Wouldn't you know it. Sarah Palin is coming to Minnesota to raise money for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) for her MN-06 reelection bid. That, of course, can only mean one thing...
I just received this email from the Tarryl Clark campaign:
In a few weeks, Sarah Palin will parachute into Minnesota to raise money for my opponent, Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. As a Congresswoman, Bachmann has shown time and time again that she is more interested in pursuing her personal agenda and building her national celebrity than she is in serving the people she represents; much like Sarah Palin.
The Republicans know that Congresswoman Bachmann is vulnerable. In fact, Michele Bachmann frequently refers to herself as "public enemy number one" among Republicans in Congress. That's why they're sending their biggest draw - the cover girl of the extreme right - into our state to raise money for this race. And that's where you come in.
Today my campaign is announcing a new fundraising technique called a "moneybomb," where we all work together to get people to pledge to the campaign and send a message to Congresswoman Bachmann and her allies on the far right.
We expect former Governor Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single day. When our fundraising numbers are released in early April, we need to show Michele Bachmann and the far right that we'll have the resources to fight back when it counts most.
We need to show the people of Minnesota's 6th District that we're working hard every day for the chance to represent them in Washington. While Bachmann is leaving us behind to pursue her own personal agenda, I'm ready to fight for good jobs, for affordable healthcare and for Minnesota families.
This headline from Political Wire was just too much not to have a little chuckle at Sarah Palin's expense:
Palin Used PAC Money to Buy Books
Sarah Palin "has been using her political action committee to buy up thousands of copies of her book, Going Rogue, in order to mail copies of the memoir to her donors," ABC News reports.
The former Alaska governor had her PAC spend more than $63,000 on what her reports describe as "books for fundraising donor fulfillment."
The Hotline notes Palin's PAC spent more money buying copies of her book than it gave in contributions to political candidates.
You know who else did this? Scientologists, trying to prop up sales of founder L. Ron Hubbard's "masterpiece," Dianetics.
Of course, they simply sent those copies right back to the bookstores to be re-sold, instead of giving them away to campaign donors.
Who knows. If I were a donor to Palin's PAC, I'd be pretty annoyed that my money was being used to line Palin's pockets and pay for giveaways to other donors who probably gave more money than I did.
Yes, Sarah Palin will come to Minnesota to campaign for Michele Bachmann. You may put that in your "Who cares, Bill?" file, but I have to note it.
It's an MPR Polinaut story:
GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann announced today that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will visit Minnesota to campaign for her on April 7th.
Here's the take on the DCCC v. Bachmann:
Bachmann is expected to face a spirited challenge in her reelection run in 2010. The DCCC has listed Minnesota's 6th as one of its Races to Watch list. That means the political arm of House Democrats will likely put resources and effort into the race.
And here's something I had not heard (sic):
Bachmann and Palin will both appear next month at the National Tea Party Convention in Tennessee.
My understanding was that Palin wasn't going to this grass roots defense of American liberty event, because "the money wasn't right."
And here's another bombshell for you:
Palin's visit to Minnesota fuels speculation that Bachmann could back Palin over (Minnesota Gov. Tim) Pawlenty in the race for the White House.
See, that is a bombshell. Because I know that the particular reporter who wrote that happens to be pretty bright. And he is taking the possibility of a Palin presidential run seriously. (On the Kos, it's long been dismissed as joke. I regularly got joking comments from readers suggesting "Palin/Bachmann 2012!" bumperstickers. These have tapered off, recently--not as funny, what with the "hey, the crazy conservatives may be electable!" headlines.)
At Polinaut they entitled the piece "Bachmann wants a copy of Palin's book"--but who cares about that, the real deal is that MB won't say whether she supports the presidential bid by Pawlenty or by Palin.
Okay...let's get real. That's not news either, a politician refusing to say who they're going to support, years in advance of an election. And Bachmann claims to hold conversations with God and receive prophetic visions from Him--now that's news, but they won't print that or ask her questions about that.
