The Chief's Person of the Year: Sarah Palin

It occurred to me this morning that there is just no getting around it: this year belonged to Sarah Palin.

I can't think of a single person who can summon a scrum of reporters by doing next to nothing. Sure, Barack Obama's life is probably more scrutinized and analyzed, but he's the President. Palin's just ... well, Sarah Palin.

And yet even with attention that most politicians would sell their mothers for, she's done nothing to further a political career. She quit a cushy job as governor of Alaska, needlessly fought with the father of her grandchild in public, alienated many supporters with a spotty record of making public appearances and threw campaign staffers overboard. None of these thing will endear her to people who could get her elected.

Her memoir and subsequent book tour were huge successes -- but the book was "self-serving and omitted several significant details," demonstrated zero command of policy, and was filled with so much score settling that it will almost certainly come back to haunt her in the future. She continues to fight with a media that she should be manipulating. Her approval numbers have plummeted. This is a person who is not taking advantage of some serious post-election media attention.

So what's next for Palin? Beats the hell out of me. Palin has clearly demonstrated that she's incapable of being a serious candidate for President, so that pretty much leaves her the "political celebrity" niche. But she's not very good at being that either (one needs more than a FaceBook and Twitter account to manage the kind of fan base she controls). Furthermore, her celebrity is intimately tied to the possibility that she could run for President. The instant that ceases to be a realistic scenario, she will stop attracting as much attention.

There are three people who absolutely love Sarah Plain: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton. Much of the silliness and pettiness that comes with being President hasn't really affected Obama, and I'd posit that much of that has to do with the Sarah Palin sideshow filling much of that vacuum. In case you haven't noticed, Mitt Romney has been conspicuously quiet since last November. That's because it's best not to interrupt your opponent when she's hanging herself. Lastly, the more ridiculous that Palin appears to the public, the more Presidential Hillary Clinton seems and the more likely she is to become the Dems' heir apparent after Obama. If you want to thrown in a fourth, let it be the press. Contrary to what Palin and other conservatives think, the media loves her. She makes their lives easy and profitable.

I don't know how long the nation will have to endure Sarah Palin. It's likely that her star will lose some luster sooner or later, but this was her year. Don't be surprised if she gets the nod from Time -- it's a sure fire way to sell some magazines.

Wisconsin's Close-up in Sarah Palin's Propaganda Film

You may recall Sarah Palin's most recent visit to Madison in April. The appearance was last minute. The weather was terrible. The crowds were small. The results were underwhelming. The whole event begged the question: why even bother? Well, here's your answer: the episode features prominently in the new Palin documentary that's apparently premiering in Iowa this month:

The film's coda is introduced with an on-screen caption that reads, "From here, I can see November." It is here that Mark Levin alludes to Ronald Reagan as a Palin-like insurgent who was also once distrusted by the GOP establishment.

Palin is then shown firing up a rally that occurred just last month on the steps of the state capitol in Wisconsin. "What we need is for you to stand up, GOP, and fight," Palin, in vintage campaign form, shouts to the crowd. "Maybe I should ask some of the Badger women's hockey team -- those champions -- maybe I should ask them if we should be suggesting to GOP leaders they need to learn how to fight like a girl!"

Following an extended in-your-face riff by Andrew Breitbart in which he repeatedly denounces as "eunuchs" the male Republican leaders who decline to defend Palin, the film ends with one last scene from the April rally in Madison: "Mr. President, game on!" Palin shouts before a martial drumbeat ushers in a closing quotation by Thomas Paine, which also appeared in "Going Rogue." The implication is neither subtle nor easy to dismiss.

Now I'm dying to see the film, if only to see how the Madison event is spun. By most measures it was something of a disaster. But this detail does explain why Palin and the rest of the speakers were so insistent that the numerous hecklers shut up during the proceeding: the event wasn't for the crowd that had gathered at the capitol, the small number of people watching on TV or even the folks reading the paper the next day: it was for the (undoubtedly heavily edited) film's audience.

