Todd Palin endorses Gingrich. And we should care because...?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The race for the Republican nomination for president has been nothing if not embarrassing to the GOP, not to mention to the rather less-than-stellar candidates themselves.

And today witnessed yet another low.

On the totem pole of endorsers, after all, Todd Palin makes even non-witch anti-masturbator Christine O'Donnell look respectable. (Check that. Todd's above COD. At least an endorsement from him can be interpreted as a signal of Sarah's thinking. An endorsement from COD means a crazy person likes you. But there's still little reason to care.)

Newt must be ecstatic.

**********

Perhaps to his credit, Todd didn't criticize any of the other candidates. So why did he pick Newt?

Palin said he has not spoken to Gingrich or anyone from the former House speaker's campaign. But he said he respects Gingrich for what he went through in the 1990s and compared that scrutiny in public life to what Sarah Palin went through during her run for the vice presidency.

*****


But Todd Palin did point to last summer, when a large portion of Gingrich's staff resigned and the candidate was left, largely by himself, to run the campaign.

Gingrich's ability to overcome the obstacle and still move up in the polls showed his ability to campaign and survive, according to Todd Palin, who said Gingrich is not one of the typical "beltway types" and that his campaign has "burst out of the political arena and touched many Americans."

In other words, because Newt is like Sarah. 

Yes, even when endorsing others, the Palins are self-aggrandizing egomaniacs.

Palin hints at (very late) 2012 run

By Michael J.W. Stickings (@mjwstickings)

Via twitter:

"AP: Palin to Fox Business: not too late for 'folks' to jump in to 2012 race. Said Palin: 'Who knows what will happen in the future?'"

-- Mike Allen (@mikeallen)

Well, Palin is "folks," isn't she?

Look, she's not running. If anyone gets in late, it's Chris Christie -- but only if Romney falters. (Jeb Bush is an option, but there's no way the GOP is picking a Bush in '12.) There just isn't a big-name conservative out there, other than Palin, who has the clout to enter the race at this late date and stand a reasonable chance of pulling it out. And even then, Palin's not terribly popular even with her own party these days. What's more likely is that the primaries divide the Republican Party, with no clear winner emerging, and then a compromise nominee is selected at a brokered convention next summer.

As for Palin, she's just being coy, as usual, tantalizing her gullible admirers and getting herself back out there in the spotlight for the sake of her brand, which of course makes her millions. Like Trump, she craves the attention -- they may be the two biggest media whores in America outside of Jersey Shore.

It's pathetic, but typical. It's best not to listen to a word she says.

**********

Update: Just to be clear, Palin wasn't just talking generally about a late entry into the GOP race, she was talking about herself, responding to a direct question about her possibly "making a play, even after Iowa or New Hampshire."

The GOP mob is fickle, but division is the 2012 curse

By Nicholas Wilbur

Republicans go through presidential contenders like Newt Gingrich goes through wives.

Faster, in fact.

The GOP had two years to find, mold, and polish a top-notch Republican challenger who could mount a strong and maybe even successful offensive against President Obama in 2012. They found ten candidates, but, alas, not one of them fits the bill.

Conservative columnist Cal Thomas, not usually the caliber of pundit worthy of being quoted, said Republicans are in danger of catching the same "virus" Democrats caught in 2008: they're looking for a savior rather than a realistic leader.

Like most subjects Thomas takes on, Republicans' dissatisfaction with the current pool of candidates is more complex than their unrealistic expectations, or their "messiah complex," as he puts it.

Thomas has a point, but he misses the underlying problem and the recent historical context that's necessary for making such a comparison between Democrats in 2008 with the current field of Republican presidential hopefuls. While Democrats were united in 2008 against the eight-year reign of George W. Bush, the partisanship in Washington, and the do-nothing attitude of Republicans in Congress, today's GOP candidates, in contrast, are competing for support from a "Republican base" that is split between the ideological conservatives of the Tea Party, who play a large part in determining the outcomes of primary elections, and the moderate or right-leaning independents, who determine the outcome of general elections.

The problem is electability, and electability cannot be defined when part of the base is so staunchly anti-government that the only candidate worth supporting is the one who believes, as they do, that negotiating with Democrats is treasonous – even when "negotiation" means keeping the government from shutting down or preventing the U.S. from defaulting on its loans.

That is the reality of the political divide within the Republican Party today, and that is why no one candidate has what it takes to beat Obama.

