. 29: Houston, TX
Nov. 29: New Orleans, LA
Nov. 30: Baton Rouge, LA
Nov. 30: Little Rock, AR
Dec. 1: Brentwood, TN
Dec. 1: Lexington, KY
Dec. 2: Spirit Lake, IA
Dec. 2. Carmel, IN
Dec. 3: Cincinnati, OH
Dec. 3: Columbia, SC

This is probably just the first leg of what will be an extended tour, and we expect other cities and dates to be announced later, if this tour will be anything like the first one. Also, we see some of the same cities from the '09 tour on the list, but some new ones as well.

A few may seem unfamiliar to those in other parts of the country. Brentwood, TN, for example, is an affluent suburb of Nashville. Carmel, IN is just up the road from Indianapolis. But Spirit Lake, IA is an intriguing location for a stop on the tour. The city of 5,000 is not a suburb of, nor located very near, any major population center. It's up at the top of the state in Iowa's Great Lakes region, just south of the Pawlenty Minnesota state line.

Heartland, baby, heartland.

h/t: Andrew Malcolm

- JP

James Pethokoukis: Emergence of Palinomics hints at 2012 run

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James Pethokoukis, the Money & Politics columnist for Reuters, writes that the the politics and timing of Gov. Palin's recent op-eds and speeches dealing with monetary policy and the dollar are the latest additions to a mounting stack of evidence that the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate will make a run for the White House:

Indeed, the campaign team for putative Republican frontrunner and former banker Mitt Romney is assuming she will be in the race. And her upcoming, much-hyped reality television show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” will no doubt play like an extended campaign commercial.

If Palin does run, her views leave her — not for the first time — well positioned to exploit the zeitgeist. Voters right now seem dubious of Big Anything, be it Government, Business or Money. In her 2009 book, “Going Rogue,” Palin offered a rehash of 1980s Reaganomics — low taxes, less government spending, strong dollar. That’s in sync with her recent Fed-bashing. But she also attacked “corporatism” in which government and business conspire against entrepreneurs and consumers. This view fuels Palin’s critique of Obama’s financial reform plan, which she portrays as a creation of Wall Street designed to perpetuate bank bailouts.

Palinomics seems to be rooted in “free-market populism,” a version of conservative thinking that is pro-market rather than pro-business. Palin is a big fan of one of its champions, the University of Chicago’s Luigi Zingales. So it’s easy to imagine her campaigning against corporate tax breaks, say, or in favor of limiting the size of banks. That might not attract much campaign cash from Manhattan bankers or Washington lobbyists, but it could be a compelling formula in the new Tea Party-infused Republican party.

[More]

More to come as the punditocracy continues to try to divine what is written in the tea leaves...

- JP

PPP: Gov. Palin leads in Texas, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Maine (Updated)

And a close second in Florida and Minnesota
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The latest batch of GOP presidential primary polls conducted just prior to the midterm elections by Democrat research firm Public Policy Polling finds Mitt Romney ahead in Florida, Tim Pawlenty "surprisingly weak in his home state" of Minnesota, and Sarah Palin leading in Texas, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and... Maine? Yes, Maine! More from PPP's Tom Jensen:

The most important state to the nomination process on this list is Florida and there Romney's ahead with 28% to 22% for Palin and 15% for Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee. It should be noted that although Romney does have the lead, it's a much less lofty one than what he posted in a March PPP poll of the state when he had 44%. The only other candidates included in that poll were Palin and Huckabee and we're finding more and more as we do these polls that when new folks are added into the mix it tends to hurt Romney more than anyone else. His support is less solid than Palin's and Huckabee's so even though he looks like a very nominal front runner at this point, he's also the candidate most likely to see his support collapse as things heat up.

