Quote of the Day (April 8, 2011)

So Cillizza wants to know "Where's Palin?"
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Jedediah Bila via Twitter:

“Hey @thefix, re: http://wapo.st/dS2Hku She's been here: http://is.gd/xE72xM And here: http://is.gd/yyx8G1 And here: http://is.gd/mnplu0 etc.”

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 12, 2010)

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Chris Cillizza at The Fix:

"If Palin does decide to run -- and we tend to think, based on her public pronouncements, she is leaning that way -- she would be a (and maybe the) prime mover in the race."

- JP

Chris Cillizza: RGA 'orchestrated' Gov. Palin's Martinez endorsement

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At The Fix, Washington Post political blogger Chris Cillizza claims that the Republican Governors Association (RGA)"orchestrated" the endorsement of Susana Martinez by Sarah Palin that helped the candidate win the GOP primary for governor in New Mexico:

The RGA knew it wanted Doña Ana District Attorney Susana Martinez as its nominee in the New Mexico open seat race. They also knew that a Washington-based organization endorsing her might not be a recipe for success in this anti-establishment year. So, they helped steer hundreds of thousands of dollars to her campaign and orchestrated an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Both moves provided Martinez a significant boost and led to her easy win last night that not only gives Republicans a fighting chance in the Democratic-leaning Land of Enchantment but also gives the party a Hispanic female face to push back against the "old, white guy" image the GOP is currently battling.

We're not sure who Cillizza's sources are on the matter, but we're sure of one thing. No one and no organization "orchestrates" Sarah Palin into doing anything. An RGA contact may have asked Gov. Palin to consider endorsing Martinez, and we wouldn't be surprised if the governor was already considering such an endorsement before being contacted by the association. But Cillizza's poor choice of words continues to demonstrate the built in anti-Palin bias at the Washington Post as well as the paper's bloggers' astounding ignorance about who Sarah Palin is and how she makes decisions.

- JP

The Influential Sarah Palin

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At The Fix, Chris Cillizza's latest Friday Line, in which he ranks the 10 most influential Republicans -- be they insiders or outsiders -- who are having the greatest impact on the GOP, has Sarah Palin at the top of the list:

"Yes, she's number one again. No Republican has moved up as much on the Line as the former Alaska governor. And, even now, in conversations with Republican operatives, some suggest she should hold this top spot while others insist she should be down at number nine or ten. We think the former option is the right one at the moment as Palin has shown a practical side -- her endorsement of former HP executive Carly Fiorina in the California Senate race -- and it's clear that her support can make a difference in primaries and other nomination fights. (See Tom Emmer in Minnesota and Nikki Haley in South Carolina.) (Previous ranking: 3)"

But Don Surber disagrees:

Sarah Palin leads the conservatives.

Mitt Romney leads the Republicans.

There is a difference.

The Republicans should be embracing her and turning her into a Ronald Reagan. Instead, I fear, they will allow her to wither and become Wendell Wilkie while they search for the next Thomas Dewey.

Some Republicans would rather have the Democrats in charge.

- JP

Chris Cillizza: Sarah Palin and the year of the Republican woman (Updated)

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The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza observes that Sarah Palin seems to be assembling what he calls "a pack of mama grizzlies" and casting the 2010 elections as the year of the Republican woman. That strategy could "send a powerful political message" if the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate runs for president in 2012:

In the past 10 days, Palin has thrown her endorsement behind former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina, who is running for the Republican Senate nomination in California; state Rep. Nikki Haley, a candidate for governor in South Carolina; and Susana Martinez, the Doña Ana County district attorney seeking the GOP nod in the New Mexico governor's race.

"This year will be remembered as the year that common-sense conservative women get things done for our country," the former Alaska governor said Friday in a speech to the Susan B. Anthony List, a political group opposed to abortion. "The mama grizzlies, they rise up."

[...]

Palin's strong support for female candidates in 2010 could accrue to her benefit if she decides to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. She would almost assuredly be the only prominent woman in the race, a significant position of strength if she could rally Republican women behind her the way that Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to inspire Democratic women in 2008 with the chance to cast their first vote for a female presidential candidate.

According to exit-poll data, women made up 44 percent of the voters in the 2008 Iowa Republican caucuses, 43 percent in the New Hampshire primary and 49 percent in the South Carolina primary. Eight years earlier, those figures were 46 percent in Iowa, 43 percent in New Hampshire and 50 percent in South Carolina.

The numbers suggest that if Palin could attract the support of a significant chunk of Republican women in the three earliest-voting states of the presidential nominating process, she would be at or near the top of a crowded field of -- you guessed it -- men.

Cillizza notes that even those close to Gov. Palin -- including her dad Chuck Heath -- don't know if she intends to throw her hat cap into the ring in 2012. But should she run, her efforts to help elect women in 2010 may well be perceived as part of the foundation upon which she will build her campaign.

Read the full Fix here.

Update: At The New Agenda, Amy Siskind commends Gov. Palin for "supporting women and embracing her gender." But Ms. Siskind frets over the governor "making abortion a centerpiece" and trying to redefine “feminism” in conservative terms. Perhaps Siskind is right that the word has too much of a negative connotation, and even by stressing the "new" in "new feminism," the first woman to be the vice presidential candidate of the GOP may not be able to re-brand the term.