It's a Catch-22 between sane Republicans and Tea Party astroturfers. If the candidate isn't conservative enough, he won't win the Tea Party endorsement needed to perform well in enough primary contests to secure the nomination. If he's too conservative, he will lose support among the more moderate Republicans and perform poorly in the general election. But if he performs well among moderate Republicans in the primary but loses the support of the Tea Party in the process, he will lose the most vocal, most active, and most media-hyped demographic within the GOP.

Given President Obama's edge as an incumbent and a powerful campaigner, Republicans may need a messiah to have any chance of defeating him. But that isn't the cause of Republicans' dissatisfaction. They aren't so ardently searching for someone – anyone! – to step in and be the savior of the party. They don't even know what that savior should stand for, because, thus far, it seems impossible to earn the endorsement of the Tea Party and have a chance at defeating Obama.

We've seen it happen already with every "frontrunner" who's entered the race and every "potential" candidate who hasn't.

Michele Bachmann was the first "chosen one" to announce her candidacy. For the most boisterous band of conservatives, she was "it" – the founder of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, a patriotic Constitutionalist, an icon of the Christian pro-life/anti-gay value system, a sexy, Sarah Palin-esque rogue of "Don't Tread on Me" right-wing populism, and a true-blood anti-government conservative who capitalized "Founding Fathers" not only in writing but even while orating.

And then suddenly she wasn't.

When the media's "profile season" launched – when Newsweek put her life-sized, wrinkled, very unsexy face on its cover; when the rumor mill started churning out (purely speculative?) hit pieces on her (gay?) husband; when mainstream pundits began analyzing this alleged Constitutionalist's alleged "knowledge" of American history (about how our Founders "worked tirelessly" to end slavery, about John Quincy Adams being one of those "Founding Fathers," about "the shot heard 'round the world" in... Manchester?) – her presidential prospects crashed. The question that came to haunt Bachmann, and her White House ambitions, was best summed up by the question asked in the syndicated TV show, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

The resounding answer, among both Tea Partiers and establishment Republicans, was an emphatic No.

Then there was Rick Perry, the three-term governor of Texas, the anti-Ivy-League, state-university-educated athlete (cheerleader); the "Texecutioner" who's overseen 235 executions as governor (impressive, but less per year than his predecessor, George W. Bush); the self-admitted "kind of guy" who packs a "Ruger .380 with laser sights loaded with hollow point bullets" and creates "mulch" out of "wily creatures" by blowing coyote brain fragments all over the Austin outskirts when he's out jogging (also athletic).  

As soon as Perry announced his candidacy, the "Bush-on-steroids" three-term Texas governor rose to the top of the polls, making Bachmann look like a bleeding heart lib-rull in contrast.

from MarioPiperni.com

But then suddenly his macho man persona met reality – in the form of live television. The media critics judged his first three debate performances as "dismal," "toxic," "inarticulate," and "amateurish," and the hype surrounding Perry faded quickly. After going from zero to 32 percent, leading the pack by as much as 12 points soon after his campaign announcement, Perry's approval rating was halved, his temporary frontrunner status lost, in less than three weeks.

Of course, Mitt Romney's been there all along. For whatever (probably purely personal) reason, he's still in the race. And he's still a Mormon. The "objective" mass media won't make an issue of his religious faith because that wouldn't be fair, but they can't help talking about how the other Republican candidates, the incumbent, and the press itself won't touch "the Mormon issue" with a 10-foot pole for fear of being castigated (by the media – ironic?) for pulling the religion card. Romney's faith is a sensitive subject, and Mormon-bashing isn't much different than attacking a candidate's family, but everyone knows it's a valid subject if only because Republicans don't have a history of religious diversity in their presidential nominee selections.

The elections of the first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, and the first black president, Barack Obama, were historic. But both these men were Democrats, nominated by the Democratic Party and elected by Democratic voters. Republicans have no precedent to speak of when it comes to party diversity.

Instead of going straight at Romney, the media have highlighted "the Mormon issue" by talking about how it's not an issue. This sort of "reporting" is considered safe, a politically-correct Green Zone for reporters covering the campaigns, because they aren't advocating that anyone actually make an issue of "the Mormon issue." But by talking about "the Mormon issue" they're nonetheless making an issue of "the Mormon issue."

Though it's possible for Romney to win the nomination in spite of his religion, it won't be for lack of want or lack of hesitancy over his still very controversial personal faith. And until conservative Christians make a public spectacle of Romney's Mormonism – which they will, soon, as already 20 percent of conservatives say a Mormon candidate won't get their vote – it's not as if the mainstream media's assault weapons cache is empty.