But: since the mainstream, paid media still has the power to set the topics of discussion--let's discuss. Me, I think the Palin political thing's over--at least until she gets back into elected office again somewhere. The Palin media thing is not over; there's been an explosion of Palin news exposure everywhere, she gets standing ovations from conservative crowds around the country. But she resigned office rather than try to survive a host of ethics inquiries--that's not leadership anywhere outside the conservative talk radio spectrum.
So I have an idea for a bumpersticker: "Palin for Reality T.V." That's what she's really most qualified for--she's not informed enough about politics to be a right wing talk personality, but her career and home life are complex enough to make good reality t.v. (which may be part of the secret of her popularity.)
Michele Bachmann is an acknowledged Palin fan and they met in Alaska when Bachmann was up there to make the case for opening up ANWR for oil drilling. (Michele took a tour of a portion of ANWR via airplane, and reported that she didn't see any wildlife when she looked down there--so "drill, baby, drill.") (continued)
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is expected to stop in at the Mall of America on December 7th on her National book tour. The Mall of America has asked that reporters speak English at the event.
On Dec. 7, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will be at the Mall of America to sign copies of her new book. In advance of her visit, mall officials sent out a message to reporters: If you don't speak English, stay away. The Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva reports:
Officials at the Minnesota mega-mall this week told reporters planning to cover the Minneapolis-area stop on Palin's Going Rogue book tour they must address the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate who resigned as governor last summer by her old title - a common honor, actually, which normally is accorded to former governors.
But the mall also was banning foreign reporters, [permitting] "only English speaking press." That's not a common requirement.
The mall is now apologizing for the communique, calling it "an internal miscommunication" that was "inadvertently distributed." ("In other words, it got out," writes Silva.) A publicist for Palin's publisher says it's "not the message the governor wants to send out."
Newt Gingrich, a man who knows a wee bit about hypocrisy, called his fellow 2012 Republican presidential candidates who endorsed the right wing extremist Doug Hoffman hypocrites today. This group includes Sarah Palin and occasional Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. I love it when Republicans throw rocks in their glass mansions.
GINGRICH: Well, I just find it fascinating that my many friends who claim to be against Washington having too much power, they claim to be in favor of the 10th Amendment giving states back their rights, they claim to favor local control and local authority, now they suddenly get local control and local authority in upstate New York, they don't like the outcome.
...
So I say to my many conservative friends who suddenly decided that whether they're from Minnesota or Alaska or Texas, they know more than the upstate New York Republicans? I don't think so. And I don't think it's a good precedent. And I think if this third party candidate takes away just enough votes to elect the Democrat, then we will have strengthened Nancy Pelosi by the divisiveness. We will not have strengthened the conservative movement.
Of course, we Minnesotans are used to Pawlenty's hypocrisy. Like talking about bipartisanship and doing what's good for MN before legislative sessions then never negotiating to protect his no-new-taxes pledge. Like saying one thing in front of conservative audiences and the opposite or something completely different when adults are present.
2012 Republican presidential candidate and AWOL Governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty endorsed the far right extremist candidate Doug Hoffman in New York's hotly contested special election, NY-23. Pawlenty's rightward swing isn't surprising because he needs to convince the party base that he is a viable candidate. In other words, farther right than Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.
Interestingly, there is a Republican Party endorsed candidate, but Dede Scozzafava isn't far enough to the right. Doug Hoffman, who defected to the Conservative Party of NY, is. Gov. Teabag joins an illustrious group including Sarah Palin, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Steve Forbes, GOP Head Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and the Club for Growth. I'm probably missing a few neocons and wingnuts who are participating in this circular firing squad.
But I certainly am enjoying it.
See ... this is supposed to be a omen of things to come in the 2010 election. Normally, the party in control (that'd be us) lose seats in mid-term elections. But considering the dysfunction in the Republican Party, you can see why I'm experiencing a wee bit of schadenfreude right now. The Republicans are tearing themselves apart of purity and the Democrat is most likely going to win in a very strongly Republican district. According to Rachel Maddow this will be the first Democrat elected since around 1850.
