Quote of the Day (October 3, 2011)

Sarah Palin marches to a different drummer
*
Andrew Malcolm, at Investors.com:

“A Palin campaign... could be worth it just to watch the establishments of both parties forced out of their own comfy campaign boxes, like the scurrying inhabitants of a kicked-open anthill.”

- JP

Quote of the Day (August 26, 2011)

Disney's Double Standards
*
Andrew Malcolm, at Top of the Ticket:

“Dana astutely wonders aloud what kind of warning verbal outlaw Kenny Mayne got for his twittered desire in June to wreak mechanical mayhem on a passing car, ramming it simply because it carried a Sarah Palin sticker.”

- JP

Timing is everything...

"Together again as you've never seen them before"
*
Andrew Malcolm notes that "Game change," HBO's cinematic smear job on the 2008 McCain-Palin campaign, will hit the small screen just in time for the 2012 political season:

Their Arizona-Alaska effort to keep the White House in Republican control, coming after eight years of you-know-who and his sidekick, you-know-him-too, who led the country into two wars and left the country in the hands of an ex-state you-know-what who's upped the ante in one war and started another against Libya.

Other than that and the spending beyond belief and the $3 trillion-plus of new national debt and no end in sight to the harsh political tone of Washington and the healthcare bill that seems to have more large companies exempted from its rules than are covered, other than those little things, everything turned out for the better.

How is all that hopey changey stuff working out for you anyway? Perhaps it's time for some more of those great SarahPAC ads which were produced by PassCodeCreative. The new ads should ask viewers if they're better off now than they were four years ago before Obama was elected. If the viewers are not on the federal payroll, they will be likely to admit that they are much worse off, just like their country.

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: Are Michele Bachmann's eyes on the White House?

What else happens in 2012?
*
The media is all abuzz over Rep. Michele Bachmann because some of her aides are telling reporters that the Minnesota Republican is considering a presidential run. As if to put an exclamation point on the rumors, she is scheduled to make a pilgrimage this month to a key primary state to speak at a fundraiser for the Iowans for Tax Relief PAC in Des Moines. But sometimes in politics, two plus two does not necessarily equal four, as Andrew Malcolm explains:

First off, Bachmann's idea of promoting herself into Republican congressional leadership for the 112th session that opened Wednesday was rebuffed by those same leaders, who did involve other more team-oriented "tea party" advocates. Rhetorical bomb-throwers a la Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele tend to attract unwanted attention and shrapnel to those standing nearby.

Second, Abraham Lincoln and George H. W. Bush aside, Americans have not shown any historical proclivity to elect House members to the White House. (Mike Pence take note.)

[...]

Palin's splashy primary endorsement of Nikki Haley in South Carolina last year ignited the surge that got the state legislator the nomination and the governor's job. Haley and her statewide organization might remember this come next year's early South Carolina GOP presidential primary.

And even if Bachmann's purported pondering does not result in presidential primary competition with pal Palin in 2012, it will raise Bachmann's national profile, not normally an easy thing to do for a representative from just any 6th Congressional District.

But, wait, do you know what else happens in 2012?

A Minnesota Senate race.

[More]

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar's term is up for renewal in 2012, and like many of her Democrat colleagues in the upper chamber, Andrew reminds us, "her fate will be tied closely to the popularity of Obama, the prime target of Bachmann for the next few months."

To Andrew's assessment we might also add that if a seat in the Senate is not what Congresswoman Bachmann is really after, recently elected Governor Mark Dayton's first term will be up in 2014, and he has recently been the subject of her criticism. Dayton's narrow victory in the Democrat primary was by less than two percentage points, and the general election was so close that eventual loser Tom Emmer did not concede until more than a month after Minnesotans had cast their ballots. So Rep. Bachmann has several options in her political future. The conservative lawmaker may decide that her road to the White House runs through St. Paul rather than just up Pennsylvania Avenue.

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: More good news for Sarah Palin

Obama insists he doesn't even think about her
*
Things have been going Gov. Palin's way lately, and Andrew Malcolm sees even more good news for the possible presidential candidate:

Fans are lining up in the cold 24 hours in advance to buy her new book during the 16-city promotion tour for "America by Heart." "This lady will be the next president of the United States of America," said an enthused Brian Roper in Tulsa.

She's got a hit cable TV show. Polls of Republicans show the former Alaska governor is currently a most popular candidate for the party's 2012 presidential nomination.

And now, believe it or not, even President Obama has an encouraging word for her. The Democrat tells ABC's Barbara Walters that he's not paying attention to his possible White House competitor.

[...]

That would be repeating the same mistake some of Obama's Democrat competitors made back in 2006-07.

