Category: Sarah Palin

Gloat Zone

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“Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said Tuesday that she’s not ready to announce whether she’ll run for president, but did not deny a report that she has made her decision.”
— The Hill, June 28

Palin Decision Expected Next Week
— The American Spectator, June 17

So it now appears that what “one Republican source” told me was right on the money: Palin was getting ready to make her decision on 2012. Of cource, nobody knows what the decision is, or when it will be announced. But I’m feeling pretty doggone Undefeated, you might say.

Palin Parks Her Bus

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Scott Conroy of Real Clear Politics — who got an early scoop about the Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated — seems mystifed by the pause in her “One Nation” bus tour:

Though Palin and her staff never announced a timeline for the remaining legs of her trip, aides had drafted preliminary itineraries that would have taken her through the Midwest and Southeast at some point this month. But those travel blueprints are now in limbo, RCP has learned, as Palin and her family have reverted to the friendly confines of summertime Alaska . . .
More than a few of Palin’s core supporters have grown impatient and confused about her strategy, venting their frustration on Internet fan sites.
The former governor herself has consented to only one interview since her East Coast jaunt ended early this month, and her lack of recent public activity has generated a host of rumors about what her next step might be. Last week, the American Spectator, citing a single and unnamed Republican source, claimed that her presidential decision was imminent. Palin shot this speculation down immediately, but she didn’t counter it with anything definitive.
And earlier this week, some of her staunchest supporters grew concerned about gossip suggesting that she had reached out to Texas Gov. Rick Perry about lending her support to his potential presidential run. . . .

It wasn’t “speculation.” What I reported was a fact: Certain people were told to expect a decision this week, although whether they were told this with Palin’s authorization (or knowledge) is obviously a question mark.

However, Conroy notices what I noticed: Palin’s response was not “anything definitive,” so tea-leaf readers would naturally find signficance in the fact that Palin’s bus tour itinerary is now in “limbo.”

Speculation and gossip are common enough, and the Palin-Perry deal was a topic that got kicked around among some of those who attended last week’s Right Online conference. But nobody I talked to claimed to have any specific knowledge about that, so I didn’t write about it.

If I may be permitted to play the tea-leaf reader, the uproar generated by my American Spectator item last week exposed one obvious truth: Once Palin makes a decision, her decision won’t stay a secret very long.

So count this as “speculation,” if you will: Formally announcing a genuine presidential campaign will require the involvement of dozens of people, and if Palin is moving in that direction, someone involved in the process will somehow (perhaps accidentally) tip off the media’s Palin-watchers and the news will leak. On the other hand, if we don’t see any such signals of an impending announcement, we are then likely to start seeing leaks to the effect that Palin has decided against running.

One final tea leaf to consider: Sarah Palin hasn’t posted a new Twitter message since Sunday.

UPDATE: Obviously, she’s reading my blog. At 4:12 p.m. ET, I mentioned she hadn’t Tweeted in three days, and at 4:31 p.m., she started Tweeting up a storm, including this:

She’s also promoting Bristol’s new book, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far.

UPDATE II: Dave Weigel proposes a new philosophical principle he calls Palin’s Razor: The simplest explanation for what Sarah Palin does is most likely that she is Sarah Palin.

VIDEO: Stephen Bannon, Director of Palin Documentary ‘The Undefeated’

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MINNEAPOLIS
By now, you’ve heard the amazing buzz about The Undefeated, the new documentary about Sarah Palin. There was a special screen last night at the Right Online conference. Trust me, this is going to be a must-see blockbuster, a film that will change the way you think about Palin. Here is my interview with the movie’s director, Stephen K. Bannon:

Thanks to Melissa Clouthier for arranging the interview.

Thanks, Rush!