2012 Republican presidential candidate and occasional MN visitor will be headlining a Republican fundraiser in Iowa this Saturday. This is after his brief stop in MN.
Minnesota Governor and RGA vice chairman Tim Pawlenty will be the featured guest at the Iowa Republican party's "signature fall event," a further indication that he is exploring a 2012 presidential bid.
The event, to be held this Saturday, is the latest in a series of moves by Pawlenty that raise his national profile. He officially opened his political action committee, the Freedom First PAC, last week and has rounded up several former George W. Bush campaign advisers.
(MSNBC)
But here's the kicker. They originally asked Sarah Palin to headline the event!
Rachel Maddow reported this tonight and I'll post the vid if'n I can find it. The gist of Rachel's comment was that Palin didn't return emails and phone calls before they asked Timmeh. Once they settled on Mr. Backup, they also reduced the price to $25 a seat from some much higher price. Maybe because Timmeh Backup isn't as much of a draw?
Normally one would have expected the economic news of the economy to have been the big driver of vote changes in the last presidential election findings. Surprise, some opinions based on recent studies say it was not.
It is clear from the daily tracking in the National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) that the crisis made the economy far and away the most important and troubling issue for voters. But the effect of national economic perceptions on voters' evaluations of candidates and vote intentions actually shrank after September 15. The election seemed to draw attention away from economic troubles rather than toward them. The NAES also confirms, as Gelman and Sides note, that the Democratic share of vote intentions turned up before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Now to be fair, the economic news could have been a vote changer except the news about Palin was changing people's mind first. So the economic news may have just solidified people's opinions.
Throughout the rest of the campaign, vote intentions were closely tied to Palin's approval ratings: each major Palin approval drop was followed, within a day or two, by a drop in McCain vote intention. No other factor moved McCain support with such precision. Comparison of the correlation between running mate approval ratings and vote intentions from 2000 and 2004 confirms Palin's peculiar importance in 2008.
If your a fat pig it's okay to taser a 14 year old girl because your too fat too chase her. Just to be clear, this girl looks like she weighs 100 lbs., is a troubled teen, hadn't committed any crimes and was unarmed. Explain to me one more time how this cop was in danger?
Glenn Greenwald cuts to the essence of what is wrong with modern journalism with his interview with Chuck Todd. Regardless of whether you read the transcript or listen to the interview, you'll be infuriated by Todd's part cluelessness, part mendacity. In addition, here's some interesting thoughts about this at Crooks and Liars.
The Exchange of the Day from Political Wire deserves to be discussed in full:
Palin: We are the only state with a negative tax rate where we don't have any income, sales or property tax statewide, and yes we have a share of our oil resource revenue that goes back to the people that own the resources. Imagine that.
Hannity: And it went up higher since you've been the governor and you negotiated with the oil companies. That all went up so people get a bigger check.
Palin: There was a corrupt tax system up there and we had a couple of lawmakers end up in jail because of the tax system that was adopted so we cleaned it up and said we wanted a fair and equitable share of the resources that we own, and the people will share in those resource revenues that are derived.
(A few minutes later...)
Palin: If Americans aren't paying attention, unfortunately our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize. Certainly that is so far from what the founders of our country had in mind for us.
Hannity: Socialism?
Palin: Well... that is where we are headed.
Yes, the Governor of the most socialized state economy in the union is fear-mongering about --gasp!-- socialism! as Sean Hannity tosses her softball after softball. Our own Tim Pawlenty has been doing the same type of fearmongering as he (probably) seeks the same GOP presidential nomination Palin will be looking for in a couple of years, only Pawlenty doesn't lead a state in which residents can sit on their rear ends all day and pull in a check from the state government.
The great thing about the Internet is its memory -- no longer can elected leaders say one thing Monday, something else on Tuesday, and expect to get away with the contradiction. But come on -- criticizing the President for an imagined offense that you are yourself committing in reality is quite a treat from the Fox News anchors.
You'll find the whole Palin interview in the sidebar -- it's worth a watch.
