Roughly sixty days into the Barack Obama presidency, automated phone calls were placed to Iowa and New Hampshire for SarahPAC, the political action committee of the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin (Alaska).

KCCI confirmed Tuesday that some Iowa Republicans have received automated phone calls from Sarah Pac, governor Palin’s political action committee.

The calls asked Iowans several questions including whether they have a favorable opinion of Palin.

Some Iowans received the calls over the weekend as did some voters in New Hampshire.

Iowa, New Hampshire, Sarah Palin | No Comments »

My former colleagues at the DNC launched this television ad attacking South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford for “playing politics” with stimulus money:

Mark Sanford | No Comments »

A group filed paperwork in Connecticut to draft Governor Sarah Palin for President in 2012. Huffington Post obtained an e-mail from the group announcing the first meeting, which was held at a local Denny’s — how fitting.

Sarah Palin | 2 Comments »

In an appearance on Sunday’s Meet the Press, former Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed back on the conservative Republican mantra: “I hope Obama fails.”

“You’ve got to want the president to succeed,” said the former House Speaker. “You’re irrational if you don’t want the president to succeed. Because if he doesn’t succeed the country doesn’t succeed… I don’t think anyone should want the president of the United States to fail. I want some of his policies to be stopped. But I don’t want the president of the United States to fail. I want him to learn new policies.”

“Irrational” conservative Republicans, according to Newt Gingrich:

• Senator David Vitter (La.)
• Congressman Mike Pence (Ind.)
• Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay
• Former Senator Rick Santorum

Newt Gingrich | No Comments »

Newt Gingrich floats the notion that he is considering a run for the Republican nomination in 2012:

“Callista and I will look seriously and we’ll probably get our family totally engaged, including our two grandchildren, probably in January, 2011, Gingrich told reporters during a sit-down interview before last night’s speech.

“We’ll look seriously at whether or not we think its necessary to do it. And if we think it’s necessary we’ll probably do it. And if it isn’t necessary we probably won’t do it.”

Interesting. This would be the first time Gingrich brought one of his wives into his political decision-making, rather than be political decisions unto themselves.

But did he have to be so mean about it? As reported by L.H. Carter, his campaign treasurer, Newt said of Jacqueline: “She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.” [emphasis added]

Newt Gingrich | No Comments »

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty thinks the worse is past the Republican Party.

“It’s kind of like asking whether the stock market has bottomed out,” he said of whether the party had reached its political nadir. “I think it has bottomed out – in terms of it getting worse, at least, but we have a lot of work to do.”

Stow that quote away for safekeeping.

Tim Pawlenty | No Comments »

Former Governor Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts) topped all candidates in the straw poll at CPAC conference in Washington, D.C. He won the straw poll last year despite withdrawing from the race less than two weeks prior. Conservatives were so adamantly opposed to Senator John McCain’s (R-Arizona) candidacy that they turned to Romney — who only a few years prior converted to conservatism — to protest their heir-apparent.

But who knows what would have happened to the polling results this year if the Republican leader, Rush Limbaugh, was on the ballot.

Mitt Romney, Polling | No Comments »

Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) submitted her spending priorities for the federal stimulus money allocated to the states and the former Republican vice presidential candidate’s plan is coming under fire from Alaskan lawmakers.

Lawmakers are questioning Gov. Sarah Palin’s plans to spend stimulus money for transportation projects.

Palin has proposed spending about $461 million, but lawmakers say only about $260 million of that is available through the federal stimulus program. [...]

Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: Sarah Palin spending a lot of other peoples’ money, an affinity for transportation projects with little need and drill, baby, drill:

But the co-chairs of the Senate Finance Committee say the plan doesn’t have enough geographic balance and puts too much emphasis on gas line infrastructure.

“We need to take a look at what money is coming to the state in cash,” Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Ketchikan, said. “And when we distribute that, that it’s a fair and equitable distribution around the state.”

Stedman says he would prefer to use federal stimulus money for road projects in economically stressed areas and use state savings for the gas line infrastructure when the time comes to build it.

Related Governor Palin voiced support for a bill passing through the state legislature surrounding parental consent on abortion in Alaska. Read into this paragraph what you will:

Although Palin “voiced strong antiabortion views” as Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) running mate in the 2008 presidential election, she “has not pushed that agenda in the Legislature until now,” the AP/Daily News-Miner reports. Palin said she did not propose her own bill this year because she did not want to create competing legislation (Sutton, AP/Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 2/27).

Sarah Palin | No Comments »

Bobby Jindal, former frontrunner for the 2012 Republican nomination, appeared on CNN last night and said he was “glad” that RNC Chair-In-Name-Only Michael Steele apologized to Rush Limbaugh for comments he made about the right-wing talk show host.

Rush rules their world.

Bobby Jindal | No Comments »

President Barack Obama may not be halfway through his First 100 Days yet but Republicans are already jockeying for the nomination in 2012. So you know what that means: The Right’s Field is back.

We are bringing back fan favorite characters Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, introducing new ones like Bobby Jindal, and saying goodbye to John McCain who was killed off last year. (He lost the election. As far as we know, John McCain is still theoretically “alive.”)

There are only 1,345 days until Election Day 2012. Just think of the many different ways Mitt Romney could burn through the Five Brothers’ inheritance in that time!

Election 2012 | 1 Comment »