Tim Pawlenty leads the field in his home state of Minnesota but his performance is surprisingly weak. He gets 19% with Palin right on his heels at 18%, Huckabee at 14%, and Gingrich and Romney each getting 11%. These numbers are reflective of the overall trouble we found for Pawlenty at home in our final preelection poll of the state- his approval rating was under water and voters overwhelmingly said they didn't think he should run for President. Partially because of Pawlenty's declining popularity Democrats seem to have picked up the Governor's office there in an otherwise awful year for the party. Palin actually leads Pawlenty 20-18 with conservatives but the Governor leads overall thanks to a 27-10 advantage with moderates. It is no coincidence that Romney is in the basement in this state- we've found several places now that where Pawlenty is unusually strong the victim seems to be Romney because of a greater split in the vote among GOP centrists.

Palin holds small leads in the remaining states. Most noteworthy is her strength in Texas and West Virginia, which suggests a bid from her could really hurt Mike Huckabee in the South. In Texas she gets 22% to 20% for Huckabee and 15% for both Gingrich and Romney. In West Virginia she's at 25% to 22% for Huckabee and again 15% for both Gingrich and Romney. These margins are obviously very close but they nevertheless pose trouble for Huckabee and perhaps even more so Gingrich if she ends up making a bad because strength in the South would be vital to either of their prospects.

Romney may not have a complete strangle hold on New England- Palin gets 23% in Maine to 18% for Romney, 16% for Huckabee, and 14% for Gingrich. Those numbers should give folks who think there's no chance Maine Republicans would nominate someone far right against Olympia Snowe in 2012 second thoughts. And finally Palin gets 18% in Wisconsin to 15% for Huckabee, 14% for Gingrich, and 12% for Romney. Pawlenty has his best non-Minnesota performance so far at 8%, not surprising given that it's right next door. And Pawlenty's unusually strong Wisconsin number helps to explain Romney's unusually weak Wisconsin number.

[More]

We find it significant that in many of the states where others are leading, Gov. Palin is running a strong second, for example in Minnesota (where Pawlenty's lead over her is within the margin of error) and Florida (where the Romney lead is right at the MOE). In Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Senator-elect Marco Rubio, she has powerful conservative friends in both states.

PPP is serious about polling the primaries. They have released polls in 12 states, with Romney leading in 5 (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, New Hampshire), Gov. Palin in 4 (Maine, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin), Huckabee in 2 (Illinois, Pennsylvania), and Pawlenty in 1 (Minnesota.) Jensen promises that his company will have results from a final batch of six polls -- including Alaska, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington -- out early next week.

Full results are available here as a PDF document.

h/t: Hot Air

Update: Susequent PPP polling (PDF) shows Gov. Palin also leading in Ohio and Washington State. She second to Huckabee in Kentucky and tied for second behind Gingrich in North Carolina.

- JP

Michelle Malkin: Tina Fey recycles Palin rape kit lie

That one was debunked two years ago
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Is the left so lacking in actual arguments to use against Gov. Palin that is must continually recycle DNC talking points that have been completely debunked? Apparently so, reports Michelle Malkin, who catches Hollyweirdo Tina Fey going back to the poisoned well of "campaign lies spread by the Soros-supported Internet smear machine":

Last night, comedian/actress Tina Fey won a humor award for her Sarah Palin schtick and used her acceptance speech to indulge in a broader swipe at the conservative women’s revolution in politics.

Via Newsbusters:

Comedienne and actress Tina Fey on Tuesday thanked former Alaska governor Sarah Palin as she accepted this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

According to the Washington Post, she then mocked conservative women “first to nervous laughter and then to not much laughter at all”:

In her acceptance speech, Fey touched on her best-known bit — her Palin imitation –and offered some mock hands-across-the-political-divide commentary. The rise of conservative women in politics, she said pointedly, is good for all women, “unless you don’t want to pay for your own rape kit . . . unless you’re a lesbian who wants to get married to your partner of 20 years . . . [or] unless you believe in evolution.”

[...]

Maybe the joke bombed because the joke is on Fey.

The “rape kit” canard was totally dismantled two years ago...

[...]

