The Cuda Gives Me Another Heart Attack

Seriously, Sarah. Couldn't you telegraph your punches a little bit so I don't have to freak out all the time? Just kidding.

First off, some Sarah pics to calm my nerves:


Find more photos like this on Team Sarah


Okay, into the fray I go.

First I want to address a rumor on Palingates that the Palins have some tabloid stuff coming out (like in People or something). They say it's for Bristol and Tripp, I don't know. They're using it as moral equivalency ammunition for Levi's publicity.

All I can say is, "Hey, Levi wanted it public, he's gonna get it public." (grin)

Now, on to this newest curveball - Sarah is going to be a contributor on Fox News.

My first reaction - "Please, oh, please, oh, please don't become just another talking head."

I must always work through these things. Let's see, Pro's:

1. Exposure.

2. Opportunity to get familiar with national media like she did with Alaska media.

3. It's Reaganesque.

4. She will be seen by those who do not access the new media and have an opportunity to familiarize herself with those who cannot bring themselves to think unconventionally.

5. As she becomes a more familiar face, a lot of the junk about irrelevant things like Bristol and Levi might fade away.

6. This could be a great step for the 2010 races.

7. She will be surrounded by national topics and issues and will be able to flesh out her positions on those issues.


Okay, now for the Cons:

1. Danger of becoming just another talking head.

2. Possibility of losing the advantage of being different. Unlikely, but possible.

3. Might lose a watt of radioactivity. A temporary setback that could turn into a major asset down the road.


Musts:

1. She must, and most likely will, maintain her star power. This means avoiding overexposure by remaining only a contributor and not a journalist or a show host.

2. Must not drown in the white noise of the media.

3. Must continue to be bold and not turn sappy like Huck. Must be a Reagan with the media - not a Huckabee.

4. Must not relinquish role as LEADER. This is her most important role. She must continue to lead.

I'm sure by the end of the day (or the week) I will wonder why I ever had second thoughts.

Sarah has spent the last year shoring up her base. She has reintroduced herself and told her story with her book - now it's time to show the nation and the world that she's not a psycho looney bent on killing wolves for the fun of it. It's time to capture the Lower 48 the way she captured Alaska. Time to spread outward, and just in time for the 2010 elections.

I guess I always knew that Sarah would have to move into the mainstream eventually. I just didn't know it would be so soon. She always was mainstream until the 2008 election made an ultra-conservative wingnut out of her. Time to take step two in repairing her image and proving herself. Not to mention the connections she can make over there.

Reagan took this path. Hopefully Sarah follows his lead.

Question: Does this mean she's gearing up for 2012, or has she decided to wait until 2016? It's a multi-year deal, but that could mean a two-year deal, and who knows the stipulations involved.

Most likely she's keeping all doors open at this point. This will also enable her to take the "box office poison" out of her Katharine Hepburn. Maybe.

Maybe I'm feeling what Alaskans must have felt when they found out that their favorite Governor was going to run for Vice President. Excited, but sad to lose her.

For the last year and a half, she has belonged to us exclusively. Facebook, Twitter, and the new media have been her primary outlets. Now she moves to capture the rest of America. She has secured her base - now she charges a new field.

It's like watching a kid go off to college. You knew that it was inevitable, and you even know that it's a good thing. But you will miss the previous chapter. Oh, well. One chapter closes, another begins. And each chapter gets better than the last one:)

VidSweet - iDon't (Health Care Spoof)

Vid Sweet made this spoof of iDroid about Obama DeathCare:

Sarah's Side of the Story

In light of the recent "revelations" by Schmidt and others, I thought I'd let Sarah tell her side of things. From Going Rogue, starting on page 279:
-----------

Mark sequestered a small debate prep team in a hotel room with the curtains drawn, blotting out the sunlight. My experience had taught me that you can work well with a diverse team, even people you don't know, if you make the atmosphere upbeat and positive. Whoever was leading this team, though, turned it into a high-pressure penalty box.

