Stuff like this (via) is why I think Palin is Giuliani 2, Electric Boogaloo:
Among other perks, Palin will fly first class – if she flies commercial. If not, “the private aircraft MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger …,” the contract specifies. She also must be provided with a suite and two single rooms in a deluxe hotel.
Chris Bowers makes a good case that Palin has a good chance in 2012, but plenty of people were saying the same about Giuliani in 2008 (here, for example, though FSM knows I am not trying to compare Bowers, whom I like, to Kaus or Morris).
Lazy, spoiled divas do not do well in presidential elections, no matter how much airtime they get.
MikeJ
It depends on how you define “do well”. Get votes, no. Get to travel in a Lear 60 n somebody else’s dime? That’s doing well in my book.
Perry Como
Shucks ya’ll, she’s just a regular person doin’ regular person things, doncha know? :wink: I wonder if the Lear 60 has a gun rack to do some wolf hunting? Also.
Justin
I don’t think she even wants to be President. The only reason she runs is if somehow she thinks it will increase her appearance fees.
The crazy thing though is that if the economy is still this bad in two years, I think she could win the Presidential election.
Dr. I. F. Stone
This Palin diva is a piker when compared with Nancy Pelosi, who has insisted that she be flown home to California and other places by no less a plane than a Gulfstream 5, a substantially larger aircraft than a mere Lear 60.
eric
she has zero chance because she has zero interest in runnnig for a job so hard that pays so little. Plus, “running” may be harder than the job and it pays even less. There is no effing way that grifter runs for President. She will wanna be a king maker, but not the proverbial king.
Just remember how little stumping she did the last go round and then think about how little she did face-to-face with reporters and the times she them, she, um, let’s say, did not do all that well.
I don’t care if the numbers said she had a 60% chance of winning, she will never give up the gig she has.
Citizen_X
Does her rider require that the M&Ms have the green ones removed?
Like I said earlier, $12 Mil in less than a year means she knows what she’s doing.
David in NY
“Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia”
for a total eclipse of the sun???
Has it been title puzzle time all day? Didn’t I see West Side Story a minute ago?
Edit: Oh, “You’re So Vain” really does fit, though.
T.R. Donoghue
I don’t think she’s interested in running, just giving off the perception that she is so she can keep her fees high.
http://thefastertimes.com/topstories/2010/04/07/surveying-the-top-stories/
SpotWeld
It’s like Palin is turing out to be everything that the Rebuplicans are trying to make Hillary Clinton out to be.
(Remember that wierd flap about Clinton having to send back a private plane during the primary campaign becuase it didn’t have enough seats.)
You know, as a speaker Palin has the right to ask for stuff like this in her contract… but how the heck can she front herself as a “regular-ole Real American” with this sort of elitism?
Lev
The key item is that Palin would have to do hard, grinding work for about 22 months to have a chance of being president. This flies in the face of what we know about Ms. P. She hasn’t even been a national figure for 22 months, and look at what’s happened already.
flukebucket
Seems like I read somewhere today that she has made around 12 million dollars since July.
I don’t care who you are, that is doing well.
MikeJ
@Dr. I. F. Stone: Listen shit for brains, Pelosi never specified any plane. She lives in California. The Sgt at Arms for the house, who is in charge of security, asked for a plane that could fly nonstop from DC to SF.
You’re a liar or an idiot or both.
DougJ
@David in NY:
Yes.
ellaesther
“Palin has a good chance in 2012.”
No she doesn’t.
I know that folks continue to like to talk about this, and I know that there are some among us (not us, of course, out there) who love her with the firey love of a thousand suns — but she will not be nominated.
The Republicans ran a field of Crazy and Crazier up to their last convention — and they chose the one guy who was nominally sane. As I knew (ahem) they would.
She will not be nominated because
a) she is not even within shouting distance of qualified
b) not enough people like her as President, not even on her own side,
c) she has more skeletons in her closet than a cannibal,
d) to quote someone very wise, “lazy, spoiled divas do not do well in presidential elections,” and
e) she would be TROUNCED in the generals.