But we believe that in characterizing Sarah Palin's embrace of a life-affirming philosophy as "a trap," Siskind demonstrates that she herself has retained at least a residual amount of the "old" feminism. Sarah Palin could no more cease to be a tireless advocate for protecting the unborn than she could disown her own children. It is as much a part of who the governor is as is her abiding faith in God.

Perhaps Ms. Siskind hasn't noticed that the attitudes of Americans on the life issue are moving toward Gov. Palin's position. A Gallup poll released this month found that a plurality of Americans identified themselves as pro-life, and polling on health care reform has consistently shown that an even greater majority oppose federal funding of abortion.

The latest Gallup survey "represents the third consecutive time Gallup has found more Americans taking the pro-life than pro-choice position on this measure since May 2009, suggesting a real change in public opinion." Gallup found that "all age groups have become more attached to the pro-life label since 2005, with particularly large increases among young adults and those aged 50 to 64 years in the latest period between 2007/2008 and 2009/2010." The pollster also found that "both genders have also become more likely to identify as pro-life," and concludes that the movement toward the pro-life position is "The New Normal on Abortion."

Siskind and others who, to their credit, have sought to distance themselves from the radicalism of the old feminism will have to learn to live with the fact that Americans consider abortion, as it is practiced in the U.S. today, to be a very radical act indeed.

Meanwhile, back at The Fix...

- JP

Quote of the Day (February 21, 2010)

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Chris Cillizza:

"Be careful not to read too much -- or much at all -- into [the 2010 CPAC Straw Poll] results. Paul's supporters are loyal and loud but not, ultimately, that large a group as proven by the fact that he did not win a single primary or caucus in 2008."

- JP

Would Rep. Steve King endorse Sarah Palin in 2012?

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Washington Post political blogger Chris Cillizza seems to have had that question in mind when he wrote:

Rep. Steve King isn't a household name to everyone but anyone who is even considering running for president on the Republican side in 2012 almost certainly has the Iowa GOPer on speed dial.

That's why King's comments in praise of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are so interesting. King described Palin as "the one who has the charisma, she has the momentum" in the 2012 race during an interview with Iowa Public Television, adding that "there couldn't have been a better thing for her to do politically" than embark on her recent book tour in support of "Going Rogue" -- her memoir that gives an account of the 2008 presidential race among other things.

King, who endorsed former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson (R) in the 2008 caucus and primary fight, said he had learned from that experience, reflecting that he should have endorsed a candidate earlier in the process -- a line sure to make ambitious GOP pols hearts go pitter-pat. King has represented 5th district since 2002; the seat spans much of western Iowa where large swaths of Republican voters call home.

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 22, 2009)

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Chris Cillizza:

"After this week, it's impossible to argue about Palin's influence within the party. She can draw big crowds, sell tons of books and command the biggest media stages -- it doesn't get much bigger than 'Oprah' and Barbara Walters. Whether they admit it or not, every establishment Republican wonders regularly about what Palin has planned for 2010 and 2012 and worries about what impact what she will do has on the party. We dubbed Palin the 'prime mover' in Republican party politics many moons ago -- she acts, others react -- and we are sticking by it."

- JP

At the head of the line: Sarah Palin

The WaPo's Chris Cillizza makes us positively dizzy the way he bounces Sarah Palin around his sorta weekly Top Ten list of ranking Republican leaders known as Friday Line. One week she may be at #9 on the list, after having been listed at #2 the previous time. 

Though this feature of Cillizza's The Fix blog is just one guy's opinion, and the relative rankings appear to be somewhat arbitrarily determined, it's fun to follow. We simple folk here in Flyover County, Texas have some degree of difficulty understanding the way The Beltway Bunch think, so different is the internal wiring of heads on the Campus of Big Government Central. So we like to examine every little clue we get from there as if we were scientists with Double Top Secret Probation clearances trying to reverse-engineer some captured alien spacecraft in an attempt to figure out where they are coming from and how they got here.

This week, at least, Cillizza has Sarah on top of the heap:

1. Sarah Palin: Like it or not, the former Alaska governor is the prime mover in Republican politics at the moment. Her memoir -- "Going Rogue" -- immediately went to number one on Amazon's bestsellers list despite the fact that it won't be released until the middle of next month. And Republican operatives all acknowledge that if you want to ensure a big and energetic crowd at a GOP event the best way to make that happen is to get Palin there. Of course, Palin's political operation is nonexistent and she seems entirely uninterested/unable to capitalize politically from the amount of interest she generates. (Previous ranking: 9)

Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Haley Barbour occupy the next four slots, in that order. Though the entire list is safely tucked away in a nondescript hanger somewhere at Area 51, you can access it here.

- JP

Forget someone, Chris?

At motorcitytimes.com, Steve takes Chris Cillizza to task for writing that the GOP is a party known for its old white guys and omitting any mention of Sarah Palin, who doesn't fit the profile and has sparked a lot of excitement among the rank and file.

Just for the record, Chris didn't mention Gov. Bobby Jindal either.

- JP