Fey went on to say: “I would be a liar and an idiot if I didn’t thank Sarah Palin for helping me get here tonight. My partial resemblance and her crazy voice are the two luckiest things that have ever happened to me.”

Well, I certainly agree about the “liar” and “idiot” parts.

We love the “first to nervous laughter and then to not much laughter at all” description, especially coming as it does from the left-wing Washington Post. Perhaps Tina's tired old one-trick pony needs to be put out to pasture.

- JP

Kathleen McKinley: Blogging 'Sarah Palin’s Alaska!'

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Kathleen McKinley, who will be blogging "Sarah Palin's Alaska" (along with a liberal counterpart) for the Houston Chronicle, says that while she's a big fan of the governor, she doesn't put anyone on a pedestal:

The last thing I would want for conservatives is for us to get all star struck over someone like the left did with Obama. Sarah and Obama are people just like us. They aren't superheros. We can admire them for their virtues, but let us never forget that they have their vices as well. Just as we all do.

On the other hand, people are welcome not to like Sarah and to disagree with her. But maybe we could elevate the discourse and not resort to 3rd grade name calling as this WaPo reviewer does:

"Who is this woman, this fruit bat in fleece and Gore-Tex.."

Good grief. Why doesn't he just write, "I hate Sarah Palin," and be done with it? Sometimes I am amused at the amount of hatred that Sarah generates among the left, because she is laughing all the way to the bank, but most times I am just sad that we have come to a point in society where calling someone a "fruit bat" is considered a "review" by the Washington Post.

[More]

The Chron's blogging of "Sarah Palin's Alaska" can be followed at its Tubular web page.

- JP

Today Show: Is Sarah Palin's Alaska a step toward White House?

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In this clip from NBC, Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, who interviewed Gov. Palin for People Magazine, is the guest:


h/t: C4P

- JP

Larry Elder: Of Course Sarah Palin's 'Unfit'; She's a Republican

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In his latest Townhall.com column, Larry Elder makes the case that the left's "Sarah Palin is not ready for prime time" meme is difficult to take it seriously. It's all about liberals' uneven application of standards:

Barbara Walters gushed over John F. Kennedy Jr. and foresaw a political future for him. Never mind that the young man had flunked the New York bar exam -- twice.

"Dumb" former President George W. Bush, caricatured as a slacker in an Oliver Stone movie, made better grades in college than did Al Gore, his opponent in 2000. Gore dropped out of divinity school after earning five F's. Then he entered law school and dropped out. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-global warming crusade, and his documentary won an Academy Award, but Gore got a D in science at Harvard. Bush also scored higher on his verbal SAT than did Rhodes scholar and "brainy" presidential candidate Bill Bradley.

"Dumb" former President Ronald Reagan majored in economics. But the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who ran for the presidency, got expelled from Harvard for hiring someone to take a Spanish test.

"Dumb" Republican former President Gerald Ford was ridiculed as a bumbling doofus by Chevy Chase on "Saturday Night Live." Democratic former President Lyndon Baines Johnson famously quipped that Ford, who played football for the University of Michigan, "spent too much time playing football without a helmet." But Ford graduated from Yale Law School, the same school that produced Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The worldly and literate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who ran for president in 2004, didn't exactly kill on his military aptitude test. He got half the questions right and half the questions wrong -- dead average. He explained his poor showing by insisting, "I must have been drinking the night before."

Vice President Joe Biden's 1988 quest for the presidency evaporated when he plagiarized a speech by a British politician. When someone questioned his academic credentials at a campaign stop, the offended Biden claimed that he had a full academic scholarship at law school and graduated in the top half of his class. In fact, he had a need-based half-scholarship and graduated near the bottom -- 76th out of 85.

Biden, in his political career, has stacked up enough gaffes for a dozen politicians...

[More]

If she decides to run, says Elder, Gov. Palin will face the same tough challenges as other candidates, with one major exception: "She'll not benefit from the selective standard that liberals apply when evaluating 'their own.'"