The GOP knows this. They will use her to stir up their own base and piss us off (as well as misdirecting our attention, a thing at which they excel), and then they will pick someone nominally sane.
mai naem
This sounds like the Smoking Gun backstage diva kind of requests of rock stars. Stewart, Colbert and SNL are going to have a field day with this. Gotta wonder what her other requests are. Helicopter ride with rifles and wildlife to kill? $25K credit card to Nordstroms? Snowmachine for Todd? No Playgirls or any other Levi Johnson related mags? And ofcourse only Fox News on.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
You are right on this, Doug.
And as much as I would it to be otherwise, she isn’t going to be the GOP nominee in 2012.
I’ll go on record here and predict that the GOP nominee will be somebody who is not currently on the main radar screen.
ellaesther
@David in NY: I’ll bet she even has a scarf, it is apricot.
SRW1
There are two people in the GOP who I’d really like to see fight it out for the 2012 nomination: Sarah P and John McC.
The 2012 Maverick Cage Match
ellaesther
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty: I will support you in your on-record-going.
They’re busy eating their own right now. In 2011, after the mid-terms, it’ll shake out and someone will emerge.
AND IT WILL NOT BE SARAH PALIN.
Redshirt
Please please please let Sister Sarah be the 2012 nominee. We can end this madness then!
But there’s no way – no way – she runs. She hints at running, she walks right up to the line of running (in order to maximize her speaking fees), then give some line about family and god and why she can’t run this time. But please buy her new “book”.
Snowbilly Grifter is the best nickname.
SpotWeld
@SRW1: The 2012 Maverick Cage Match
Followed by a Pundit Thunderdome!
JD Rhoades
God is not good enough to give us Sarah Palin to run against two Presidential elections in a row.
David in NY
@DougJ:
Hmmm, can somebody hum a few bars of “Sanctity of Contracts” for me?
Chuck
Gulfstream or not, Pelosi also doesn’t run around aw-shucksing about “Real America”. She actually works for her perks.
Cacti
I see the Palinites as the right wing equivalent of the Deanies in 2004.
It’s a loud, loyal group…
That’s much smaller than they think they are.
Mnemosyne
I think Guiliani is a great comparison because Palin will try to run and get trounced because as soon as people see and hear her speak, they will run the other way. With Guiliani, the more people saw of him, the less they liked him, and it’s the same way with Palin. More exposure will actually hurt her.
J. Michael Neal
I have my doubts that she really wants to run, but let’s say that she does. I agree with the lot of you that says she has no chance to win the GOP nomination. The only problem is that I don’t think any of the clowns in this thing have a chance to win it, and someone has to.
Mitt Romney has no chance because he imposed a soshulist health care system in MA.
Tim Pawlenty has no chance because that combination of Minnesota earnestness and bat shit crazy manages to alienate everyone who isn’t a crazy nutbar from Minnesota. I suppose he could win the Dakotas and Wisconsin, too.
Newt Gingrich has no chance because, let’s face it, he’s Newt Gingrich.
Who else is there? The Huck is making me a bit nervous since he’s laying low.
jrg
If she runs, she will get eaten alive in the primaries. The only reason she still seems somewhat viable is because she did not have to run in the primaries for the 2008 election. Obama ignored her, for the most part – Romney, et. al. won’t give her that opportunity.
Besides, everyone has a strong opinion on her already. Her poll numbers are not that good, and are relatively static (trending down slightly IIRC). None of this works in her favor, particularly since a big part of her appeal is “boob bait for bubba”, and she ain’t getting any younger.
slag
I’m so fucking sick of these people. Sick of them. I can’t stand the fact that crazy continues to gain such prominence in our political landscape. All of the teabaggers put together currently have very little influence on our public policy. And yet this is who we fucking hear about all the goddamn time. Wake me up after the next nuclear holocaust.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
You have to admit, it makes our lives easier that he always posts things that are so easily refuted with a simple Snopes search.
Rhoda
OT: But when did the Obama hates the media pot boil up again?
There’s this Milbank story today; and then I read another whining story about how the press is going to be talking to Gibbs about the president’s disregard for the media. I’m pretty sure that was a WashPo story too.