They thought that an inexperienced elected state official who'd quit that job to run for higher office, who could give a real good speech but had zero foreign policy experience and who had only written a couple of best-selling books, could not possibly present a serious political challenge to established Washington veterans.

And we all know now how accurate that thinking was.

More at Top of the Ticket.

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: Sarah Palin's favorable rating rises again

*
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

Andrew Malcolm: Palin pleads, don't tell Obama what comes after a trillion

*
Here are a few excerpts from Andrew Malcolm's take on Gov. Palin's electrifying speech in Anaheim this weekend:

Sarah Palin, that reputed Republican rebel who's supposed to be at odds with the national party, swung through California this past weekend to rouse Republicans at a Republican National Committee rally in Anaheim.

[...]

Palin seemed to be enjoying herself too in Anaheim, as part of a national RNC campaign tour that wraps up next Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, including an unusual chance to meet Palin for a photo.

The crowd packed into the Anaheim ballroom began chanting Sarah's name Saturday while the band was still playing "Journey" songs.

[...]

(A growing number of news reports indicate many Democrats already believe they have lost control of the House, will suffer badly in the Senate and in control of governor's offices. A new Associated Press/Knowsledge Network Poll released early today shows many 2008 Obama supporters are disspirited and peeling away from him in dismay over a lack of promised change.)

As Steele moved toward introducing the day's special you-know-who guest from Alaska, the roar of the crowd grew along with the cellphone camera flashes.

[More]

In our opinion, it was one of her best performances as an orator. Not quite on a par with her RNC acceptance speech, but surely one of her top five speeches.

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: Is the new Sarah Palin video a campaign step?

*
Andrew Malcolm wrote this morning about the new SarahPAC video, "Tea Party":

"Watch it. See if you think it's from someone who is not running for, oh, say, the nomination for an important office from a major political party. Or laying the foundation to play a major role in that decision by assembling a following of numerous like-minded, loyal folks.

Did you notice anything missing in this video, as we did? (Answer down below.*)

As we wrote here on The Ticket Tuesday, a majority of Americans now say their views match Palin's. Or vice versa."

*Or, in this case, the answer is down below and after the jump.

As for the question Andrew poses in his title, although we can't speak for Gov. Palin, we would be inclined to answer, "You betcha!"

- JP

Andrew Malcolm on the Sarah Palin puzzle

*
Our friend Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times' Top of the Ticket seems puzzled by a mixed bag of survey findings. Some polls have indicated that a plurality judge Sarah Palin as unapproved of and unqualified for the presidency, while another poll, the results of which were released Monday, find that a majority say that they Gov. Palin thinks like they do:

In a modern media age of images and sound bites, especially with so many feeling disappointed by another prominent pol, that's a powerful position to hold, even if she doesn't seek another political office.

Such an identification with voters, especially Republicans, independents and women, may help explain Palin's success endorsing primary candidates this year; about three out of four of her picks have won their race, including most recently Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller of Alaska. Very few of President Obama's high-profile endorsements have won, although voters in one poll claimed his endorsement outweighs Palin's.

A new Rasmussen Poll 23 months before the Republican nominating convention for 2012 finds that a majority of Americans (52%) now say their own personal views are closer to the former governor who didn't finish her first term than they are to the former senator who didn't finish his first term. You know, her down-to-earth talk about commonsense conservatism and reining in Washington's runaway spending and arrogance.

Only 40% say their views are closer to Barack Obama's and 48% now see his political views as extreme.

All part of the puzzling and polarizing political package that is Palin. Even her ardent detractors can't silently dismiss her as a nobody might merit. They must vociferously denounce her, which in politics is actually a sign of respect, the louder the better.

This is a puzzle that has a solution. There is a key to putting the right pieces in their proper places in the puzzle. First, you have to understand how and why the pieces were designed.

Comparing the results from different pollsters is like comparing apples, oranges and... rotten apples. There is a disparity in polling results because those who conduct these surveys do not use the same methodology to collect their data and evaluate it. A few pollsters, Rasmussen included, poll likely voters, while many survey registered voters, and some poll all adults. Different polling organizations use a variety of sample sizes from which to draw their conclusions. We've seen samples as small as 400 and as high as 20,000, but a sample of 800 to 1,000 is most common. A poll's margin of error is directly related to the size of the sample. The larger the sample, the smaller sampling error.