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: Sarah Palin's favorable rating rises again

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Our friend and esteemed colleague Andrew Malcolm at Top of the Ticket has noticed that Gov. Palin's favorable ratings are up again, but he reminds who the real decision makers are at this stage of the game:

Republicans are the ones who'll be attending the Iowa caucuses, slogging through the snow to New Hampshire's voting booths and going in short sleeves to vote in South Carolina, where Palin was a key factor in electing the state's new Republican governor, Nikki Haley.

Unless Howard Dean changes his mind, the GOP competition will draw the concentrated media publicity for months on end while the White House golfer complains about the Republican House and tries to convince people that 9% unemployment is way better than 9.6% unemployment.

In the determining area of Republican support, even without announcing a candidacy, Palin currently destroys her potential competitors, according to AP's findings.

This fuels verbal insanity among the woman's critics, who profess so much disdain for Palin that they can't resist attacking her at every opportunity. All of which, of course, makes her even more popular among fans. And intrigued bloggers.

Forget that without holding an elective office but talking common-sense "tea party" conservatism, Palin helped to lead the successful national "Fire Pelosi" GOP bus tour while helping elect a majority of those she endorsed, many of them women, raising millions of dollars and knocking off 18 of her 20 targeted Democrats in the largest midterm political slaughter since 1938 -- which was even before Joe Biden was born.

Fact: Palin is now viewed favorably by nearly 8 of 10 (79%) Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 17% see her unfavorably.

[More]

As Andrew pointed out, the rest of the pack is eating Mama Bear's dust. Huckabee is second at 74-10, Romney (64-18) and Newt Gingrich (68-21) are fighting it out for third place. Way back in the pack are Tim Pawlenty (28-13-59%), Haley Barbour (27-14-58%), Mitch Daniels (24-13-63%) and John Thune (20-10-70%).

But regardless of how the numbers stack up for the various would-be GOP candidates, count on the lamestream media to put a lot of negative spin on Gov. Palin's chances. Andrew, btw, stands apart from that crowd. He was the only blogger/columnist for a major media outlet to post that George W. Bush refudiated the NY Daily News hit piece which alleged that the former president had said her selection as John McCain's '08 running mate was a poor choice. Dubya told Rush Limbaugh in an interview Tuesday that he never said anything of the sort. The salivating media was quick to spread the NYDN lies, but not so much the truth. That makes Mr.Malcolm exceptional, in our opinion. But of course we already knew that.

- JP

Sarah Palin: Happy Veterans Day

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As posted on Gov. Palin's Facebook Notes page:

Happy Veterans Day

On this Veterans Day, please take a moment to remember all those who served in uniform past and present. Though the words in this famous poem are about a soldier, they apply to every member of our armed services. God bless them all. May we never forget the sacrifices made to secure our liberty.

It’s the Soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us the freedom of the press.

It’s the Soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us the freedom of speech.

It’s the Soldier, not the politicians,
Who ensures our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

It’s the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag.

- JP

WSJ's Gigot: Sarah Palin 'leading the pack' on monetary policy

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The Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot and James Freeman discuss Gov. Palin's "consistent message" on financial matters on "Opinion Journal Live." Gigot says the former Alaska governor "shows a very sophisticated understanding of monetary policy" and "she's leading the pack" of potential 2012 presidential contenders on the issue:


- JP

Day By Day (November 11, 2010)

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Good Morning! It's a wonderful life if we just take it Day By Day.



Support Pro-Palin Day By Day

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 10, 2010)

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J.E. Dyer at Hot Air's The Green Room:

"It was a wild spring day in an advanced course on statistical analysis... [when] our professor asked us for a simple definition of inflation.... I’d say almost half the class... had earnestly weighed in... before he finally blew the whistle, metaphorically speaking, and gave us the definition he had in mind. 'People. Inflation. Inflation. Prices go up. That’s it! That’s all I’m looking for.' ... Shoppers don’t stand in the grocery store, holding a tray of chicken breasts priced 15% higher than they were a month ago, and think, 'Well, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the annualized average rise in prices is only 0.6%, so the price on this package of chicken doesn’t really matter to me.' In the end, the supreme economic tiebreaker is the human being, confronted with the price marked on the item on the shelf. You can only ignore that factor for so long before there has to be a reckoning. Sarah Palin has that right."