It's Time for the GOP to Have The Talk

Here's Owen on Palinpalooza:

If she’s gearing up for a presidential run, then she abandoned the people of Alaska who elected her to serve her full term in order to peruse her personal ambitions. I would have more respect for the move if she said, “I can’t put the work into the job of Governor because I’m planning on running for POTUS.” At least she’d be being honest with them, but to say that she didn’t want to be a lame duck and wants to do bigger things? What a slap in the face.

I like Palin’s politics, her persona, and her energy. I may even end up voting for her if she gets nominated (I doubt she will). But her resignation is a very odd political move that represents a sizable red flag.

We certainly don't expect conservatives to suddenly wake up Monday morning and say to themselves, "Man, that Sarah Palin -- what the hell was I thinking!" We understand that the ties people forge to their ideological fellow travelers are pretty strong and that holding out hope for a better future is a lot easier to do than admitting that a strongly held belief in some one or some thing was mistaken, but there has to be some recognition that, at the very least, Palin's resignation opens the doors for her enemies to paint as a quitter. That's already begun to happen.

Why a person would do that to oneself is exactly what Owen calls it: odd.

The thing about odd is that it happen to attract attention, and rarely the good kind (see Jackson, Michael -- and if you don't think there are people out there who are going to think to themselves this week, "Man, you have to pretty damn weird to push Michael fricking Jackson out of the headlines!" just wait until Palin starts sharing the covers of the tabloids with the Gloved One.) If Palin thought she could put her administration to bed in such a haphazard manner, it has only begun to backfire.

There are some bloggers -- none locally that I can tell (yet) -- that have taken it upon themselves to spin this weekend's events as if they were tactical masterstrokes of a calculated strategist. They are not. Just ask the pros -- they're just as perplexed as everyone else.

What strikes us about Owen's post is that it walks a fine line between holding out hope for better circumstances and admonishing a fellow Republican for what is clearly damaging behaviour (and doing so, we might add, without breaking Reagan's 11th Commandment). Palin's behaviour in the last few days hasn't been Presidential. It's not even professional -- and though we're not experts, it doesn't appear to even be "conservative."

Spinning any of the events of this weekend as being in someway favorable to Palin seems to us to be doing the Repubican Party (which wasn't enjoying a great month to begin with) and conservatism a great intellectual disservice. Now we have feeling this will almost certainly spark an internicine spat between "elites" and "populists," but that might just have to be a discussion the Right needs to have before it can get back down to it's fighting weight. In the meantime I think we can safely say that comparing Palin to Cincinnatus will only succeed in corrupting any hope conservatism has of being taken seriously, much less return it to power.

MORE: This kind of thing -- not helpful.

Is Sarah Palin the Tony Mandarich of the GOP?

Pretty much.

Since the election last November Palin has done little more than shoot herself in the foot. Repeatedly. Here's a partial list of self-inflicted wounds and unforced errors she's accumulated:

• Thanksgiving turkey slaughter video

• Snubbing the NRCC fundraiser

• Snubbing CPAC convention

• Levi Johnson feud

• David Lettermen feud

These are all PR fouls. Superficial? Perhaps, but each were signs of a poorly run operation. Most of these were collected in Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article from earlier this week, of which David Frum wrote:

The McCain campaign is over. The duty of confidentiality has expired. The next campaign has begun. If conservatives are to avoid catastrophe, they need to hear from those inside what exactly happened. If true, the leaks constitute an urgent warning and public service. I believe they are true. For sure they confirm what I have heard during the campaign and after. Instead of complaining about these leaks, conservatives should heed them - and fast.

And if you think that either Frum or myself are anarchist nutters, then take Jonah Goldberg's word for it.

Much more important was how she was doing her job back in Alaska and there are indications that her ability to govern had been significantly diminished. First, her choice to be Alaska Attorney General last winter was abhorrent and led to prolonged, unnecessary fight that she lost. Then came a bizarre fight over an appointment to an open state senate seat that she seemed incapable of handling. Making matters worse, her habit of burning bridges described by Purdum was, in fact, much much more pervasive.