[Texas Gov. Rick] Perry's campaign is targeting Romney's already well-known and highly publicized record of flip-flopping – on abortion, gay marriage, health care reform, the assault weapons ban, auto industry bailouts, stem cell research, campaign finance reform and spending limits, immigration reform, "Don't Ask Don't Tell," the provisions of the American Jobs Act... – from "Is Romney's Campaign Seeking a Texas-style Death Penalty?"

Romney has never been the favorite, and he won't be even if he wins the nomination.

What's interesting, though, is that every candidate who was seriously considered as a potential victor in the 2012 showdown has decided not to enter the race. (For clarification purposes, I'm definitely not referring to Sarah Palin, who's repetitious delays in announcing a potential presidential bid, I believe, were meant purely for publicity purposes. See "The Tragicomedy of Sarah Palin.") 

There was Mitch Daniels, who proclaimed he could beat Obama both before and after he announced he wouldn't enter the race. There was Mike Pence, who was considered one who could flatter Tea Partiers and secure the support of establishment Republicans. 

For a spell, Donald Trump basked in the limelight of a potential presidential bid, but his insistence on Obama's falsified birth certificate blew whatever support he may have had from sane Republicans right out the window. 

William Perlman / The Star-Ledger

Most recently, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was the source of inspiration for those left so desperately wanting in this GOP presidential race.

He is a "national hero to the Tea Party" and would have been an "automatic frontrunner" had he entered the race.

Mark McKinnon said "Christie creates an instant media tsunami and could surf his way through the first primaries on the late-breaking strength of the wave," and Politico's Alexander Burns added that "if Christie stays out of the race and Barack Obama wins another term, he risks looking like a guy who let down his party in its moment of need."

Both Nancy Reagan and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger encouraged Christie to run, with Kissinger, who has worked with seven presidents, arguing that what matters is character and judgment, and that "Christie has both."

Unfortunately, what Christie doesn't have is the motivation to lose. Similar to Daniels and Pence, Christie saw the writing on the wall – which was also scribbled in a third-grader's handwriting on a protest sign at a Tea Party rally.

It read: "We hate you unless we love you, and if we love you, our endorsement will make you look like a radical in the general election and you'll lose."

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Sarah Palin, tantalizing no more, says she's not running for president in 2012

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ah, but she was tantalizing us for so long. It's almost like she couldn't stop, and, well, maybe she couldn't, not until this late hour, time running out. So desperate for the spotlight, and for the big money that comes from being a celebrity political and media icon, she had to keep telling us that maybe, just maybe, she'd get in. A lackluster Republican presidential field emerged, but she kept lurking, Romney & Co. trying to escape her shadow, an overwhelming presence that continued to dominate her party even when she was in the background.

So why isn't she running? Her letter to her supporters announcing her decision is, as you might expect, a wonder of self-aggrandizing, propagandistic bullshit. She claims that she wants to continue to be a player in the GOP: "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." Well, fine. But that surely isn't the whole story. There are any number of other reasons behind her decision, no doubt, but it should have been clear even to her that she stood no chance of winning -- likely not the nomination and certainly not the general election. She's not even all that popular in her own party.

But while she will continue to be a major factor in the GOP, supporting various right-wing candidates and playing kingmaker when possible, she isn't about running for political office, let alone serving the people, she's about maximizing the "Sarah Palin" brand and profiting wildly off her fame. Seriously, she couldn't even finish a single term as Alaska governor. Do you really think she wanted to be president? Maybe her massive ego did, and maybe it still does, but apparently self-interest got the better of grandiose delusion.

For more, see:

-- "What should we make of Sarah Palin's poor poll numbers?" (September 7, 2011)

-- "Rove thinks Palin will run (maybe)" (August 20, 2011)

-- "Box office bomb: Sarah Palin and the failure of The Undefeated" (July 21, 2011)

-- "The return of Sarah Palin" (July 11, 2011)

-- "Sarah Palin cancels bus tour, America exhales" (June 22, 2011)

-- "Is Sarah Palin duping her supporters into funding her bus tour?" (June 2, 2011) 

-- "Palin on the bus, back in the spotlight, desperate for attention" (May 27, 2011)

-- "So is Sarah Palin running, or what?" (May 26, 2011)

-- "The tragicomedy of Sarah Palin" (May 23, 2011)

-- "Americans don't like Sarah Palin" (March 11, 2011)

Anyway, whatever. It's over.