I understood the stakes. I knew that the McCain ticket was on the ropes and that top campaign staffers were unnerved. I got that. But I had a different perspective than some of the principals on the team as to how we should deal with this reality.

We were all wired pretty much the same way - intense and focused - but when things weren't going well, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a darkened room and hear strange people yelling at one another.....

During debate prep, I had been given stacks of five-by-eight index cards....It was funny because on one side of each card, there was a question and on the other side there were a whole bunch of what most people would consider nonanswers:

FRONT OF CARD: What will it take to win the war in Afghanistan?

BACK OF CARD: The world is better off for the fact that the Taliban no longer rules Afghanistan.
I said to the prep people, "Okay, but what they're asking is, what will it take to win the war?"

"Right," somebody said. "But you don't have to answer the question....."

The bottom line is these were political answers - and I couldn't force myself to play it safe and sound like a politician. On top of that, there were probably ten cards for every single topic with a different set of nonanswers on every one. So in the end I'm thinking - Okay, which nonanswer do you want me to give?

Or here's an idea - I could give a real answer....

I kept a stack of the cards as a souvenir. I wish I had kept them all because I scribbled a lot of notes in the margins, probably some not fit for public consumption....

I liked my simpler style because it meant I never had to spin, I never had to B.S., and, good or bad, I never had to struggle to remember what I had said the last time....

What I should've said was, "Look, I get it. Our numbers aren't good, this debate is a big deal, but this stuffy, dark hotel room with a bunch of crabby guys isn't working. So get some fresh air and let's come back and tackle this with clear minds...."

All I needed to hear was what John's position was on any particular issue. Then I could either formulate a response that would support it wholeheartedly or carefully articulate my own slightly different perspective....

[After Steve Schmidt suggests that flying in a nutritionist for Sarah will solve everything, Sarah sits there and thinks to herself] -

I'm a forty-four-year-old, healthy, athletic woman raising five kids and governing a large state. Sir, I really don't know you yet. But you've told me how to dress, what to say, who to talk to, a lot of people not to talk to, who my heroes are supposed to be, and we're still losing. Now you're going to tell me what to eat?....

[After the transfer of debate prep to McCain's ranch] -

During rehearsals, I accidentally called Randy "Senator O'Biden" - a slip-of-the-lip combination of Obama and Biden. The blunder struck too often, even tripping up campaign staffers. (Jay Leno later made the same slip on his new talk show, so we were in good company.) We laughed about it but knew that if I said it even once during the debates, it would be disastrous.

Then somebody said, "You ought to just call him Joe."

"Oh, I can't just call him Joe!" I said. Senator Biden was a senior statesman. He'd been sitting in the U.S. Senate since I was nine years old. I believed calling him by his first name without his permission would be disrespectful.

Randy seemed to read my thoughts and offered a solution. "In every debate, you cross the stage and shake hands with your opponent," he said. "When you shake hands, just as him for permission to call him Joe. He's certainly going to say yes, because he's a gentleman."

So that's what we decided to do. We had no idea my mic would already be hot when I walked onstage, crossed over to his turf, and said, "Can I call you Joe?"

The "expert" postdebate analysis was that my question was a cleverly devised strategy to disarm my opponent. Yeah, right....

Now, my friends and family sure knew the truth....And those campaign folks, especially those who had vetted and chosen me, also knew the truth. But as the story grew legs, they didn't lift a finger to correct the record. I couldn't understand why until I realized that by the end of the campaign, the wardrobe fairy tale had become convenient. By then, with Obama soaring and our own ticket in free fall, one or two of the campaign's big dogs were already packing their parachutes....

[Randy confronted Schmidt at the end of the campaign] -

Randy finished reading the story. "I don't believe this!" he yelled. "Those guys have gone too far this time!"