There were quite a few conservatives who had doubts about her as early as last October immediately -- and the David Brooks, Peggy Noonans, and Kathleen Parkers of the world were ridiculed by the base then and are just as hotly persued to this day. Turns out they were right. Her announcement/speech this afternoon was astonishing: it was rambling and erratic. It was Palin Unplugged from her staffers (and speech writers, clearly) who tend to become scarce when their bosses are about to hang themselves and the result was not pretty.

The reasons she gave for her resignation were laughable. "I didn't want to waste Alaskans money by going on junkets." So stay in Juneau. "Too much attention is being paid to me by the national media." So use that to Alaska's advantage. She actually said, "trust me" this is best for Alaska. When a politician says "trust me" it's usually a signal that you shouldn't. The whole speech was just strange.

Which is why I think the Mandarich comparison is apt. As every somewhat conscious Parker fan remembers, Tony Mandarch was universally considered to be a can't-miss draft choice who was supposed to be a revolutionary offensive line man. Not only did he fail to live up to those expectations, but he was so spectacularly bad that he's widely considered to be the biggest bust in NFL draft history. In a lot of ways Sarah Palin's not much different. She has folksy charm, is easy on the eyes, and can read a speech (at least one written by Matthew Scully, author of one of the best magazine articles ever), and while those are tremendous assets to have if one wishes to connect with voters, eventually she was going to have to demonstrate some substance and that has been sorely missing since the moment she appeared in the national spotlight.

Palin's been on the national scene for less than year now and she's already done as a national candidate. I never really bought into the talk that Palin was a first tier candidate for 2012, but this news is still a spectacular flame out of unprecedented proportions. A huge part of her continued appeal was based on the premise that she might be running for President in 2012 (or 2016) and that she might win that contest, but as this decision starts to sink in people are going to realize that she can't realistically do either now. That makes her an infinitely less compelling person and pretty soon once ardent supports -- and their money --will stop caring, and, as James Joyner says:

Palin’s not an ordinary presidential aspirant in that she’s got essentially no experience. True, that didn’t seem to stop Barack Obama. But he’s sui generis and came out of the gates giving the impression he had at least thought deeply about the major national and international issues presidents would deal with. Fairly or not, Palin lost that presumption almost immediately upon her debut on the national stage. Without a governorship as a platform for demonstrating competence, I’m not sure how she rebrands herself.

A ton of Republicans had high hopes for her in the years to come. Those are now gone and all that's left is one of the most epic busts in party history.

MORE: Jesus, Rich Lowry and I are kinda of the some mind here. He also name-checks Matthew Scully:

I think I have pretty well-established credentials when it comes to being charmed by Sarah Palin, but that statement, as a statement, was simply terrible. Rambling and not at all persuasive as an argument for her decision. More Gibson/Couric than GOP convention speech. She shouldn't have said a thing without getting Matt Scully—or some similarly talented speechwriter—on the case first. As to how this decision plays out ultimately, we'll see. There's plenty of time if (as I assume) she wants to run in 2012, and she obviously has plenty of capital with Republicans. But not an auspicious start.

Start? No, this is the end.

Once is a Fluke, Twice is a Trend ...

I can see why folks were a wee bit pissed at the Gov. Palin-related backbiting, but I'm sure those same folks can kinda understand where it was coming from: political operatives trying to salvage their professional reputations by drawing the long knives, etc.

In other words, it's easy to dismiss all the criticism over her involvement in McCain's campaign as just the inevitable scapegoating -- but when you read something like this, you really have to start to wonder just how much ill-will Palin is generating among her colleagues:

Some Republican governors tell CNN they were not particularly happy with the way the Republican Governors Association press conference was executed Thursday, saying that they agreed to go as a show of GOP governors’ unity — but they ended up feeling like silent Palin supporters, since it was clearly a press conference called for her.