Not that she's going anywhere, mind you. The spotlight has a way of finding her. Whether we like it or not.

No Christie in 2012

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an authoritarian anti-union bully but also one of the saner figures in today's Republican Party (and one who stands against right-wing Republican orthodoxy on a number of issues), announced yesterday that he isn't running for president in 2012.

He's not running, and he says he means it this time.

Proclaiming "Now is not the time," Gov. Chris Christie announced at a jammed Statehouse news conference today that he would not seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

"New Jersey, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me," Christie, 49, teased at the hour-long press conference.

A Quinnipiac poll also released today showed Christie tied with Romney for the lead, though at a meager 17 percent, five ahead of Cain and ten ahead of Perry:

"This survey shows Gov. Christie is walking away from the possibility -- at least today --to be elected president of the United States. Whether he would have won the GOP nominationor the election will never be known, but the data indicate he had a serious chance to win it all,"said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Maybe, but I don't think so. He was doing well in the polls (if 17 percent is "well") largely because people don't know him well -- and because Republicans, surveying a terribly weak field, are still looking for their savior. Perry hasn't exactly worked out as planned, so... why not Christie?

Why not? Oh, because I suspect that his numbers would have dropped as people (that is, more specifically, right-wing Republican primary voters) got to know him better. As I wrote last week:

Republicans also don't like people who tell you what they're thinking when what they're thinking isn't right-wing orthodoxy. And Christie has proven -- much to his credit, I might add -- that he's anything but an orthodox right-winger. For example, while there may be quite a bit to recommend him to conservatives (including to the extremist base that votes in GOP primaries), such as his penchant for union-bashing, he actually appointed a Muslim to the state judiciary and, when attacked for doing so by those on the right fearmongering about Sharia law, called such concerns "crap," pointed to the "ignorance" behind the criticism, and said he was "tired of dealing with the crazies." That's no way to talk about your own party, particularly if you want to be its presidential nominee -- which, in the GOP means cozying up to the crazies (just ask Mitt Romney).

Why isn't Christie running? Maybe because he's smart enough to know this. He gets that he's not what his party is looking for -- and that, in the end, he'd probably lose badly. So why not stay in Trenton? Sure, he's not terribly popular in his homestate, but at least he has a future there.

And so, as Michele Bachmann put it, "the table is set." Now it's just a matter of whether anyone decides to crash the party.

Whatcha been up to, Sarah?

(photo)

Jim DeMint states the obvious (about Palin), then goes off the rails again (about democracy)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Right-wing Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who hosted Republican candidates at a forum in his home state of South Carolina yesterday, said it "doesn't appear" Sarah Palin will run for the GOP presidential nomination but still had some lovely things to say about her:

She's done a lot, I think, to engage the American people and stir things up, which we really needed to do, to get American citizens more involved in the process. It made a big difference in the last election. My hope is it'll make an even bigger difference in the next election, as people take back their government.

There's no doubt Palin has generated a great deal of political arousal, if more with the media than with voters (let's not forget that many of her chosen candidates fared miserably in the '10 midterms), but... wait... what? Take back the government? From whom?

Don't Republicans control the House? Aren't they able to paralyze the Senate with the filibuster? Doesn't the Supreme Court lean right, 5-4, with a conservative chief justice in place for many years to come?

Oh, right, it's about Obama, that progressive firebrand in the White House.

Or not. (How exactly has Obama been so horrible for Republicans? He hasn't, but extremists like DeMint won't accept even Republican-oriented compromise.)

Basically, what DeMint means is that the government should be taken back from the majority of Americans who voted for it.

And, basically, he won't be happy until America is a one-party autocracy / theocracy governed by extremist Republicans like himself.

This is what he and his ilk think of democracy, of government of, by, and for the people.

Who said that, "government of the people, by the people, for the people"? Abraham Lincoln, of course, a Republican.

If anyone would loathe today's GOP, a party dominated by the likes of DeMint and Palin, and most of those running for to be its nominee for president, it would be that great man.

Sarah Palin backs out of Iowa Tea Party event, media succumb to denial and disbelief -- and then, all was right with the world again, big sigh of relief, praise Jesus

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Oh no, Sarah Palin may not show up for that Tea Party rally in Iowa on Saturday! Whatever shall we do?

