Sarah Palin has announced that she will not run in 2012

On The Mark Levin Show
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Here's her statement, courtesy of Michelle Malkin:

Wasilla, Alaska

After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.

My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.

From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.

I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs. 

Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.

In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.

Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country! 

God bless America.



- Sarah Palin

Full audio from her appearance on Levin's show here. Gov. Palin will be Greta's guest tonight "On The Record" on Fox News at 9PM Texas time.

- JP

Mark Levin: It would appear that McGinness is a fiction writer

"And a bad one at that -- a hack."
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h/t: Timothy Donovan

- JP

Mark Levin - I Actually Hope Sarah Palin Gets Into This Race Now

"We conservatives... cannot leave our people on the battlefield to fend for themselves."
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Mark Levin Stands Up For Sarah Palin:

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Mark Says He Hopes Gov. Palin Gets Into The Race:


h/t: Timothy Donovan

- JP

Mark Levin: Palin's policy statements are 'solid'

Says they're more coherent than Ingraham's rambling or most of Coulter's columns
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The Great One refers to Laura Ingraham as "the 8PMer sub." Ouch:


h/t: Timothy Donovan

- JP

Mark Levin: Sarah Palin Gave A Great Speech Saturday

"Is there some juggernaut for Chris Christie, other than Ann Coulter?"
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h/t: Timothy Donovan

- JP

Mark Levin: GOP establishment's real target is Sarah Palin

Karl Rove and Dick Morris are trying to set her up
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On his Monday radio program, Mark Levin said the real target of the Republican Party's establishment is Sarah Palin:

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The Great One also opined that Gov. Palin will not announce on Sept. 3. He believes Karl Rove and Dick Morris -- who have both suddenly pivoted and said that she will get in on that date -- are trying to set her up so they can attack her later:


h/t: The Right Side of Kennebunk!

- JP

Mark Levin: ‘I believe Sarah Palin will run for president’

"Just want to put my marker down...”
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Conservative talk show host Mark Levin does not claim to have discovered any potential secret plans shared only by Sarah Palin’s inner circle or anything of the sort. Yet the Landmark Legal Foundation president believes that the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee will be a candidate for the White House in 2012, as he disclosed on his radio program Thursday:


h/t: Jeff Poor

- JP

Quote of the Day (July 28, 2011)

For Such A Time As This
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Mark Levin, via Facebook:

“Sarah Palin speaks the truth!”

- JP

Mark Levin: 'I'm a big fan of Sarah Palin'

Mark will have "The Undefeated" producer Stephen Bannon on his show next week.
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- JP

Mark Levin on the Palin emails

"Do you think they'd be falling all over themselves for John Huntsman's emails?"
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Mark also says MSNBC's bookers are only looking for guests who are critical of "The Undefeated," the new documentary about Gov. Palin. MSPDS isn't interested in being either fair or balanced.

- JP

Mark Levin:Sarah Palin was 'a hell of a governor'

"She is sold as a rock... a constitutional conservative, without equivocation and without exception."
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- JP

Mark Levin defends Gov. Palin from Krauthammer's smears

“I’m getting sick and tired of these smears by Krauthammer against her.”
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On his radio program Thursday night, Mark Levin chastized Fox News opinionist Charles Krauthammer for claiming that Sarah Palin isn’t “schooled” on a sufficient number of issues.


Levin said that Krauthammer "certainly owes us a column or a better explanation, doesn’t he?" Indeed he does, sir.

- JP

George Will, Republagogue (Updated)

Levin: "The contempt for Palin does, in fact, remind me of the contempt some had for Reagan"
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A demagogue is defined as a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing people's emotions, passions, and prejudices. Which is exactly what George Will did this morning, as Doug Powers observes:

George Will seems to think American voters are concerned that our nuclear arsenal could fall into the hands of… Sarah Palin:

“The threshold question, not usually asked, but it’s in everyone’s mind in a presidential election. ‘Should we give this person nuclear weapons?’ And the answer [in Palin's case], answers itself.”

“You know how chicks are… she’ll probably get upset with a Real Housewives of Atlanta episode and hit ‘the button’…”

Doug recalls that Will's soft-spoken hysteria reminds him of how the elitists demagogued Ronald Reagan, either as “a doddering old fool” without sufficient mental capacity or as a warmongering Hitler salivating at the prospect of starting a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. But Reagan, as it turned out, negotiated with Gorbochev and signed the INF Treaty, which was the first nuclear arms control agreement to actually reduce nuclear arms, rather than establish ceilings that could not be exceeded.

And speaking of George Will and Ronald Reagan, Mark Levin has pointed out in defense of Sarah Palin:

George Will missed the Reagan Revolution not only in 1976 but as late as 1980. In the 1979 Republican Presidential Primary, his first choice was Howard Baker, his second choice was George H. W. Bush, and his third choice was Reagan. Not until days before the 1980 general election did he write on November 3, 1980 that Reagan deserved election. For all his wonderful columns, the Republican electorate better understood the needs of the nation and the excellence of a potential Reagan presidency than Will. It is hard to believe he was so wrong about a matter of such great import, despite Reagan's presence on the national scene for many years.