Some polling firms, instead of using random samples, design their samples to reflect preconceived notions of what the electorate should look like. Several firms deliberately include considerably more Democrats than Republicans in their samples. They do this, they say, because there are more registered Democrats than there are Registered Republicans. Indeed there are, but how many more are there? Some pollsters are still using relative party registration proportions as they existed years ago, ignoring recent trends who have shown a decrease in the numbers of registered Democrats and increases in the number of registered Republicans. Once the data is collected, some pollsters then "weight" their samples by adjusting the relative proportions of Democrats, Republicans and independents for reasons they claim make their samples more representative of the wider electorate.

All of these ways of massaging data make us recall what dear old Dr. Phil Taylor, our Statistics professor in graduate business school was fond of saying, which is that you can use statistics to prove any point you wish to make, whether it is valid or not. This is why we prefer the methodology used by Scott Rasmussen, who polls only registered voters. Otherwise, his polling methods are completely random, and he doesn't manipulate the data after he's collected it.

Interestingly, we have found that Gov. Palin polls most poorly in Washington Post/ABC surveys. By some strange coincidence, those two media outlets have been among her most severe critics. Go figure...

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: The mounting momentum of 'The Unstoppable Sarah Palin'?

*
From our good friend, the unsinkable Andrew Malcolm:

Apparently some folks who don't like Sarah Palin but spend an awful lot of time tracking her online anyway read our recent item about how extraordinarily rich Sarah Palin isn't and objected to her e-mailed fund-raising link being in there. More properly that link should go to the SarahPAC site itself. So here is that link.

[...]

Andrew Sullivan over at The Atlantic -- no fan of SP's -- headlined an interesting Friday blog item, "The Unstoppable Sarah Palin."

He was taken by a John Ellis column that describes Palin as having cleverly positioned herself as the conservative counter-revolutionary to anything and everything being done by those D.C. suits. Ellis makes a compelling argument that by this December Palin becomes the de facto GOP front-runner for 2012. He notes that the Republican base doesn't just like Palin; it loves her, especially the women.

[...]

Whether after two more years of Democrat Barack Obama Americans at large come to feel Palin is capable of the presidency is an argument for the campaign after the '12 GOP convention.

But as hopefully far-fetched as that might seem to Palin's passionate critics, go back to this point in the previous presidential cycle, to the summer of 2006, 28 months before the 2008 election when Republicans still controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, as Democrats do now.

Who would have swooned then over the White House chances of a little-known ex-state senator who'd never even run a fishing boat?

Read Brother Malcolm's op-ed in its entirety here.

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: Gov. Palin's real earnings will disappoint her hypocritical wealthy critics

*
Here's Blogger Emeritus Andrew Malcolm's take on a recent Forbes article which reveals that Sarah Palin is not as rich as her detractors have tried to portray her -- at least not as rich as Rockerfeller... or even "Crazed Sex Poodle" and climate con man Al Gore:

Acquiring a lot of money didn't used to be a bad thing in America, even for Democrats. But now that President Barack Obama has got his and suggests there really ought to be a limit to wealth, many are implying that acquiring mucho moohla as retired Republican Gov. Sarah Palin has done -- and is doing -- is somehow, well, sort of un-American.

When it comes to money and people and the combination thereof, there is no greater authority than Forbes.

So in true Forbes tradition, diligent Dirk Smillie set out to estimate just how many endangered U.S. dollars not yet in China have been acquired by Alaskan Palin since her gubernatorial resignation almost exactly one year ago. His results will disappoint Palin's hypocritical wealthy critics.

As a private citizen now, Palin is no longer required to publicly report her income. And there's no way in Skagway she's going to volunteer such info to anyone, let alone the likes of ABC or NBC News.

Noted Palin un-lover Norah O'Donnell, who's not exactly pulling down homeless income from NBC, recently threw out the number of $12 million earnings in the past 12 months for the mother of five and wife of an oil field union member and snow-machine racer.

According to Smillie, Not!

In fact, not even close...

Read the rest of Andrew's post at Top of the Ticket.

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: Sarah Palin in the Spolight

*
As Sarah Palin prepares to address the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this afternoon, LA Times political blogger Andrew Malcolm has an early morning analysis of a new poll which shows some improvement in her unfavorable numbers:

A new CBS News poll finds that after all the negative press, an impressive 24% (think that'll get Palin-haters going?) of its sample views her favorably.

CBS found that a mere 38% view Palin unfavorably, a whopping three-point improvement from her 41% unfavorable rating in January. By comparison, Gallup recently found Reid's unfavorable rating to be 45% and Nancy Pelosi's unfavorable rating to be 54%. So how's that healthcare change working for ya?

Palin is self-employed so doesn't have a job approval rating. But the RealClearPolitics average shows the Democrat in the White House has a 46.4 job disapproval rating and an approval average of 47.2. The same average gives Congress a job disapproval rating of 75.5, or about twice as bad as Palin's unfavorables. (Can you hear the screaming yet?)