This was a working summit about preventing terrorists from getting nukes; as such I don’t see how most of this could be “open.”
ellaesther
@David in NY: I’m humming as loud as I can!
stuckinred
@Dr. I. F. Stone: Back for more huh punk?
The Moar You Know
@Dr. I. F. Stone: Nice try, shit for brains. I won’t waste my fingers typing a reply, but refer to the article at Snopes.
But I learned something! I find it amazing that Hastert didn’t require a cargo aircraft to haul his incredibly huge bulk.
David in NY
@ellaesther:
Can’t hear you. Maybe if you put on an apricot scarf.
HumboldtBlue
The story here isn’t Palin or the perks she demands, that’s old news.
The story is that the chancellor of CSU Stanislaus is also the chairman of the school foundation with offices housed in the administration building. The reason these details came to light is because of State Senator Leland Yee who for more than three years now has been calling for much stricter and accurate oversight of the UC and CSU systems.
The chancellor paid for Palin’s speaking fees and travel arrangements with tax payer money that is hidden among the “Stanislaus Foundation” paperwork. Two journalism students staked out the admin building and found shredded documents that were specifically requested by Yee and the AG, as well as documents that were overlooked and not shredded.
Fuck Palin, she’s a fucking idiot making millions just like Big Ben and Beck, it’s the rat fuck chancellor and his financial bullshit that is the problem.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Running for President is much harder work than being governor of Alaska. I’m betting that she goes Fred Thompson and quits after five minutes in Iowa, then goes back to comfortably spewing high priced venom from her media perch.
LuciaMia
Except when she actually has to answer questions, unscreened and unaided. And has to take part in a debate, all on her own.
Uh-oh, didn’t Bush manage to get all thru that, and still get re-elected in 2004?
Let’s hope that microphone is harder to hide under her little peblum jacket, than Dubya’s.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
Cute post, but what you describe never happened.
The facts are out there, even you can Google them in your spoofitude.
Spooftrolling really requires some committment to doing decent work. If you can’t maintain the standard, you need to find another hobby. Have you looked into pederasty?
This is one of my favorite blurbs from the righty blogs and phony “news” sites that pimp this nonstory:
Heh.
Anyway, factcheck.org has a good rundown on this nonsense, and their review includes this:
That was as of a year ago, two full years into the circulation of the phony stories about her use of the larger plane, which she never requested in the first place but was in fact requested by security officials.
Nylund
So does she now pay other people to do her moose hunting for her (or whatever it is that I, as a non-“real” American don’t do)?
Cacti
@LuciaMia:
Sarah Palin is the candidate Dubya would have been if his last name was anything other than Bush.
Ryan S.
I don’t know I’ve already seen some Palin bumper stickers driving around my town.
stuckinred
@Chuck: bullshit, runnin around lookin like a fuckin 3 dollar hooker ain’t work.
Lev
Palin’s only chance of getting the GOP nod is if the Repub elites figure they’re going to lose anyway, and decide to deflate the Tea Parties by letting Palin lose so that they can consolidate their own power.
The funny thing is: I hope they do.
LuciaMia
Tempted to quote PT Barnum’s, “a sucker born every minute.”
But the really sad thing about these people is, they’re not supporting Palin because they think she’s the best candidate out there. They do it for some twisted thought that they’re ‘pissing off liberals.’
General Egali Tarian Stuck
With a Cement Pond.
WereBear
Yes, Sarah Palin is their marquee star, the one who brings the crowds. Actually, she and Ron Paul are the only ones who bring the crowds, and those two sets of fans aren’t that compatible.
She got pulled out to help their former Presidential nominee hold onto his Senate seat. Think about that for a minute.
This brand is circling the drain.
David in NY
@Ryan S.:
Yay!
Brian J
I don’t think she’ll win unless there’s some sort of freak turn of events where it doesn’t look like the Republicans are going to win, so there’s less pressure for a credible candidate like Romney to secure the nomination, but where that changes in the last few months. In other words, if it’s October, and a terrorist attack happens, she could slip through.
But if it looks like Obama is extremely vulnerable, my guess is that there are enough people in the Republican party who are terrified at the thought of a dolt like Palin being in power that they will do whatever it takes to get someone who is actually competent to be the nominee.