Lest you think Levin was just posturing to promote Gov. Palin, he worked in the Reagan White House, served as advisor to several members of Ronald Reagan's cabinet, then as Associate Director of Presidential Personnel and finally as Attorney General Edwin Meese's Chief of Staff.

Dan Riehl has a screen cap of a George Will column in which Mr. Bowtie admits that he preferred the two country club Republicans, one after the other, over Reagan. Dan commented:

If we had taken George Will's advice in 1979 and 1980, there would have been no Reagan Revolution. I don't mean to attack him. But it's a fact.

I wonder, where is it Will gets his impressions of, say, a Sarah Palin, a Herman Cain, a Michelle Bachmann, or whomever today? Perhaps it's some of the same people and media outlets he was paying attention to in 1979?

Doug has the likely answer to that question:

George Will is a conservative (usually), but he’s an Ivy League conservative, and as such he might have a tendency to think that anybody who didn’t go to Princeton, Harvard or Yale shouldn’t be trusted with anything more powerful than a Bic lighter.

Did George Will mention a similar concern in 2008 when a community organizer from Chicago was about to be handed the launch codes and subsequently disclose the size of the US nuke arsenal? No, because Obama’s smart — he went to Columbia and all.

Will's demagoguery of Gov. Palin does indeed sound reminiscent of the attacks on Reagan from the political left back in the day. Victor Davis Hanson recalls:

Liberals once slurred Reagan on every occasion. They screamed that he was unhinged, a reactionary nut who would take us to nuclear war (remember the last days of Jimmy Carter's 1980 campaign?).

So Will, the conservative columnist, has a thing or two in common with his elitist counterparts over on the left. And he has demonstrated beyond any doubt that he is a demagogue. Since Will is a Republican, albeit one with his left foot planted firmly on the country club's grounds, and he frequently disses good conservative Republicans, can we call him a republagogue? Whatever we call him, Dan is right on target with his suggestion that when it comes to choosing presidential candidates, conservatives would be better served by trusting our own instincts than letting elitists like George Will pick our candidates for us.

Related: Whitney Pitcher has more on misogynist Will's "unsubstantiated and disparaging remarks" here.

- JP

Levin Rewind: George Will, Charles K arrogant to tell us how to vote

"From my perspective, Sarah Palin is the real deal..."
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h/t: @JedediahBila

- JP

Quote of the Day (May 4, 2011)

Big oil hasn’t gotten $4 billion subsidies for over 30 years!
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Mark Levin, via The Right Scoop:

“Big oil doesn't get this $4 billion write off. And they haven't gotten it for 36 years... It doesn't affect them; it affects the independents... Which person who may be a candidate for president does understand this oil issue? ... Obama's been corrected by Sarah Palin, and where's the media coverage? There isn't any...”

- JP

Mark Levin: 'Pervertico' out there trashing Sarah Palin again

"Vicious, nasty, hateful attacks"
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- JP

Mark Levin: IAPB is the death panel Sarah Palin warned about

"Sarah Palin was exactly correct when she called this a death panel."
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h/t: theblogprof

- JP

Levin: Sarah battled many of the same people Trump funded

In that one segment she said more than Trump has said in 20 years
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Here's why they call Mark Levin "The Great One":


h/t: the blogprof

- JP

Trump vs. Palin

We take issue with Tony Lee
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Don't get us wrong. We like Tony Lee. We appreciate what he has written in support of Sarah Palin. But in Lee's latest Human Events op-ed, he's just wrong. Lee cites a recent CNN poll which shows Trump in the lead and argues:

The more Trump fans the "birther" angle, the more the media is likely to ask all potential GOP presidential aspirants about it, which makes the party as a whole seem extreme to independents who will decide the general election.

Should Trump officially enter the nominating contest, though, the potential candidate who should fear a Trump candidacy the most is former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

How Trump can hurt Palin in the primary: If Palin chooses to run for President, her competitors will have the delicate task of attacking her without potentially alienating her fervent supporters or getting brushed back by them. This is where Trump comes in. With his previous donations to liberal Democrats and established brand and fame, Trump has neither been a rank and file Republican nor does he need the GOP base, which supports Palin, going forward, unlike some of the other candidates. Trump can, therefore, go after Palin in a way other potential candidates would not be able to. Trump can call her a "quitter," mock any of her malapropisms, or even potentially throw some haymakers -- such as taking off his birther hat and borrowing Andrew Sullivan's Trig truther hat -- and hope they land. Politics is becoming more like a circus, and Trump seems to relish being its P.T. Barnum, and there's no telling what he would do or say in a primary. In fact, Trump may even relish the blowback that he would get for attacking Palin, which would figuratively be akin to smashing a beehive with a baseball bat.