The GOP governors spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.

One called it awkward: “I’m sure you could see it on some of our faces.”

Another Republican governor eyeing a presidential run in 2012 told CNN the event was “odd” and “weird,” and said it “unfortunately sent a message that she was the de facto leader of the party."

There has been palpable tension among some GOP governors gathered in Miami that Palin has been sucking up all the media oxygen.

I'm sure some "working class Republicans" -- we're looking at you, Kathy Carpenter -- who see Palin as some sort of future leader of the GOP will find yet more excuses for her, but let's all please come to grips with what's going on here: these are not disgruntled staffers -- these are sitting Governors -- and while any number of them have motive to trash Palin in the press to advance their own national office interests, it's still pretty embarrassing that they have been given such an ample opportunity to do so so quickly after the election.

That being said, we'd like to take this opportunity to whole-heartedly endorse Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be the Republican nomination for the Presidency in the year 2012.

Get Ready for Several Weeks of Palin Revisionism

This is almost painful to read:

Said one pollster: "The McCain campaign took this person and completely botched her assets." What's more, the pollster said that in Palin, the McCain campaign had an expert on one of the key issues that was on the minds of Americans: energy prices. "They should have used her knowledge and focus on her expertise." And the pollster said on background that the campaign should have played up her reputation as a political maverick.

Instead, the campaign "took her and turned her into an attack dog and she wasn't good at it." And it hurt her national image, with one internal GOP poll putting her positive to negative image at 48 percent to 48 percent.

Is there any reason why Palin could not have been both?

Why of course there is!

The reason why Palin wasn't used in a Energy Policy Expert capacity is because she is not an energy expert.

If Palin would have come out of the gate and wowed the public with her command of the issues, the lack of experience issue would not have weighed so heavily against her. But she didn't. In fact, she didn't really come off as much of an expert on anything, so trotting her around the country to give a bunch of policy speeches was out of the question because she just didn't have the credibility (that's also partly a function of being such an unknown).

Palin wasn't chosen for the ticket because she was an expert on anything. She was picked to appeal to the base. She was picked to be an attack dog and far from being bad at it she was actually quite good. That's why she's viewed as such a polarizing figure in the wake of the election and that's why she has little appeal beyond the most conservative wing of the GOP which tends to value ideological purity over policy expertise and/or experience.

Palin's Shelf-life

Just some follow up on the Palin story from last night:

Palin's celebrity is largely based on her potential to one day be President. Her celebrity and earning power declines as this potential diminishes. Under these circumstances, Palin was at her most powerful (and potentially lucrative) the day John McCain introduced her as his running mate. Since then, however, her approval numbers have steadily declined. Given that her entire shtick is to stay true to core values and principles, it's highly unlikely that she will in any way evolve beyond her current pithy provocations and rote conservative talking points.

Basically, Sarah Palin as a consumer product has a shelf-life.

Our guess is that the upper end of her expiration date is between six and eight years. Why that long? Because her fans will forgive her for not getting into the 2012 race for the White House for any number of reasons -- bad electoral year, liberal media blah blah blah, family issues, etc. -- but when she doesn't show up to run in 2016, even her biggest supporters will notice her window has closed.

Every year between now and then her song and dance will get a little older, more predictable and will mean a little less. She may cater to a consumer that values brand loyalty above all else, but she can't play herself off as an anti-establishment figure from inside the establishment year after year before folks start to look for another "rogue."

Of course, if she does run in either 2012 or 2016 and loses, then it's game over.

Sarah Palin will never be President -- no matter how worried Andrew Sullivan might be of the possibility . The more people get to know her, the more they come to realize that. This means that she has a short amount of time to make as much money as possible as quickly as she can. That means as many $100,000 a pop speeches as she can schedule, as many TV opportunities as come her way, book deals, etc.