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Here’s the transcript of Rush Limbaugh’s show today:

Folks, this is from Robert Stacy McCain, the American Spectator blog: “Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is expected within a week to make a decision on whether to enter the 2012 presidential campaign, according to one Republican source. Vendors of campaign services who hope to work for Team Palin…”
I guess “vendors of campaign services” are like pollsters and buttons and signs, T-shirts, that stuff. They’ve “been told that Palin, the 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate, will decide soon one way or another on mounting a 2012 campaign.” . . .

Rush then began to discuss reaction to a Rasmussen poll (45% of GOP Primary Voters Say It’s Bad for Party If Palin Enters Presidential Race) before returning to the topic:

By the way, Palin has tweeted in response to this, knocking down this story that she’s gonna make up her mind next week. The tweet says, “Really? Hmm, guess they forgot to inform me what I’m ‘expected to do’ next week.” This is in response to the American Spectator blog that I just read from which says that she’s expected within a week to make a decision on whether to run.

One of the difficult things about reporting on Sarah Palin is that only Sarah Palin can speak for Sarah Palin, and she only talks to Fox News. So if you’re a reporter who doesn’t work for Fox News, you have to get what you can get where you can get it. Before I filed that brief report at the Spectator this morning, I made a call to try to confirm it with Palin’s people. But I guess if you don’t work for Fox News, they don’t take your call.

So damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You either (a) work for Fox News or (b) aren’t allowed to report on Sarah Palin. And while I’m not complaining, I can certainly understand why this predicament irritates the 99% of political reporters who don’t work for Fox News.

‘Was That a Denial, Governor?’

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MINNEAPOLIS
“We are not having this phone conversation.” The phone call woke me up from a well-deserved nap here at the Hilton, site of the Right Online conference. Before I’d laid down for my nap, I’d posted a brief item at The American Spectator blog:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is expected within a week to make a decision on whether to enter the 2012 presidential campaign, according to one Republican source.
Vendors of campaign services who hope to work for Team Palin have been told that Palin, the 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate, will decide soon one way or another on mounting a 2012 campaign.

That’s what my source said. And here’s what Sarah Palin said:

To which I replied:

See what I’m saying? My source hears something, my source tells me, and I report it: a mere two sentences. Next thing you know, the governor herself is Tweeting a statement — which, I repeat, does not look exactly like a denial — and, I am told, both my post and Palin’s response are discussed on the radio by Rush Limbaugh. And then my nap gets interrupted by a phone call that’s so off-the-record I’m not even supposed to say I got a phone call.

Sigh. My apologies to all those reporters at the NYT, the WaPo and other mainstream media who are trying to chase down this story. Good luck. I’m going to try to finish my nap now.

UPDATE: Nap delayed again, because there’s a Memeorandum thread now, and I see that CNN’s Alison Harding takes Palin’s Tweet as a denial. But is it?

Did the governor say, “No, I’m not planning to make a decision next week”? Or, better yet, did she deny that her team have informed interested parties to expect a decision in that time frame?

Jim Geraghty at NRO has some helpful thoughts on exactly how long Palin could wait, noting that “the ranks of the unaffiliated staffers and volunteers grows thinner week by week.”

Geraghty also spots the key phrase in my AmSpec report: “vendors of campaign services who hope to work for Team Palin.” These are businesses. They can’t operate on the basis of maybe getting contracts from a potential campaign that may or may not happen. So it would obviously be in their interest to ask, “How soon will we know? When will a decision be made?”

BTW, I’ve talked to my original source twice since this story broke. And I’m standing by the story.

UPDATE II: Allahpundit also examines the timetable of a Palin campaign rollout (or not). But Allahpundit talks about an “announcement” and my source didn’t say anything about an announcement. No, my source was talking about a decision. An announcement and a decision are two different things.

UPDATE III: It is interesting to see some idiots try to depict me as being anti-Palin. Just FYI:

So, memo to Palin fans: Just because I’m a reporter doesn’t mean I’m the enemy.

UPDATE IV: Thanks, Rush!