- JP

Gov. Palin slams ObamaCare, praises Perry at Dallas event

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Wednesday night at Dallas’ Majestic Theatre, Sarah Palin called on the newly elected Congress to work to repeal ObamaCare, referring to it as the "mother of all unfunded mandates":

Preaching a message of life, Palin -- the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and a leader in the Tea Party movement -- told a crowd of about 800 people gathered at the Majestic Theatre that last week's midterm elections were a mandate on Congress to repeal a healthcare bill that she believes includes federal funding for some abortions.

"The ramifications of this bill [are] horrendous," she said during a program called "An Evening of Hope" put on by Heroic Media, a Texas-based conservative nonprofit group that promotes alternatives to abortion. "We have to fight back against this federal takeover."

Palin called Barack Obama "the most pro-abortion president to occupy the White House."

Palin praised Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who spoke briefly at the event, for fighting against federal control and for standing up as an anti-abortion governor.

"The governor is talking good stuff about this Lone Star State," she said, adding that she loves the title of Perry's book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington.

"Your governor has been a leader in trying to protect you ... from what is coming out of Washington, D.C.," Palin said.

[More]

After her speech, Gov. Palin joined a panel discussion that included Texas Gov. Rick Perry , Attorney General Greg Abbott, Dallas lawyer Kelly Shackelford and Dallas minister Stephen Broden. The program was moderated by WBAP-AM (820) radio personality Mark Davis. Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert introduced Sarah Palin and welcomed her to the city.

- JP

More Quote of the Day Honorable Mention, Part 151

Special "Dramamine" Edition
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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

"Emboldened by her successful debate with a Wall Street Journal reporter over monetary policy, Sarah Palin continues today to blast the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration over the second round of 'quantitative easing.' ...Palin suspects that Obama’s ride on the QE2 also gives him a free ride on debt, allowing the President to avoid making tough decisions — and warns that the rest of us should start taking our Dramamine... The Fed has run out of options to deal with monetary policy in an environment where Congress won’t reform spending and entitlements and a President demands even more deficit spending. In the face of a political establishment that refuses to acknowledge fiscal reality, the Fed has set sail on the QE2 for Weimar, or at the very least, Greece. There isn’t enough Dramamine in the world for those choppy seas."

National Inflation Association:

"Sudeep Reddy wrote an article criticizing Palin's comments about food inflation... NIA finds it unfortunate that Reddy has been brainwashed into believing the government's phony consumer price index (CPI) numbers."

The IUSB Vision Weblog:

"A rule that is taught in every journalism school is this, when you write on a person and/or a subject be sure to check your own paper's archives on the issue and subject. Apparently Sudeep Reddy at the Wall Street Journal was absent the day that was covered in class…and missed the question on the test... Sarah Palin on the other hand, has a journalism degree and... is correct about food prices; any of us who do some of the shopping and/or work retail know this very well... American Business Analytics & Research tells the Salem-News that if the government still calculated inflation the way it was calculated during Carter and Reagan (changed under Clinton) the inflation rate would be 10%."

Riley at Virginia Virtucon:

"Palin’s monetary policy harkens back to Reagan, Kemp... I cannot point to any other potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate who is espousing supply-side, pro-economic growth policies the way that she has been."