It's a good place to be in a lot of ways, and there's definitely a possibility that as the media environment continues to segregate into thinner niches that she'll find an audience that won't tire of her. But there's very little inclination she's willing to play by anyone's rules but her own and at some point in time her value as a commodity won't be worth the trouble in catering to the wishes of others. When that happens she'll finally recede into the background like so many other VP runners-up before her.

What's Alaskan for "P.U.M.A."?

James T Harris links approvingly to a statement that can only be accepted with a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief:

If Sarah Palin had intended to make media heads collectively explode, she couldn't have planned it better. She called a press conference on short notice, then announced that not only would she not seek a second term as Alaska's governor, but she intended to resign later this month. All that would remain for her to do is pop some Orville's, sit back and enjoy the show as the punditocracy begins wildly speculating about that which it does not know.

Far from causing heads to explode, Palin's resignation has caused the media to collectively salivate. They now have a story that will last for the entire month of July (and likely beyond), and if anyone thought the media was tough on her before they have not seen anything yet.

If Palin's departure on Friday was some kind of elaborate "I'm Ron Burgundy: go fuck yourself, San Diego!" moment then it was a monumentally stupid tactical maneuver. In one fell swoop she supplied her enemies and critics with an infinite source of ammunition while giving her allies in the conservative press reason to feel betrayed. All she has left now is a scattered fringe of devotees who will be of no use to her, whatever the Sarah Palin equivilant to Hillary Clinton's PUMAs turn out to be.

Right now Palin seems to have no further ambition save only to pick a fight with the national press corps. Forget all the speculation about 2012 or 2016 -- it's pretty clear that she doesn't have the slightest idea what she's doing in August ... and I mean this August. Right now the only thing she seems interested in doing is hunting down every reporter and/or blogger that ever said anything critical about her.

Good luck with that. As this weekend has clearly shown, Sarah Palin does not have the skill, training or support network to conduct a total scorched Earth campaign against the national media. Between her awful statement Friday and the sorry attempts at damage control that followed, she's devolving into an object lesson in how not to conduct public relations and she's given every indication that this will get much worse before it gets better.

[via memeorandum]

Walker and the Palin Endorsement

This will not end well for Walker:

Walker sought help in his run for governor Friday in a half-hour meeting with Palin after her invitation-only Wisconsin Right to Life event. Time's Web site first reported on the meeting Wednesday, and Walker spokeswoman Jill Bader confirmed it was accurate.

[...]

Palin told Walker she would be focused through the end of the year on her tour promoting her upcoming book, "Going Rogue," but would begin helping candidates in January. Walker asked Palin to appear with him at a Fox Valley event to help combat expected fund-raising help the Democratic candidate would get from President Barack Obama.

(emphasis added)

The Fox Valley is one of Wisconsin's swing regions. Bringing an extremist in to court independent voters will only backfire. It may rally the base, but those aren't the people Walker needs to get on board. (Of course, if this is just a fund-raising thing, that's another story all together)

Palin is tremendously unpopular. There's also every indication that she's going to be doubling down on her scorched earth campaign against Republican insiders during her book tour in the next few months [via M]. Since Virginia seems to be such a popular model to the governor's mansion among republicans these days, it should be noted that McDonnell kept Palin at arm's length until the election was already in the bag.

Whose Chance to win the White House did Sarah Palin Help the Most?

You're looking at her:
Ross Douthat had a much discussed column in yesterday's times wherein he said:

Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)

Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman.

Imagine that: there's inequality for women in the workplace. Who knew?

For as bad as what Palin has endured -- on a purely personal level -- in the last 10 months (and it has been bad), it does not hold a candle to what Hillary Clinton has had to endure for the last 17+ years. Clinton's been called an Ozark bumpkin, a Wellesley elitist and a carpetbagger. She's been slandered as a lesbian, had horrible things said about her child and been called a murderer. She's had her wardrobe critiqued endlessly. She's been accused of essentially forming castration squads around her. She was investigated for years by rich enemies. She's been the subject of hysterical conspiracy theories ranging from getting Black Panthers accused of torture off the hook in the '60s to running an elaborate drug trafficking scheme with the help of the CIA and Colombian cartels to (surprise!) Marxism. She's even had her religion called into question. To this day, everything she does is scrutinized unlike anyone else.