Ms. Palin is known for last-minute schedule changes that whipsaw
supporters and media across the country. But the latest decision is
puzzling. Ms. Palin's speech at the rally was viewed as her most
high-profile appearance of the summer, fueling speculation she was
indeed plotting to run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Newsflash for the media and her fans: She's fucking around. And fucking with you. She's not running. She just wants the attention, and cash that comes with it.

It doesn't matter that she'll be at a separate event in Iowa on Friday, and then at an event on Monday in New Hampshire. She's still just tantalizing you -- er, us -- with the prospect of a run. And you -- and many of us -- keep getting sucked in.

She's already got her pony in the race: Rick Perry. She'll throw her weight behind him, eventually, and that will be that.

Until she craves the spotlight once more, or needs more money, and heads out on the road to suck the wind out of the Republican field.

The only sure thing in all this is that Palin will never have the dignity and grace to step aside. It's just not in her.

Oh... wait. She's back! Thank whatever "God" you want. Let the fucking continue!

Rove thinks Palin will run (maybe)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Byron York writes:

Former Bush advisor Karl Rove says he believes former Alaska governor
Sarah Palin will enter the Republican presidential race sometime around
Labor Day. Appearing on Fox News Saturday morning, Rove said Palin
"has a schedule next week that looks like that of a candidate, not a
celebrity." Rove also cited a new campaign-style video Palin has
released on her recent visit to the Iowa State Fair as evidence Palin is
gearing up for a run.



Palin will be the keynote speaker at the Tea Party of America's
"Restoring America" event in Iowa September 3. The event location was
recently moved from Waukee, Iowa, to Indianola, Iowa to accommodate a
larger crowd.



"This is her last chance," Rove said. "She either gets in or gets out [after the Iowa visit]. I think she gets in."

I think it's a mistake ever to take Rove at his word. There's always something else going on, something between the lines, some agenda he's pushing. So what's going on here?

In Republican terms, Rove is certainly anti-Palin, just as he is anti-Perry. With the latter, most of it seems to have to do with old Texas rivalries between Perry and the Bushies. With the former, most of it has to do with the fact that she's a joke. In each case, though, Rove the strategist is concerned about electability, something neither one has much of, particularly Palin. (He's not big on Bachmann either -- and of course Romney isn't a terribly popular candidate among conservatives. It's not a good time to be a smart Republican strategist. And, yes, Rove is certainly politically smart.)

But does Rove really think Palin will jump in, that's she's effectively in pre-campaign mode? Sure, she's acting like a candidate, but she's done that a lot already. Think back to the bus tour. What she craves is not so much political office but attention (and an enhancement to her celebrity status, and, of course, money), and she gets a ton of attention by tantalizing us with a possible presidential run. It's an old story by now, and we shouldn't be taken in by it. Palin can appear to be on the campaign trail, can go to Iowa and steal the spotlight, and can offer herself as GOP kingmaker -- for Perry, one would think, who gives her a way out, as she has said all along that she wouldn't run if someone else suitable were to run instead, and the two are very much on the same page. That doesn't mean she's running, just that she's being herself.

So is Rove being taken in? No, surely not. Instead, Rove's words can be taken as a warning to Palin: This is your last chance. Stop messing with Republicans. We need to get on with it. Get in the race by Labor Day or get the hell out of the way.

Sure, he says he thinks she'll do it, but she doesn't exactly have a lot of time to make up her mind, and Rove knows there's a big difference between acting like a candidate and actually launching a presidential campaign. Maybe she'll do it, but it's hard to know if Rove is actually being serious, or how serious.

But here's another possibility: Maybe Rove actually wants Palin to run as a way to split the right even further. With Palin, Perry, and Bachmann dividing conservative support, a more electable figure like Romney would have an even better shot at the nomination despite whatever low ceiling of support he may have in the party generally.

Who knows what Rove really thinks? Who knows what he's really up to?

It's all a big mystery.

(image)

Encoded bigotry: Sarah Palin slams Obama's "background" as anti-American

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Honestly, dealing with Republican stupidity is exhausting. If you care to pay attention, Sarah Palin alone seems to suck every last joule of energy out of you.

And yet -- well, to those of who write about politics, she's just the gift that keeps on giving.