Right Wingnut at Right Speak:

"Once again, Sarah Palin has shed new light on an issue that could have serious implications for our country for generations to come. I know, I know...Paul Ryan and a few others have tried to make their voices heard on the the dangers of QE2 for a while now. However, they don't have the power to draw attention to an issue in a way that reaches mainstream America... Given that he's an 'economic genius,' I'm anxiously waiting to hear Mitt Romney's position. Now that Sarah Palin has led the charge, he will most likely conclude that the coast is clear, and issue a statement through his spokesperson sometime in the next few days."

The Editors at Investors Business Daily:

"An unlikely assortment of people ranging from Sarah Palin and Paul Volcker to Rep. Paul Ryan and World Bank head Robert Zoellick all believe quantitative easing is a big mistake. So do we."

Tom Maguire at JustOneMinute:

"Maybe Sarah Palin really does shop for groceries... The WSJ correctly notes that over the past year the CPI for food prices has increased only modestly... But the WSJ does not look at the quarterly report for food prices in Alaska as prepared by the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) Cooperative Extension (described on page 6 of 8 by the Alaska BLS). And what do we discern? From June 2009 to June 2010 food prices in Wasilla jumped by 11.7%. Yike!"

Ira Stoll at Future Of Capitalism:

"In the fight between Sarah Palin and the Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy over food inflation, the Los Angeles Times is siding with Governor Palin..."

Dana Loesch at Big Journalism:

"Sudeep Reddy couldn’t tangle with Palin’s correct assertion that the Fed’s choice of inflation (one of a couple ways this administration believes to be the panacea for a recession: inflation, tax hike) actually contributes to the toxic environment which has scared businesses and investors from further revenue growth and job creation, so Reddy relies on straw man to afford the jab... If the liberal media spent as much time trying to hold the Fed as accountable as they try with Palin and their straw man arguments, perhaps we would have greater transparency and accountability in our economic system."

Elizabeth Scalia at The Anchoress:

"In my continuing quest to remain a dispassionate observer of Sarah Palin... I’m happy to acknowledge the former Governor’s extremely well-played strikeback at a reporter who clearly was so eager to attack her that he left himself wide open for her riposte. She quite deftly scored a 'very palpable hit.'"

Gunpowder Chronicle:

"Maybe Reddy should have gotten his [butt] out of the office and actually gone to a grocery store. There, he would have found while prices may have risen only a little, package sizes have been decreasing for over two years. Have you tried to buy a half gallon of ice cream lately? Noticed the size of the razor blade packages? Frozen pizzas are smaller. Frozen meal sizes are down. Cereal box sizes are down. Crackers and cookie packaging sizes are down. Have you seen soda prices lately? In my area, a twelve-pack of cans averages $4.00 – more expensive than some beer. Reddy obviously doesn’t know how the CPI works, because the CPI does not take into account the size of packaging as a factor in price. And as any Towson University freshman in Microeconomics 101 will tell you, when package size goes down but the published price stays the same, this is a price increase."

Bluegrass Pundit:

"If you are going to slam Palin for getting the facts wrong, make sure she didn't get them from your own paper."

Sissy Willis at Liberty Pundits:

"But while Ruling Class effetes navel gaze, Country Class warrior Sarah Palin herself has been doing her homework, and she's dancing circles around those who would accuse her of being just another pretty face. Yesterday she caught the seasoned eye of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, who praised her critique of the Fed's latest round of quantitative easing."

Aurelius at Pundit Press:

"If you read the article, Palin stated that food prices increased over the last year. They did. The HuffPo cries foul, saying that the prices didn't rise that much, but obviously their lies cannot hide the fact that Palin was correct."

Devonia Smith at Examiner.com:

"Sarah Palin, self described 'humble housewife' can both read and write - she wants Sudeep Reddy of the Wall Street Journal to know. Both are handy skills for buying groceries and checking the prices to fill the cupboards of an average American family, on a budget... Reddy is quoting from September’s increase in food prices... of the Labor Department and Commerce Department... Ahhh, therein lies the problem. Reddy is quoting on overall prices, not the items that families, who cannot live on bananas or even moose stew alone, might purchase. We're betting that Sarah isn't concerned with how stable the prices are for the liquor for a White House gala but focused on how an an average family of four, with a decrease in income, is far more likely to need that ground chuck and drop the beverages."