It may not be unusual for major-ticket advisors to struggle internally over who calls the shots, or to offer only tepid public support to one half of the ticket or the other, Randy later told me. But it is unheard of for campaign staffers to brazenly throw a candidate under the bus with sleazy anonymous comments.

Randy stormed toward Schmidt's office and confronted his secretary. "Where is he? I want his cell number right now....."

Randy slammed the door and told Steve what he really thought. "It is unbelievable that advisers - senior advisers - are calling the press and telling them the vice presidential candidate is a diva! This is unprecedented! It's unacceptable!...."

Randy laid out a very simple case: "Picking a running mate was John's most important decision, and being loyal to John means being loyal to his pick. That makes what's going on absolutely atrocious!"

Schmidt started in again, telling Randy what an awful pick I was - the "postpartum" problems, the wardrobe "scandal," "legal exposure" for Todd on Troopergate, whatever he meant by that. Somehow the Palins were responsible for all of the campaign's problems.

"That is absolutely outrageous!" Randy said. He started to walk out of the office, but Schmidt issued a threat that was veiled enough for deniability but clear as day if you were on the receiving end: if there were any more leaks critical of anybody in the handling of Sarah Palin, then a lot more negative stuff would be said about Sarah Palin....

At the time, I was just focused on finishing strong. I want to believe the tension between Schmidt and the B Team was a result of less-than-ideal circumstances in the pressure cooker of a national campaign, and that it wasn't personal. But as I realized back in my Wasilla mayor days, life is too short to hold a grudge. If I ever see Schmidt again, maybe I'll bring him a white Peace Lily.

Palin was "Mentally Limited"

Okay, I'm going to try to be fair about this whole 60 Minutes thing. First off, it is absolutely hilarious that 60 Minutes does a huge interview with numerous staffers about an irrelevant private citizen.

Secondly, I don't think that they were necessarily sitting down just to trash Palin. Did they try to make her the scapegoat after the campaign? Oh, yeah. Listen to this interview Palin gave to the Bob and Mark Show right after the election. You can hear the transformation in her voice as she begins to realize that she's the one who's going to be thrown under the bus. "It's flippin' bizarre...." Listen to all three parts. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head which part it's in.

I say this in defense of the McCain aides - they had no idea what they were getting into. The vetters knew Palin's record, etc.... but the aides weren't in on all of that. Well, Schmidt was in on some of it.

The communication in the campaign was horrible. And Palin is not a typical politician. She probably did blindside the junk out of them and scare them to death in some cases. They didn't know her. They didn't know how to deal with her. Not to mention the campaign was full of people who had vendettas and a pessimism to beat the band.

Oh, well. Their loss:)

You know what cracks me up? Schmidt complaining about how the staffers had to mop up Palin's "messes" like her statements on the Troopergate thing.

How long has this guy been working on campaigns? Hello! This is what staffers do. Candidates say stuff and staffers scramble.

I wonder how many staffers scrambled when Joe Biden talked about how he likes to go to a restaurant that's been closed for years and years.

I wonder how many staffers scrambled when Michelle Obama said that this was the first time in her adult life that she was proud of her country.

I wonder how many staffers scrambled when Barack Obama said there were 57 states (actually 58 - he had one more to go).

Schmitty - do us all a favor and grow up.

Leaving Schmidt aside, check this douchebag out:



Well, looks like that "mentally limited" VP candidate is going to outsmart all of you.

Maybe this was part of her devious plan all along. "I'll get on as VP and then I'll blow it! Hahahahahaha! And then I'll come back and beat the tar out of all of their sorry butts! Hahahahahaha! I'll blow the Couric interview to make them think I'm stupid; that way they will constantly underestimate me and never guess how smart I am! Hahahahahahaha!"

SP Vid Sunday

Now that I've been linked to by C4P (at least for a day) I feel like I have to be good or something.

Nah:)

Here's Palin at the One Lord Sunday service soon after Trig was born in 2008:

Sarah Palin at One Lord Sunday from Elizabeth Gilroy on Vimeo.