All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has granted the media limited access to her public appearances since stepping down from public office, but that does not seem to be muting the attention she is paid.

Palin on Wednesday drew thousands of supporters to a Borders bookstore in Springfield, Missouri, where she shook hands with people who waited outside for her in the bitter cold. She took no questions from reporters at the book signing, reports the Associated Press, which was relegated to a roped-off area inside the store.

The politician also reportedly tried to keep her fans from making any attempts at citizen journalism: Despite shaking hands with people, Palin did not talk about politics with them, the AP reports. Attendees were banned from carrying cell phones or cameras and were not granted personalized signatures for their books.

The media was barred from Palin's speaking engagement at the College of the Ozarks that followed the book signing, but reporters from the Springfield News-Leader and other local media outlets managed to snag a few of the 4,000 free tickets allotted to the event before they quickly disappeared.

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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may or may not be a viable 2012 presidential candidate, but the bowling industry is probably hoping she is at least a better bowler than President Obama.

Palin will be giving the keynote address at the International Bowl Expo 2010 in June of next year, the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America (BPAA) announced today.

Dubbed the bowling industry's "premier international convention," the expo will take place between June 27 and July 1 at the Las Vegas Hilton and Las Vegas Convention Center. Palin's keynote speech is slated for the morning of June 30.

The BPAA said in a press release the industry "rolled a strike" in securing Palin's presence at the event.

"Sarah Palin is a great friend to the bowling industry and we're so proud and honored to welcome her as our keynote speaker at International Bowl Expo 2010," Steven Johnson, executive director of the BPAA, said. "Regardless of your political affiliation, Ms. Palin is a force in American politics and culture. Her presence underscores the impact and importance of bowling, one of our country's leading national pastimes and a growing $10 billion industry."

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Sarah Palin is offering rare praise for President Obama following his speech last night in which he vowed to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

"At long last, President Obama decided to give his military commanders much of what they need to accomplish their mission in Afghanistan," Palin wrote on her Facebook page last night.

The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee expressed gratitude that a president who ran on a platform opposing the surge in Iraq now supports a surge in Afghanistan. She also signaled confidence that a surge in Afghanistan can succeed.

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Republicans who regularly listen to radio host Rush Limbaugh or watch Fox News host Glenn Beck see Sarah Palin as the best representative of their party's core values, according to a new Washington Post poll.

A story on the full poll is here.

Palin was cited by 48 percent of Limbaugh listeners and 35 percent of Beck viewers as most representing the party's core values, far more than anyone else in the poll. Overall, 18 percent of Republicans cited Palin, making her the top choice among the GOP rank-and-file.

The former GOP vice presidential nominee was also the top choice among all Republicans to be the party's 2012 presidential nominee, though party members are split so far in advance of the election. Despite finishing first, Palin was cited by just 17 percent of Republicans as their first choice to be the nominee.

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Former GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who has been emerging from a bus emblazoned with her name and photograph during her publicity tour for her memoir "Going Rogue," may be flying between her promotional appearances.

A blog called "Palingates," citing the flight log, first reported that Palin has apparently been traveling on a Gulfstream II 12-passenger jet from stop to stop.

Joe McGinniss at The Daily Beast then picked up the story. Before the tour, Palin's publicist had claimed that Palin would be "making two and sometimes three stops a day, traveling in a bus painted with the cover of her book." The former Alaska governor also gave interviews from the bus, driving home the notion that it was her mode of transportation for the tour.

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Mike Huckabee spelled out his feelings on Sarah Palin and discussed the Republicans he believes have the biggest political futures on this week's installment on @katiecouric.

Palin, he told Katie Couric, is "a very charismatic person who is rock star status in the Republican Party." (watch at left.) He said he would vote for the former Alaska governor against President Obama, although "in the primary, it would depend on who else was running."

"I don't know that much about her job as governor, because she was coming into office as I was leaving," said Huckabee. "And so we didn't have a lot of cross over time where we interacted at the National Governor's Association, or Republican Governor's Association. But I think that she's not anywhere near the person that sometimes she's been portrayed to be – as completely lacking of any intellectual capacity."

Huckabee, a 2008 GOP presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor, is pushing a new book called "A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories that Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit." A recent Gallup poll found that 71 percent of Republicans would seriously consider voting for him in 2012.

"That was higher than Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin," Couric noted during the 40-minute interview. She asked Huckabee who the Republicans with the "biggest political futures" are today.