- JP

Miller Campaign: Absentee Ballots Breaking for Joe

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From the Joe Miller Campaign website:

As of this posting, with about 27,000 absentee ballots counted, voters have added over 2100 net votes to Joe Miller.

That leaves approximately 11,333 votes between Joe Miller and “Write-In” ballots.

There are about 12,400 absentee ballots yet to be counted, as well as more than 12,200 “questioned” ballots to be counted, starting Friday.

Below is the Miller campaign’s predictions for Joe Miller’s “Path to Victory” (click to see full size):

Stay tuned to this website for updates.

- JP

Sarah Palin: Driving the Dollar Down

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On Facebook Wednesday, Gov. Palin again criticized President Obama for his failure to reign in the Fed's disastrous monetary policy:

Obama’s Clever Way to Punt the Tough Calls: Driving the Dollar Down

In his press conference on Monday, President Obama responded to critics of the Federal Reserve’s decision to start a new round of quantitative easing – a fancy term for printing money out of thin air. He claimed this move would drive up U.S. growth rates. He also warned that “the worst thing that could happen to the world economy, not just ours but the entire world’s economy is if we end up being stuck with no growth or very limited growth.”

The latter is certainly true. It would be a global disaster if the U.S. economy remained permanently stuck in the mud. But the same cannot be said of his claim that the Fed’s experiment in pump priming would automatically lead to increased economic growth. By the time this experiment is over, QE will make us queasy.

Will driving the dollar down in this way do anything to boost U.S. exports? The short answer is not really. A weaker dollar will temporarily boost exports by making our goods cheaper to sell; but inevitably other countries will respond in kind, triggering the kind of currency wars economists are warning us about. It’s precisely to prevent this scenario that World Bank President Robert Zoellick recently came out in favor of some new type of gold standard or “international reference point.”

Will QE2 then at least boost domestic investment? No, again. As I explained in my speech in Phoenix, the reason banks aren’t lending and businesses aren’t investing isn’t because of insufficient access to credit. There’s plenty of money around, it’s just that no one’s willing to spend it. Big businesses especially have been hoarding cash. They’re not expanding or adding to their workforce because there’s just too much uncertainty created by a lot of big government experiments that aren’t working. It’s the President’s own policies that are creating this uncertainty.

The President is an educated man. I would hope that he knows these things as well as you and I do. So why then, if he knows it won’t really boost our exports or our domestic investments, would he still come out in defense of this dangerous experiment? I think the most plausible answer has to do with the debt. As liberal economist Paul Krugman has explained, a little inflation goes a long way towards driving down the value of the enormous national debt Obama has run up. And the higher the inflation, the greater the likelihood he won’t have to take any of the tough decisions needed to bring the deficit back down. In other words, pushing inflation upwards means you can have your cake and eat it too. You can spend all you like and then make the bill disappear by driving down the value of the dollar – buying with one hand the debt your reckless spending is issuing with the other. No need to cut spending, folks, just run the printing presses. It’s a win-win scenario.

Or maybe not. Because I fear there will be plenty of losers if this really happens, not least the millions of Americans who’ll see the value of their incomes and savings eroded. As the chair of the President’s own Debt Reduction Task Force, former CBO director Alice Rivlin explained, this sort of policy is no good. Sooner or later – probably sooner rather than later – it will come back to bite us in the behind. Rivlin warned: “As our debt mounts, the risk grows that our creditors, especially foreign creditors who own half our debt, will lose confidence in our ability to get our house in order and will demand dramatically higher interest rates.” Obviously, that’s even more likely to happen when they figure out that the Fed is deliberately driving down the value of the dollars they already hold. When they do lose confidence, Rivlin explained, that will spell disaster for our economy, “derailing the economic recovery and ballooning the cost of servicing the federal debt.”