Zifnab
@SpotWeld:
Ever heard J-Lo’s “Jenny from the Block” or one of 50-cent’s ballads to his hommies back home? Sarah Palin has more in common with Britney Spears than anything. She’s a come-from-nothing, so she can play the “I’m one of you” card.
Midnight Marauder
@J. Michael Neal:
If that is his definition of laying low, by all means, keep it coming, Huck.
Origuy
She requires a deluxe hotel. In Turlock, California. Right.
Montysano
If Palin decides to run, which I think is doubtful (grifters don’t typically like hard work), here’s the interesting question: can she go through the primaries, get nominated, and then go on to the general, all while remaining in her bubble? As Sully has endlessly pointed out, no prominent politician in history has dodged the media like she has. If she does run, and she can stay in the bubble, then we’re even farther gone down the rabbit hole than even I imagined. It’s Vonnegut’s “Player Piano” come to life.
David in NY
Can we delegate the deflation of the idiocy of the troll-who- purloins-the-name-of-a-good-and-honorable-journalist to the first one in line, and not have to have an endless string of cites to Snopes cluttering the page?
How about the first one to spot him yells, “He’s mine!”, as in schoolyard games, and disposes of him. If others are prompted to respond, they should then search the thread for “He’s mine!” and, if he’s been dealt with, refrain from clutter at that point.
Of course, people could also just search for his ill-fitting name, and, once again, refrain from clutter if he’s been answered.
Thank you.
Rick Taylor
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Palin wants to be President. I don’t see why she would.
Mark S.
@HumboldtBlue:
That’s the real scandal here. I highly doubt this foundation is totally exempt from disclosure requirements. The fact they were shredding documents leads me to conclude they weren’t.
I’d be a little pissed off if I were a student there and had my tuition raised while they were spending well over a hundred grand to get an idiot to speak at my university. For what they are paying Palin, they could probably get a half dozen speakers who actually knew something about anything.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ryan S.:
How do they steer, having no arms?
mai naem
@Cacti: That is kind of offensive. If you’re going to compare Palinistas to the left, please use Naderites, and hell, even that’s kind of offensive. At least Deanies worship a multi-term governor who was also the head the Dem Gov. group who got a bunch of Dem. govs elected. And even Ralph Nader has some actual respectable achievements. Palin, not so much. Also too, Dean and Nader don’t speak word salad.
Brian J
@Mark S.:
They’d be better off by bussing in a bunch of high school students with nothing in the form form of payment except a 12-pack and letting them speak. Those students would probably know more than Palin.
RedKitten
Christ, that thread title scared me — for a second I thought you were saying that Palin was coming HERE!
mai naem
@arguingwithsignposts: I appear to share different parts of my morning commute route with 2 Palin supporters. They’re both soccer mom vans. Not quite sure what that means.
Also, on Pelosi’s air travel – I believe she takes along returning war vets on the plane rides. I am willing to bet Dennis Hastert wasn’t doing that.
Citizen Alan
First of all, the difference between Giuliani and Palin (aside from genitalia and about 40 IQ points) is that Giuliani had followers whereas Palin has cultists. That said, my greatest fear about Sarah Palin is that she has the power to make Mike Huckabee seem reasonable and competent. He’s not, but he can choose to appear that way especially when there’s an abject moron standing next to him. Also, Huckabee is capable of projecting warmth and likability, and I can’t think of any other prominent Republican who doesn’t give the impression of wanting to eat someone’s liver with fava beans and a nice chianti.
PS — Interestingly, spell check recognizes Giuliani but neither Palin nor Huckabee. Nor, apparently, fava beans.
Dave
@Dr. I. F. Stone: not really
http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp
arguingwithsignposts
@Citizen Alan:
That may work in the primaries, but Huckster gets in the general, and he’ll get destroyed by that evil muslim from Kenya. Stinkin’ law professors.
Ash Can
@LuciaMia: I’d be willing to bet that a lot of them are supporting her simply because she has a pretty face.