Lee should know better than to rely on any early poll results to try to make the case for the potency of Donald Trump. If you recall, CNN's pollster and all of the other pollsters were telling us four years ago that it would all boil down to Hillary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 general election. So much for the polls, especially at this early stage of the game.

The next argument made by Lee is that Trump does not need the GOP base. That argument only has any degree of validity if Trump runs as a third party candidate, as did Ross Perot in 1992. If he wants to run as a Republican, he will need that base, and it is a very conservative base, not likely to look with favor upon The Donald for his contributions to the campaigns for some of the most liberal figures in the Democrat Party. Trump's history of political donations, his very recent flip-flops on some key issues which are paramount to conservatives, and his high praise for the likes of Nancy Pelosi will all work against him in the Republican primaries as these facts become more widely known.

Mark Levin makes the case that Donald Trump is not of the conservative or Tea Party movements, nor does he represent them:


Lee further contends that Trump can damage Gov. Palin by using some of the left's personal attacks against her. But we must point out that sort of venomous rhetoric has only served to anger conservative Republicans -- especially Palin supporters-- and would hurt Trump in the GOP primaries. Whoever wins the GOP nomination will have to have Sarah's troops in their corner, and going after her on anything other than the issues will not only chase them away, but make them enemies for life. Tony Lee is quite wrong to believe that Trump would "relish" the outcome in "attacking a beehive with a baseball bat." We don't think he would survive the stings. Attacking her personally and viciously would also turn off independents, which would hurt him in the general election should he mount a third party effort. We don't think Trump would resort to that tactic, but if he does, it will be the kiss of death for whatever political ambitions he has.

Until Trump came along with his birther madness, we thought that Sarah Palin would have to drag the GOP establishment, kicking and screaming, over to her side. But Trump is perhaps the only other figure who could give Republican insiders a new appreciation for the governor. As such, he is actually working in her favor. If GOP moderates were not comfortable with Gov. Palin's common sense conservatism and her plain way of speaking, they are nothing less than horrified by Trump's birtherism. And justifiably so. It won't take long for them to realize that she is the one who can bring the Tea Party into the GOP fold, while all Trump will do is drive a wedge been the two.

Tea Partiers have a lot more in common with the greater electorate than they do with the birther crowd. The former are concerned with the economy: the price of gasoline and groceries, jobs, and the crushing national debt that threatens to cast a shadow over their hopes for their children and grandchildren. 30 percent of the electorate may have Obama's place of birth somewhere (not necessarily in the crosshairs) on their radar screens, but 70 percent of them believe the country is on the wrong track. The candidate who wins the GOP nomination and who can win again in the general election will be the one who asks voters, as did Ronald Reagan 35 years ago, "Are your better off now than you were four years ago?" That question will have a lot more resonance than, "Where's the birth certificate?"

Sarah Palin is a shining star whose enduring light has withstood more than two years of constant efforts by the left, the Vichy right and a corrupt media to dim it. Trump is a shooting star, one whose light catches the eye of everyone who is watching, but only for a precious few moments in time. Then it is out of sight and soon thereafter out of mind.

- JP

Mark Levin: From a good friend

" I missed the part where the 'tax credit' was specifically earmarked for Ms. Palin."
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Posted just minutes ago by The Great One on his Facebook Notes page:

From a good friend
by Mark Levin

"I don't know if you are going to address Geraghty's outrageous attack on Palin's show and the alleged 'tax subsidy' she granted herself (three years before she ever had the idea to make the show - she must really be prescient) in NRO today. I know you have so many things you have to cover every day you might not have time - understandable. I find such a biased, ill informed attack coming from NRO really sad. Why do they fear Ms. Palin so much? What has she ever done to earn their ire - other that stand for homespun American values and principals? Why single out Ms. Palin's little info-mercial for Alaskan Tourism? Geraghty calls the Alaskan 'tax credit' a 'government subsidy' of Palin's film. What?! I missed the part where the 'tax credit' was specifically earmarked for Ms. Palin. Many localities offer tax credits to bring 'business' to their areas, whether film, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, etc. Has Geraghty ever stopped to think that a 'tax credit' is a kind of 'tax cut' - I guess not. Aren't lower taxes as an incentive to spur free market expansion supposed to be a basic tenant of conservatism? I guess Geraghty missed that meeting. It seems Geraghty has also missed the fact that Burnett Productions, and Ms. Palin, will all pay federal income tax on what they earn from the showing of the film - mainly from TLC and advertisers. The Alaskan Tax credit will only act to lower this tax burden."

"Not only am I saddened by these attacks of 'one of our own' but I am fearful. If the GOP nominates another 'Bush Republic' to run against POTUS, the GOP will lose. The Tea Party conservatives will stay home, they will not work for another 'McCain' and the unions will turn out the vote for the incumbent (rhetorical question coming) why don't the establishment Republicans see this?"

No, my friend, I won't be addressing it. I think you said all that needs to be said.

- JP