She's gotten hit from the right, she's gotten hit from the left. She's been responsible for her own stumbles too ... and Hillary was there at the very beginning of what is generally been considered the most divisive period in recent American political memory.

But she never quit.

Even when she should have, Clinton didn't stop fighting. Last spring her run for President was essentially over after the Wisconsin primary. But she kept on going. Part of this was in the odd chance that she might catch a break (and she almost did -- the Rev. Wright highlight reel didn't start making it's round the clock debut until weeks later). But even that didn't justify running her campaign into debt to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. I didn't appreciate it at the time -- in fact, like many other people, I just wanted her to throw in the towel -- but the last week has demonstrated just how important it is to finish the race ... even when you know you're licked. Chances are a lot of people will re-evaluate Hillary in the future too.

If last weekend's events helped anyone's run for the Presidency, it was Hillary Clinton. In the future Sarah Palin will always be measured along side Hillary Clinton, if for no other reason than they were "the two women in the great race for the White House of 2008." But they were also the "First Women" of their respective parties, the first women to hold the kind of influence and power among their peers as any of the good old boys, and historians now have parallel lives through which to examine each other.

There's Only One Story This Week

Man, weren't those the days:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin for VP
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

It's kind of hard to believe now, but for the first four days of her time in the national spotlight Sarah Palin's primary task was to appeal to disenchanted female Hillary Clinton supporters, the Debbie Bartosheviches of the world. And at first it appeared to work. Then when news of her daughter's pregnancy came out and she became a culture war lightning rod, her roll as GOP envoy to soccer moms everywhere promptly ended and she became the McCain campaign's main instrument to rally its base. In other words, she was put on the ticket to be a uniter, but in short order became a divider.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Palin would have continued her outreach to women instead of being absorbed by the cultural conservative wing of the GOP. It might have mitigated the hit the McCain ticket took once the economy started to slump. Then again, maybe not. One thing is for sure: Palin made the transition from olive branch to pit bull seamlessly and almost overnight: here's her introduction in Dayton, Ohio and here's her famous speech in Minneapolis all of a week later, and her relationship to the women she was supposed to help attract has never been the same.

Until this weekend, we haven't mentioned since before the inauguration, but this week is probably going to be all Palin, all the time ... you know, just to make up for lost time.

Jonathan Martin on Palin's Speech in Milwaukee: Meh

Not exactly a glowing review of the Palin out-of-town opening in West Allis:

Palin had remarks prepared but frequently wandered off-script to make a point, offering audience members a casual “awesome” or “bogus” in discussing otherwise weighty topics.

As in: “It is so bogus that society is sending a message right now and has been for probably the last 40 years that a woman isn’t strong enough or smart enough to be able to pursue an education, a career and her rights and still let her baby live.”

Other Palin touchstones included: praise for the military, jeers for the “the liberal media” and a general manner of speaking that often veered into rhetorical culs-de-sac.

While she drew applause during her remarks, Palin’s extemporaneous and frequently discursive style was such that she never truly roused a true-believing crowd as passionate about the issue at hand as she. Not once during her address did they rise to their feet.

In a closing exhortation, she urged the audience, “Don't ever let anyone to tell you to sit down and shut up.”

She then got a standing ovation from most of the crowd, but a few had begun to leave before she even finished and within seconds of her concluding, scores more got up and put on their jackets as they walked away.

(emphases added)

Did Palin's Tea Party Speech Make Money?

Almost certainly.

Reportedly, 600 people paid $549 to attend the conference, while another 500 paid $349 just to attend the lobster and steak banquet at which Palin spoke. Let's do the math:

600 x 549 = $329,400
+
500 x 349 = $174,500
_______
$503,900

Palin's speech reportedly cost in the neighborhood of $100,000, not including a cost associated with her rider (private jet for travel, hotel accommodations, etc.) that could cost anything from $10,000 to $50,000. Let's stay on the high end of things just to look at the worse case scenario.