If the President was serious about getting the economy moving again, he’d stop supporting the Fed’s dangerous experiments with our currency and focus instead on what actually works: reducing government spending and boosting business investment through good old fashioned supply side reforms (cutting taxes and reducing overly burdensome regulations). Simply running the printing presses in order to avoid paying off your debts is no way for a great nation to behave.

- Sarah Palin

- JP

The Morning News: Sarah Palin brings political star power to Dallas

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Gov. Palin is in Big D to "Celebrate an evening of hope" tonight:

Sarah Palin, perhaps the hottest commodity in the Republican Party, returns to Dallas today as a potential political kingmaker and a strong contender for the GOP nomination for president.

Local politicians recognize her value. In town for an event sponsored by Heroic Media, a conservative group that helps women with unexpected pregnancies, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee will share the stage with two Texas politicians eyeing a bigger stage.

Gov. Rick Perry , fresh from his thumping of former Houston Mayor Bill White for an unprecedented third full term as governor, will join Palin at the Majestic Theatre in the middle of his tour promoting his new book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.

Also appearing with the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate will be Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, a potential candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2012, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who handily won reelection Nov. 2. WBAP radio talk show host Mark Davis, who often fills in for Rush Limbaugh, will be the master of ceremonies.

- JP

Gov. Palin wows the crowd at Bucks County fundraiser

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At a fundraiser expected to bring in $250,000 for a Philadelphia area Christian school Tuesday night, Sarah Palin teased her audience with the prospect of a 2012 presidential run:

After an alumnus of the private school, north of Doylestown in Bucks County, finished an uplifting performance of "God Bless America," she coyly asked him, "Would you like to sing that at an Inauguration?"

It was just what the crowd... wanted to hear. For an hour, the audience of students, parents and alumni listened as the former Alaska governor delivered a speech that was part homespun tales from the Palin household and part hardball tea party politics.

At the end of her program, the school's chancellor, Dean Whiteway, returned to the question on everyone's mind: Under what circumstances would she consider running for president?

"Goodness gracious," Palin answered. "I'm speechless."

She said it would take "prayerful consideration and polling of my family" before she would make up her mind on whether to run in 2012. "I would be in it to win it," Palin said. "I wouldn't do it just to shake things up." She added, "I would certainly have to put a lot more thought into it than what I could give you today."

The governor devoted much of her speech to the idea of American exceptionalism and the nation's Judeo-Christian heritage:

"We must continue to build on our Judeo-Christian heritage, and it's nothing to apologize for," Palin, hero of the surging tea-party movement and a possible 2012 presidential candidate, told about 700 donors at the Plumstead Christian School, in upper Bucks County.

It was the biggest applause line for Palin, who spoke frequently in her roughly 30-minute speech and a question-and-answer session with students of both the role of faith in her life and political career and of her belief that God should play a greater role in the public square.

[...]

At one point, the 2008 vice-presidential candidate and icon of conservative feminism said of bedrock beliefs in the Constitution and in the values of freedom that "something seems to be missing, and especially in the last year or two."

Later, she criticized Obama's call in the 2008 campaign for a "fundamental transformation" of America, saying that what the nation instead needed was a "fundamental restoration and renewal" back to its original values, which include faith.

Two anonymous benefactors reportedly picked up the tab to bring Gov. Palin to Bucks County for the Plumstead events.

- JP

Day By Day (November 10, 2010)

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Good Morning! It's a wonderful life if we just take it Day By Day.



Support Pro-Palin Day By Day

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 9, 2010)

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Ken Larrey at Big Journalism:

"Michael Gerson became the latest former Bush operative to escalate the post election war on the tea party and Sarah Palin in his Washington Post column “The GOP’s Sarah Palin Problem.” He mangles the facts terribly, even blaming Palin and Senator Jim DeMint for Sharon Angle’s ill-fated nomination in spite of the fact neither endorsed Angle until after she won the nomination."

- JP