Unlike Congress, however, Palin isn't facing any voters come Nov. 2.

Not surprisingly, Palin is viewed least favorably by liberal Democrat women in the Northeast. She's viewed most favorably by conservative Republican men in the Midwest.

One other intriguing and counter-intuitive aspect to the CBS poll:

Despite her prominence in politics and the media in recent months with her national best-selling book tour, speeches and frequent Fox News appearances, those who claimed to be undecided or not to have heard enough to have an opinion about Sarah Palin increased from 32% to 37%.

And if you believe their answers, we've got a non-existent bridge to nowhere for sale.

What we find most striking about the CBS poll is the methodology (PDF) the network employed to arrive at its final set of numbers.

Of the 858 respondents who were surveyed, the breakdown by political party was 347 independents, 271 Democrats and 240 Republicans. CBS, obviously not feeling these proportions were sufficiently biased against Gov. Palin, put its big thumbs on the scale and "weighted" its random sample to take some of the randomness out of it. The network cut the number of independents to 324 and jacked up the number of Democrats to 294.

Weighting is a scheme that more accurate pollsters than CBS -- Scott Rasmussen, for one -- do not employ. Polling firms that tend to have greater reliability also only sample likely voters. CBS doesn't do this.

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: Palin's ahead of where Obama was 30 months before his nomination

*
Our friend Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times puts that controversial WaPO/ABC News poll *(the one which oversamples Democrats by 6 percent) into perspective:

A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll found that 30 months out from the 2012 party presidential nominations, only 71% of Americans believe that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president.

This compares with someone named Barack Obama. At the same point in his then unannounced campaign, 0% thought he was qualified for the Oval Office. That's because he wasn't even on the polling lists' radar then.

The Illinois senator didn't show up on the polling charts until 24 months before the 2008 elections, just two months before his official announcement in Springfield, Ill. And even then he trailed the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, 29-22, as the choice for the Democratic presidential nomination.

To illustrate how accurate such polls were in those medieval days of this century, someone named Al Gore was the third choice among Democrats then, followed closely by -- don't laugh now -- John Edwards.

The same predictive accuracy may well apply to Tuesday's CNN/Public Opinion Poll showing that on only his 392d day in office, a majority of Americans (52%) have already decided to deny Obama a second term in office about 980 days or so from now.

All of which is vivid proof of how quickly the modern American presidential selection process and landscape is changing, making traditional patterns of political prediction as reliable as Prius brakes.

Andrew cites some things former Gov. Palin has going in her favor: She is an outsider at a time when those inside Washington are being held in low esteem, and her decision to step down from the governor's officein Alaska has given her the luxuries of time and freedom of movement. Though she was widely criticized for it at the time, she is now free to take advantage of priceless face time as a Fox News contributor and to fire up her base, as she has been doing at venues such as the National Tea Party Convention, a campaign rally for Rick Perry in the Houston area and last Sunday's Daytona 500, where 100,000 NASCAR fans were in attendance.

Also helping her case, says Andrew, are recent columns in the mainstream media by David Broder and Jules Whitcover, both of which run counter to the DNC talking point that Sarah Palin is not to be taken seriously. But at this stage of the game, the only polls which may have any meaning are those which measure Sarah Palin's strength against other likely Republican presidential candidates for 2012. As Andrew points out, if she decides to run, job one for a candidate Palin would be to win the GOP nomination. And she's in pretty good shape to get that done, as nearly 70 percent of Republicans view her in a favorable light.

Andrew's exit question:

"What base does anyone see coalescing around other potential GOP competitors?"

The full Malcolm op-ed is, as always, well worth the read at the Top of the Ticket.

- JP

Quote of the Day (December 19, 2009)

*
Andrew Malcolm:

"Over on the left the hunting parties are tracking a DINO, Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, who's incurred their wrath... Perhaps worst, Lieberman was photographed publicly hugging Sarah Palin, who is so irrelevant and politically inconsequential that many are still talking about her a year later."

- JP

Andrew Malcolm: A "review" of Sarah Palin's book

Our friend Andrew Malcolm reviews a "review" of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue:

We haven't actually read Palin's new book. Not one single page. We have a copy. We intend to read it. And we imagine it's fairly entertaining, perhaps revealing, as inside political stories go. We may even autograph it to ourselves from her. Also, hopefully, it's short on exclamation marks!!!

But after reading the Washington Post's review of Going Rogue the other day and the reviewer's candid confession that she hadn't really had time to finish the book that she was writing so authoritatively about, we realized this is the latest thing in U.S. society and journalism.

[...]