New York Times: ‘Media Colonoscopy’ of Palin E-Mails Was ‘Not a Witch Hunt’

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Clay Waters at NewsBusters calls attention to an article by New York Times writer Jeremy Peters:

The New York Times and The Guardian sent reporters armed with scanners and then solicited readers’ assistance. Politico enlisted a dozen editors, reporters and interns who worked as a team from their Northern Virginia newsroom “plowing through” the documents, as one editor described it. The Washington Post initially asked for 100 volunteers to sift through the documents. They were quickly overwhelmed with too many applicants. Unable to screen all of them, the paper abandoned the plan late Thursday, opting instead to invite reader comments.
Were news organizations Dumpster diving, as one outraged reader of The Washington Post put it?
News outlets insisted that they were trying to be as thorough and efficient as possible while reporting on information that the public was entitled to know.
“This is not a witch hunt,” said Jim Roberts, an assistant managing editor at The Times. “There are 25,000 documents here, and we can use all the eyeballs we can get.”

It was Greta van Susteren of Fox News who called this ridiculous exercise a “media colonoscopy.”

‘Had Two’

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by Smitty

I can understand why Dan Riehl enjoys thrashing Jennifer Rubin so much. Emphasis mine in the following:

As I have written before, following the 2008 presidential election Palin had two choices: be a serious political leader or occupy that space between celebrity and conservative rabble-rouser. She was far better suited to the latter, which pays better and demand less wonkery (which she has demonstrated is outside her comfort zone). And now what is left? To explain the choice in a way that concedes nothing to her opponents and that maintains her status as a base icon. You’d be hard pressed to come up with a better mechanism than a motorcycle caravan, which highlights how unlike the disciplined pols she is.

Palin has never been criticized for lack of smarts when it came to cultivating an image and a career that frees her from the restraints and demands that encumber national politicians. She’s the ultimate self-made woman, with a career and identity unique to her. You can understand why it would be ludicrous to give that up and risk her place in the conservative movement for a race she doesn’t want to run and likely can’t win.

Read the whole thing, right up to its famous-last-words conclusion.
Sarah Palin was not limited to two choices then, now, nor at any subsequent time J.R. publishes something. Nor is it fair to assert she doesn’t want to run. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot the bus tour, Jennifer, you’re so brilliant? Are you asserting some exclusive knowledge here, trying to pose with Will and Krauthammer (not to mention Noonan), or trying to project your beltway-insider dread, to stun S.P. into submission?
Here is the rub: the Progressive politics of failing upward have failed utterly. The traditional source of our political problems is the tradition S.P. is bucking. How, J.R., can the parade of traditional Progressive clowns deliver anything other than traditional failure?
Maybe you’re in on the double secret reverse psychology play. I hope that’s the case, truly. Because what this current crisis will need is people thinking about liberty, and forcing the conversation to be about liberty, and about candidates who support liberty.
What is not needed is sad little hacks trying to go Alinsky, personalize, and short-sell candidates in the name of opportunism. Jennifer, maybe Krauthammer, Will, you, and Noonan fit that mold. You guys could have your own radio station. KWRN. K-WRoNg, where ain’t nothin’ right.
Likely not the fame they you’re seeking.

So, Sarah Palin Is Not Running. . .
A Traditional Campaign

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by Smitty

I’m upgrading my Sarah Palin prediction from “not not running” to “not running a traditional campaign”. Ann Althouse looks at the scoffings of the Romney and Pawlenty campaigns, griping that Sarah is not following the conventional path, and then invokes Fred Thompson.
Ah, Fred.
The interesting question becomes whether the GOP will, petulantly, scuttle the chances of ejecting BHO rather than fall in behind a potential Palin candidacy. In other words, will the commitment to the traditional, broken, Ruling Class way be stronger in the GOP than the desire to, you know, live up to the party’s ideals?
The fact that this question even forms in the mind is why I’m pleased not to be a registered Republican. About as useful as the DOE, they are.
Pay close attention to that bus tour, GOP. As you go under it.