Here's her latest gem, via Think Progress:

Adding her heft to the GOP's debt ceiling debacle, the "undefeated" Sarah Palin graced Fox News Business last night to slam President Obama for suggesting that the wealthy should return to a higher tax rate. Blasting the White House and liberals for being "so addicted to that OPM, other people's money," Palin declared that Obama "is not capable of giving the right message" to the American people. Though a majority of Americans side with Obama's position, Fox asked Palin why he seems so disconnected from the public. Palin harped on the all-too-familiar right-wing refrain that American ideals "seem to be foreign to our President" because of "his background." She added, "His ideas are the antithesis of those things that created the prosperity in America."

His background. Ah, right. That's right-wing code for "being black, having an African father, being born in un-American Hawaii (or not born in America at all), living in dangerous foreign places like Indonesia, and probably being Muslim." In short, not being "one of us," that is, a white Christian xenophobic bigot.

Charming, as always.

Actually, though, isn't Obama in a way the personification of the American Dream? Born in America to modest beginnings, he made it all the way to the top.

Or is it that only white Christians can really ever live that dream? Sorry, I forgot.

And is he really the antithesis of America? Yeah, I guess someone who bails out American capitalism from its own implosive instincts, who proposes market solutions to America's catastrophic problems (health care, climate change, etc.), and who proposes budget deals that emphasize massive spending cuts while keeping taxes at historically low rates must, must, must be anti-American.

Palin is the gift that keeps on giving because she's a bottomless well of stupidity.

Hix nix Palin trix

By J. Thomas Duffy

(For more on the failure of Palin's The Undefeated, see my post at The Huffington Post, cross-posted from here. -- MJWS)

Well, maybe they can re-title it as The Defeated.

Palin doc headed for PPV as ticket sales plummet 

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap) - With its Sarah Palin documentary "The Undefeated" increasing its playdates by 40 percent this weekend, only to watch box office revenue decline by more than 63 percent, distributor Arc Entertainment announced Sunday that the film will soon be available on pay per view.

The movie played in 14 Tea Party-friendly locations this weekend -- up from the 10 in which it opened last week -- but grossed just $24,000.

Starting September 1, subscribers to DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner can see the true Horatio Alger story of an Alaska woman's rise from self-described "hockey mom" to gubernatorial dropout to conservative cable news bastion talking head, all in the comfort of their own home.

In addition, the film will launch on DVD October 4 with a shipment of 250,000 units.

Hard to say "ticket sales plummeted," when on opening night, in red-as-you-can-get Orange County, California, the theater was empty -- nobody showed up.

Why on earth didn't some Right Wing Flying Monkeys, or her own Mommy Moose PAC, buy up all the movie tickets, just like they did for her book, to make it a runaway success?

To tweak LBJ, if the Wasilla Whiz Kid has lost the Teabaggers, she's lost the country.

And so much for the juggernaut.

Highlights heading into the 2012 campaign are now a cancelled pre-campaign victory bus tour and a Susan-Alexander-Kanesque film that goes bust.

If Tina Fey has some smarts, she'll quickly punch out a Doppelganger spoof of The Undeafeated, with an opening night to eclipse all the revenue of the ex-governor with lipstick's box office.

Bonus Riffs

Andy Kroll:  New Sarah Palin Hagiography: Springboard for 2012 Presidential Run?

John Cole:  So Much Awesome In One Place

Ben Child:  Sarah Palin likened to Joan of Arc in two-hour documentary film

TBogg:  Sarah Palin Is The Culmination Of All Human Endeavors and Wars And Probably Evolution

David Weigel:  Palin's Coming Attractions - What the new Sarah Palin documentary gets right, and wrong, about her politics.

Alyssa Rosenberg: Sarah Palin Taken Aback by Hollywood’s Reaction To Her

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Palin politics: Mistaking the little pond for the big pond

By Richard K. Barry

Although Sarah Palin is remaining coy about her intentions to run for the Republican presidential nomination, many of us continue to talk about her. I suppose that is a part of her grand strategy, which is, we must admit, working. I mean the part about us still talking about her.

Given the fact that she is doing none of the things a candidate conventionally needs to do to run a credible campaign, people who understand how it is typically done are raising questions.

Maybe this means she has no intention of running, but what if she does?

As evil as Karl Rove may be, no one disputes his experience as a campaigner. When asked if Palin could wage a non-conventional nomination campaign with any degree of success, his response was:

Her people think so.

They've talked with people about it, whom I talked to, and they've been explicit about it - that she doesn't need to go to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, press the flesh and go to all these local events in order to cultivate local leadership. She can talk to people over that. She doesn't need to cultivate the fundraisers and the bundlers, because her mere presence in the race will generate the cash needed for the campaign.