So, a reviewer can just write what he/she thinks the book is or heard it is or wants it to be. And if no one else reads what they're writing about or reads anything they disagree with, who can challenge anybody on anything?

It's perfect for a hurried society, like Washington every day or the modern quadrennial presidential campaigns. People reciting at each other things they've heard from others.

This way nobody has to learn anything new or adjust what they're already certain of. Dumb is the new American smart.

Final score: Andre Malcolm 1, Ana Marie Cox 0

- JP

Dems Go Bezerk Over Going Rogue

From master journalist/blogger Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times' Top of the Ticket:

Wow, for somebody who's supposed to be such a political joke, an Arctic ditz and eminently dismissable as a serious anything except maybe a stay-at-home hockey mom, Sarah Palin is sure drawing an awful lot of attention from Democrats and eager critics.

The launch of her "Going Rogue" interviews yesterday on "Oprah," of her book today, of her on-air chat today with Rush Limbaugh at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) and of her mid-America bus book tour tomorrow ignited a surprisingly large blizzard of derogatory Democrat dis-missives.

Every few minutes another note from Democratic National Committee operatives and others dropped into electronic mailboxes across the media-verse, helpfully passing on even the tiniest tidbit of negative news about Palin.

You know how sometimes a friend tells you how much he/she doesn't really care about....

...someone else. Really doesn't! And repeats it a sufficient number of times that you become convinced of precisely the opposite?

So maybe she does matter after all.

In ABC interviews to be aired today Palin says a 2012 presidential bid is "not on my radar," which is Politician for, "We'll see."

One e-mail was headed "Palin's rough year," which overlooked her $1 million-plus book contract, the kind of rough patch even many Obama Democrats wouldn't mind enduring in the current job market.

The more hysterical they become over Sarah Palin, the more ridiculous her detractors appear and the more disingenuous their protestations that The Arctic Fox doesn't matter. They're trying to rain on her parade, but there's not a cloud in the sky.

We think  that no one is more aware of how she makes their pointy little heads explode than the very woman they keep trying to marginalize. Rock Star Sarah is playing them like a Les Paul Custom.

- JP

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

The Unofficial Sarah Palin Events Calendar

In partnership with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's Accomplishments, Sarah Palin Web Brigade, Sarah Palin Information Blog and The Palination, Texas for Sarah Palin and The Book of Sarah have implemented an unofficial Sarah Palin Events Calendar.

With former Governor Palin's book tour, media appearances and speaking engagements being ramped up, these bloggers recognized the need for a way to put all that information into a single reference which organizes the events in a cohesive and easy to follow manner. And so the events calendar was born. To access the calendar, just click on the calendar image in the sidebar on the right. It's the third item down from the top.

While we have made every effort to determine that each event listed on the calendar is a solid booking, you should always check with the event organizer, The Washington Speakers Bureau (Sarah Palin's exclusive agent for speaking engagements) and/or her authorized representatives before purchasing tickets to an event or setting out on a long road trip to attend an event. Our purpose is to organize the information, and we try to do that by checking the best sources we can find. Each event on the calendar should include a link to the source. Of course, we can't guarantee Gov. Palin's actual appearance at any of the events. The calendar is just a tool. Think of it as a starting point, and it should be useful.

A big tip of the TX4P Stetson to our friend Andrew Malcolm for the shout out. Andrew is one of the last real journalists worthy of the mantle, a 2004 Pulitzer finalist and a prolific author who has produced ten volumes of nonfiction work. He brings credibilty to the art of blogging, and there is no better role model for aspiring bloggers to learn from, in our opinion. The man not only survives, but actually thrives out there in LA LA Land with his outstanding Top of the Ticket blog, a shining beacon of light in the otherwise dark matter which is the LA Times.

- JP

Iowa caucuses move to Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010

A heads up from our friend Andrew Malcolm:

The Iowa caucuses, those clumsy, endless exercises in evening democracy while the farmfields sleep every other January, have been moved. They will no longer be on a weekday evening with everyone having to get up early in a few hours for work in offices, factories or livestock barns.

Andrew says the D's and the R's will hold their respective caucuses on the same day in a trial run to see if the combined efforts can generate some excitement in the off-year political races. If so, Iowa will continue with the new format in 2012, when there will be a race for the presidential nomination -- at least on the GOP side.

- JP

Andrew has all of the answers

Good news! There's no need to watch Larry King tonight, because Andrew Malcolm has divined Levi Johnston's answers in advance of the actual probing interview.

See, you don't have to tune away from Hannity tonight. Otherwise, you would miss his Great American Panel, including Dr. Henry Kissinger, Susan Estrich and Larry the Cable Guy.

- JP