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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is keeping quiet on her plans for 2012, but recent polls and political analysis suggest it's too soon to count her out as a political heavyweight.

Palin has drummed up a great deal of media attention on her nationwide book tour, which takes the former GOP vice presidential candidate to Iowa next month. A new poll out of the state -- a key state in presidential primaries -- shows that Republicans in the state highly approve of Palin.

As many as 68 percent of Iowa Republicans view Palin favorably, according to the Des Moines Register's Iowa poll. Palin ranked higher than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who won 66 percent of Iowa Republicans' approval. She also beat out former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is viewed favorably by 58 percent of the state's GOP voters.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses in his bid for the GOP presidential nomination, still has higher approval ratings than Palin at 70 percent, according to the poll. A comparison with Huckabee's numbers also reveal Palin's weaknesses. Twice as many Iowa Republicans hold an unfavorable view of Palin as they do of Huckabee. Meanwhile, moderates view Huckabee more than twice as favorably as Palin.

Fifty-five percent of all Iowa residents, including Democrats, hold an unfavorable opinion of Palin, according to the poll, while only 8 percent say they are unsure about her.

While it could appear that voters have already formed an opinion about the former governor, her book tour may be boosting her popularity. Palin's popularity numbers have edged up in national polls in recent months, to the point where they nearly equal to President Obama's, Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times reports.

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Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics

** Now the real fight over health care reform begins...

** President Obama tackles unemployment...

** Sarah Palin rises in polls during her book tour...

HEALTH CARE: Democrats Saturday night squeaked by with 60 votes on a procedural motion to move the health care debate forward.

Still, writes Shalaigh Murray of the Washington Post, " Democrats had little time to savor their weekend Senate health-care victory, as two of the lawmakers who voted to move the debate forward Saturday night indicated Sunday that they will not vote to pass the package if it includes a government-run insurance program."

"Despite the success in the test vote, the fragile consensus in the Democratic caucus will face its greatest test yet as the health-care debate moves to the Senate floor and Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) struggles to stave off internal schisms. The cracks in the 60-member caucus are most obvious over the public insurance option.

"One member of the Democratic caucus, independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), reiterated Sunday that he will oppose any bill that contains a public option. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," he called such a government-run plan 'radical.'

"Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), another centrist who supported the move to continue debate but has made it clear he has many objections to the legislation as currently written, restated his opposition to a public plan. 'I don't want a big-government, Washington-run operation that undermines the private insurance that 200 million Americans now have,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.'"

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Tina Fey reprised a tiny bit of her "Saturday Night Live" Sarah Palin impersonation last night during a presentation at the Ad Council Annual Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

During her 7:40 minute routine, Fey made some jokes about the former McCain vice-presidential candidate's best-selling book, "Going Rogue," and then said (at around 2:40 in the video below), "Mrs. Palin and I continue to have so much in common. They recently made a porn movie... this is true... about Sarah Palin and then this same adult actress, Lisa Ann, played me in a porn parody of '30 Rock' ...Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy."

Fey saved her brief impersonation for the end of her time on stage, starting out in her own voice, "We'll begin with an issue that is," and then in her Palin voice "so critical to the future opportunity."

The audience laughed, and she said, "I'm gonna be doing that 'till I'm dead."





Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com.

With Sarah Palin in the spotlight as she continues her nationwide media and book tour, the Democratic National Committee is suggesting to its supporters that the former GOP vice presidential candidate could pose a real threat to the Democratic agenda.

In a fundraising e-mail sent out Friday, Organizing for America -- the community organizing component of the DNC founded in the wake of Barack Obama’s inauguration -- said it is aiming to raise $500,000 in the next week "to help push back against Sarah Palin and her allies."

"Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn," says the e-mail, signed by OFA Director Mitch Stewart. "It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term 'Death Panels' -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists."

Palin has managed to draw in large crowds on her book tour, illustrating the fact that she still has ardent political supporters more than a year after losing the 2008 election and months after resigning as governor of Alaska. Mainstream media outlets, as well as both conservative and liberal outlets, have thoroughly covered Palin's moves because of the public's strong interest in her.

It is open for debate, however, whether the DNC truly considers Palin a threat or is simply using Palin's current moment in the spotlight to its own advantage.

"This e-mail is a standard political tactic: use a highly controversial opponent to rally your base," CBS News' Political Director Steve Chaggaris said. "Knowing how strongly liberals dislike Palin, President Obama's political arm sees an opportunity and is trying to take advantage of that anti-Palin passion to benefit its cause."

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