Then there's the additional costs of putting on the conference. Let's say that cost is in the neighborhood of $200,000. Maybe this is on the low end of things. That would mean the two-day event runs just over $180 a head for all 1100 participants. That's far more than the cost per guest at a formal wedding -- and dollars to donuts there wasn't an open bar at the Tea Party.

That leaves roughly $150,000 in profit.

Then there's the revenue brought in from sponsorships. A month ago Politico reported:

And a tea party source familiar with the convention’s fundraising and planning efforts questioned whether it was wise to prominently feature Palin at an event purporting to be driven by grass-roots activists.

Plus, the source said the convention’s sponsorship requests exceeded the norm for such an event, adding, “I understand completely asking sponsors to chip in, but 50 grand is just way beyond.”

The Tea Party had multiple sponsorship levels: 4 sponsors at the Silver level, 3 at the Bronze, 3 "co-sponsors" and 5 "participants." Presumably no one bought into the "Gold" level or those were the sponsors that bailed. I can't imagine that any of those sponsors forked over $50,000 for their levels of sponsorship, but they sure as hell didn't do it for free.

Either way, the Tea Party Conference likely made a healthy profit from the festivities. How much gets pumped back into "the movement" remains to be seen.

Obviously, the economy isn't hurting the hosts of the event, who seem to have made out like bandits. Nor is it hurting the participants, who can pay a good buck to travel and attend an expensive gathering that was simulcast on C-SPAN ... so maybe these Tea Party folks shouldn't be so upset about one entity taking their money when they are so willing to give it away to another?

Palin's Dad Goes Rogue

Yeah, something tells me we haven't heard the last of this:

Palin, though notoriously ill-travelled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. "Hawaii was a little too perfect," Palin writes. "Perpetual sunshine isn't necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls." Perhaps not. But Palin's father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to Conroy and Walshe. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: "They were a minority type thing and it wasn't glamorous, so she came home."

(emphasis added)

Just ... Whatever

Huh?

Of course, she had just exposed as fraudulent the pretended omniscience of the commentariat. None of them had predicted Palin's resignation, and yet their latest oracular pronouncements -- Ed Rollins told CNN she looked "terribly inept" -- were treated as authoritative.

The punditocracy can't predict Palin because she shares neither their perspective nor their assumptions. Her ascent to political stardom has been treated as a fluke by most of the GOP establishment for the simple reason that she doesn't slavishly follow the standard script of Republican politicians.

Of course, in recent years this script usually has ended with "…and then the Democrats won," suggesting the need for a re-write. The next version of the story may yet have a surprise ending -- at least, surprising to the pundits whom Sarah Palin has surprised so often before.

We're pretty sure that even if no one accurately predicts whatever happens to Palin, few people will be surprised.

Palin Pushes Death Panels in Milwaukee

Sarah Palin's visit to Milwaukee last night leaves a ton to talk about, but we wanted to focus some special attention on one aspect of the speech before we get into some of the minutia.

Probably the most complete account of the speech will be found at Kathy Carpenter's blog. It's fawning and sycophantic, but to her credit, Carpenter seems to report on a lot of the actual content of the speech. Here's one troubling graph from Carpenter's write-up:

The governor even spoke about “panels” of bureaucrats making health care decisions for the elderly. The governor also promised that health care rationing is coming if this health care bill is passed in its current form. You could see the light dancing in her eyes as she spoke of the “panels of bureaucrats.” That was fun to watch.

You'll notice the modifier "death" has been conveniently omitted from the noun "panels," but there's little getting around the implication: Palin is still getting mileage off of her grossly untrue "death panels" comment made this last summer. In fact, the "light dancing in her eyes," according to Carpenter, may have been just as good as one of the vintage Palin winks.