EconWatcher
It occurred to me the other day that Sarah Palin is the right-wing equivalent of Jesse Jackson in his 1984 and 1988 runs: Fires up the base; gives rousing speeches; known for polarizing and sometimes offensive remarks; extremely light resume; scares the beejesus out of moderates and the opposing side.
The Dems could not get anywhere until they deep-sixed Jesse. I think the same will be true for the ‘pubs with their version.
Bubblegum Tate
@Justin:
Plus, it’ll give her an excuse to do fundraising for her pseudo-campaign, and then, after she quits, she can give those funds to noted political consultant Bristol Palin.
Bob K
First class or at LEAST a Learjet 60? Like this one?
Buddy Holly, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Wink, Wink – You Betchya
Just Sayin’
http://www.sandiego6.com/entertainment/story/Under-inflated-tires-led-to-Goldstein-Barker/w8Jbl9pYF0SWrZy6HC-TXw.cspx
kay
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
It’s Madame Speaker, Bub. Pelosi is the highest ranking female federal officer-holder in US history, and she’s very, very good at her job, as you witnessed when she cleaned your clock in the health care battle. I know. That kills you guys. Get used to it.
Sarah Palin is just…a former half-term governor and reality tv show contestant. I think she ran for President once.
Was it VP? No matter. She lost.
nalbar
Doug, you wrote this;
“Lazy, spoiled divas do not do well in presidential elections, no matter how much airtime they get.”
Yes, they do. George Bush won in 2000. NOBODY is lazier than Bush. And NOBODY is a bigger diva or has/had a bigger bubble. Americans must have the shortest memories on earth to not remember 10 years ago.
If Palin runs, she wins the nomination. The path for any Republican goes through the tea party freaks. Palin owns them, because she IS one, she won’t be faking like any of the others.
Everybody seems to assume the is some sanity on the right, and they will nominate someone who has a chance. That assumption is incorrect.
She runs, she gets the nomination.
http://openleft.com/diary/18180/is-there-anyway-that-sarah-palin-isnt-the-republican-nominee-in-2012
..
kay
@nalbar:
God, I hope so. I’ll donate. I want her or Newt Gingrich. Either/or. There’s more fun potential if it’s Palin, but Gingrich should be trounced just on principle, so there’s that ethical duty.
Mnemosyne
@nalbar:
W was an old hand at campaigning by the time he ran in 2000. He had two successful gubernatorial campaigns in Texas and was a pretty major part of both of his father’s presidential campaigns. For all of his other faults (and they are legion), W knows how to run a successful campaign.
Palin? Not so much. She doesn’t have the background, she doesn’t have the experience, and she doesn’t have the family connections in Washington that come with being the son of a president and the grandson of a senator. She will fall flat on her face no matter how hard they try to prop her up.
DonkeyKong
The headline for this post should be “Harvesting the Rubes”
Redshirt
@Dr. I. F. Stone: Hey look! I’m replying to the troll too. And I’m going to set him straight, once and for all:
Look here, Mr. Troll, you are wrong.
There, all done. No one else need respond to him!
MinneapolisPipe
Is there anything in that contract that says no brown M&M’s in her green room?
J. Michael Neal:
I live in MN. The last serious poll had Obama trouncing Pawlenty in this state. I don’t want to be mean about it, but he is so not ready for prime time.
catclub
@J. Michael Neal: #27
John Thune. Tall, handsome, and dumb.
glaukopis
I agree that her real ambitions are money and fame with no interest in or talent in governing, but I think she might be the candidate precisely because she’ll be like W. She pleases the base while an army of neo-cons actually run things in the background. Gee, maybe Cheney could be vice-president again.
Citizen Alan
@MinneapolisPipe:
At least Van Halen had a good reason for that — the “no brown M&M’s” clause was inserted into the middle of a bunch of technical requirements for what the venue had to be like in order to support the concert’s equipment needs. David Lee Roth talked about one concert where the promoters left lots of brown M&M’s in the bowl. They didn’t read the contract’s clauses pertaining to how much weight the venue’s floor needed to be able to support either, the end result being that the weight of the stage inflicted $85,000 worth of damage to the venue’s brand new floor.
@glaukopis:
Well, we know that the She-Beast Liz Cheney wants to run for some office.