Rove added, rather ominously, that she was ignoring the "niceties" at "her own peril."

Scott Conroy, however, at Real Clear Politics takes issue with Rove on this, claiming that doing things the old-fashioned way in Iowa may not matter that much. Consider, he says, that Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich are getting praise for their organizational efforts there yet going nowhere in the polls. Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and even Chris Christie, none of whom is even declared, are doing better.

This, he suggests, tells a different story.

First of all, if we are just talking about Iowa, Conroy might be right. Although I was always of the impression that Iowa was all about retail politics, that in smaller races like this it was all about meeting people and pressing the flesh, maybe Palin's brand is such that she can get away without all of that in Iowa. I might even cede the point.

But is there any way a candidate can run a credible campaign for the nomination across the country by running a top-down effort that does not rely on strong organization?

All of Karl Rove's experience tells him that it is not possible. There is just too much work involved, too many fundraising bundlers to organize and stroke, too many opinion leaders to lobby, too many volunteers to care for and feed, too much effort required for a successful "Get Out the Vote" campaign, and on and on.

Maybe that's Palin's problem. She has never been good at understanding the scale of things. Iowa may be an important race in the early days of the GOP nomination, and if she got in she might do well there, but America is a much bigger country and doing things the old-fashioned way in primary after primary is probably still necessary.

Relying on your brand alone to win in Iowa, where a lot of GOP voters may already love you, is different than winning over the long haul.

This is classic Sarah Palin politics: mistaking the little pond for the big pond.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

This day in history - July 21, 1925: High school teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution

By Richard K. Barry

In Dayton, Tennessee on this date a high school teacher was found guilty of teaching evolution. Yes, John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching science. (That's Darwin to the left, by the way, not Scopes).

So, where do the current crop of declared and potential GOP presidential hopefuls stand on teaching science in our schools?

Michele Bachmann has said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other and that schools should teach intelligent design as an alternate explanation for the origins of life.

Tim Pawlenty thinks that creationism should be taught alongside evolution, which is Sarah Palin's view.

Rick Perry supports teaching creationism in Texas public schools.

Rick Santorum is a creationist, obviously.

To his credit, Newt Gingrich seems to have a more nuanced view (hell, let's give him credit for something).

Mitt Romney, also to his credit, once said that while he "believed that God designed the universe and created the universe," he also believed that "evolution is most likely the process he used to create human beings."

Even those who want to support science see the need to equivocate in order to keep a large segment of the conservative base happy.

All in all, things really haven't changed that much.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Box office bomb: Sarah Palin and the failure of The Undefeated

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sarah Palin's admirers and various other delusional conservatives are doing their utmost to try to convince us that The Undefeated, the hagiographic documentary about Palin, has been a rousing success thus far.

In the process, they're also attacking anyone who suggests otherwise. Take The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf, for example, a conservative civil libertarian (and hardly one of Palin's fiercer critics) who on opening night last week went to a midnight screening of the movie out in Orange County, California, and found the theater empty (save for two young women who didn't know what it was about and left after just 20 minutes, as well as a couple who came in near the end, made out in the back row, and quickly left). (The rest of the multiplex was jam-packed for Harry Potter.) Friedersdorf's anecdotal point was simply that the midnight first screening of the Palin documentary didn't attract an audience even in a conservative place like Orange Country. (Big deal. That's hardly much of a surprise. Surely Palin's fans would show up at a normal time.) Friedersdorf was just reporting the facts as he witnessed them.

Ah, but that was enough to put him in the crosshairs, and he has since been viciously attacked by Andrew Breitbart, conservative bloggers, and conspiracy theorists (who insanely claim he set the whole thing up), as well as by various right-wing trolls on the Internet. You know, the usual suspects, wallowing in dishonesty, hatred, and outright craziness.

What happened to Friedersdorf is instructive (and deeply troubling), if predictable, but the question remains, how has The Undefeated done so far?

Critically, it has been panned. As I write this, it has a 32 at Metacritic (which seems to be a tad high given the overwhelmingly negative reviews it has received) and a 0 (yes, zero) at Rotten Tomatoes.

To Palin's defenders, this hardly matters. They, like conservatives generally, write off film critics as liberal partisans who couldn't possibly review a film independently of their supposedly left-wing political views. (This is how they dismiss negative reviews of any "conservative" movie, like Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. If you didn't like that sadomasochistic turd, you had to be politically and/or theologically predisposed against it. There's no possible way you could just have disliked it, or thought it a terrible movie.)