MORE: Mudflats has an interesting (albeit incomplete) transcription and Heartland Hollar may have pulled off the most significant Wisconsin blogger coup of the year by "acquiring" a bootleg video recording of the tape.

Pity Party -- Palin Style

David Frum on Sarah Palin's train wreck of an interview with the odious John Ziegler:

Again and again, Ziegler invited Palin to engage in self-pity and self-excuse - and again and again she accepted.

She tells us she was a victim of sexism. She tells us she was a victim of class prejudice. She complains about her media treatment - then insists she never watched any of it. She deplores the unpleasant personal comments directed against herself, while offering up some equally unpleasant personal comments of her own. She repeatedly shades the truth in order to escape blame for her own mistakes. (She won't for example let go of our claim that there was some insult to Alaska embedded in Katie Couric's simple question: "What do you read?")

A smart politician rebuffs all invitations to speak about his or her own hurt feelings. It's not just that such talk sounds whiny and weak, although it does. Much more seriously, such talk betrays a self-involvement that alienates voters almost more than any other personal quality. Through the 2008 election, Barack Obama repeatedly said "It's not about me. It's about you." Exactly so! But Palin's replies to Ziegler make clear that for her, the election was about her. The next election will be even more so, because she has collected so many more grievances along the way.

[via John Cole]

Birthers

Palin's one!

MORE: Best post from the Memeo thread:

Transcript via Allahpundit, who asks: "I wonder if she realized when she said this that it’s going to follow her around." Well if not, she is hardly qualified to manage a fantasy baseball team, much less the government of the United States.

MORE STILL: Dave Weigel:

Another angle here is what it reveals about Palin’s character. She has spoken and written angrily for more than a year about the people she calls “Trig Truthers,” anyone who questions whether Trig Palin is her son. The lesson she’s taken from the experience is not that conspiracy theories are out of bounds. It’s that if they are going to be conspiracy theories about her, there might as well be conspiracy theories about her political enemies.

EVEN MORE: Rod Dreher:

What she seems to be saying is, "They did it to me first, so it's fair game." Given the disgusting way she was treated by the Trig Truther trolls, Palin of all people ought to understand how immoral and insane these birther-truther conspiracies are. Yet she went right to it without a moment's hesitation in that interview.

Live from Fairfaxbanks

Aside from undoubtedly causing Rene Descartes to roll over in his grave, Sarah Palin's resignation speech accomplished little, if anything that will help her in the long run.

She had three weeks to write the damn thing and it sounded no better than what was obviously a hastily arranged resignation announcement speech earlier this month. It rambled and was frequently incoherent. No major, lingering questions (like "What's next?") were resolved while trivial grievances were granted more attention than they warranted. Logic was eschewed in favor of emotionally charged buzz words. And so forth...

It was clearly her own and it wasn't good. If this is her stump speech for the next few years then she would do best to book as many engagements as possible and get the money upfront because this act will get old very quickly. Sooner rather than later her influence will begin to wane and shortly after that she'll be reduced to playing smaller venues with Joe the Plumber on Reunion tours.

Palin doesn't need to worry about being attacked from Democrats or Hollywood or "the Media" -- they will take their shots only in so far as it helps them raise money or earn ratings. There's nothing that any of these folks can say that should throw her off her game. What Palin really needs to worry about is the opposition to her within the GOP. Yesterday Sen. Jim Bunning threw in the towel after Republicans blackballed him with his donors. Plain should worry about suffering from that same fate after the party squeezes every last fund-raising dollar out of her.

On the other hand, and to her infinite credit, many of the cable outlets covering the speech did subtly seem to lend credence to her claim that they were out of touch by refering to Fairbanks, Alaska as Fairfax -- the tony northern Virgina county across the Patomoc from DC -- over and over again. But in the grand scheme of thing those are pretty small beans.

Good. Sweet. Christ.

This is a perfect example of why Sarah Palin can not be allowed to start talking policy:

"I disagree with the Obama administration on that," Palin told Walters. "I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."

This is the foreign policy equivalent to Ms. South Carolina.