So what they do is turn to box office figures. Critics may not like a "conservative" movie, but the public is another story. That's the real America, the "heartland" pushing back against the leftie elites. Surely the box office can prove that The Undefeated is an exceptionally popular, and hence exceptional, movie. This is the case that John Nolte (who also attacked Friedersdorf) makes at Breitbart's Big Hollywood: "Numbers Don't Lie: "The Undefeated" Had a Remarkable Box Office Debut.

Well, not so much. If there's anything remarkable about the movie's first-weekend haul it's how remarkably mediocre it was, well short of what some might have been expecting given the ongoing fascination with all things Palin.

The Undefeated grossed $65,132, or $6,513 per screen on its first weekend of release (as it played on ten screen total across the country). This put it in 40th place in terms of weekend gross but 5th in terms of screen average. Not too bad, though it's hard to compare a movie that played on ten screens (and for which people who wanted to see it had to search out those few screens) and a movie that played on thousands of screens, like Horrible Bosses, which averaged $5,672 on 3,134 screens. If a movie is playing on that many screens, attendance can be spread out more, reducing the per-screen average.

But, still, yes, $6,513 isn't bad. But it was the first weekend for The Undefeated, not for Horrible Bosses (which has a total gross of over $60 million to date), and one would expect the numbers to have been higher.

Not to worry, says Nolte. If you compare The Undefeated's numbers to the numbers of other political documentaries, it did very well. Its weekend gross puts it well back on the list, but its per-screen avergage makes it look much stronger. No, it wasn't Fahrenheit 9/11 ($27,558 average on 868 screens), Bowling for Columbine ($26,143 average on eight screens), or Roger and Me ($20,063 average on four screens), and certainly not An Inconvenient Truth ($70,332 average on four screens), but it stacks up fairly well against most of the other major political docs of the past 20 years.

Nolte takes this to mean that the movie was an unqualified success -- and then goes on, predictably, to slam Palin's critics.

Here's the thing, though: As Joshua Green notes at The Atlantic, The Undefeated's numbers really weren't that good, or at least aren't worth bragging about. Now, the movie could have some life as it opens elsewhere around the country, and perhaps the ongoing infatuation with Palin will attract solid audiences, but shouldn't it have done better? Maybe not at Michael Moore or Al Gore levels, but Palin is a major political celebrity with a huge following. Where was the excitement for this piece of hagiographic crapola? Maybe elsewhere, maybe in the Heartland (as opposed to right-wing Orange County?), maybe if somehow some buzz can be generated, maybe if people go merely out of curiosity, but it certainly wasn't there opening weekend.

Now, I would suggest that Palin's popularity, while certainly real given her devoted following, is a product of the media as much as anything else. Which is to say, she would have some popularity anyway, but it's all the attention she gets in the media that turns her into a cultural phenomenon. Which is further to say, much of her popularity is a mirage -- it isn't really there. Just think how poorly she polls even among Republicans. Yes, I'll include myself and this blog in here -- we overdo it, covering her with excessive attention, treating everything she does, every word she utters, as far more significant, far more interesting, than it really is. And so we build up these expectations around her, including that any movie about her must do extremely well simply because it's about her -- and of course we, and supposedly the public generally, just can't get enough of her. If this is all wrong, or at least grossly exaggerated, then it should actually come as no surprise at all that people haven't been flocking en masse to see The Undefeated. Why should they? She's not nearly as popular as we say she is.

Don't get me wrong... this isn't all the media's fault. Palin plays the media and makes it seem herself as if she's far more significant and far more interesting than she really is, worthy of all the attention she gets, worthy of her stardom.

But while she rakes in massive amounts of money, often by duping her gullible supporters, she hasn't actually been all that successful, has she, at least in entertainment terms?

Sure, many still love her, including a core (if small) GOP constituency, and she has her Facebook followers and her commentator gig on Fox News, but her TV show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, mostly a massive ego trip but also possibly part of a campaign to boost her political fortunes (as it was a kind of campaigning, if not actually preliminary campaigning for a possible 2012 run), saw a huge drop in viewership after the first episode and was not renewed for a second season. And, again, her poll numbers are incredibly weak, even among Republicans. So should we really have expected a shamelessly and gratuitously hagiographic documentary about her, a documentary with an obviously self-aggrandizing agenda, to be a hit?