I have to give Gingrich credit for one thing. The "Partei" needs a cause. Palin doesn't have one, and conservatism has utterly failed. Pretending that Bush betrayed the principles, simply doesn't explain away the economic disaster or the bad foreign policy.

The party of dumb and dumber will continue to embrace stupid as a virtue. After 4 years of coherent responses to real problems they will again think ooohhh base ...let me see that worked before. Thank you Sarah for your blind ambition and lack of shame for doing for us what we have been hoping for for the last eight years.

Um, what did anyone expect Gingrich to say? He wants to run for President too. Is it beneficial to his amibition to sit there and say, oh God, Sarah Palin is absolutely the future of the GOP?

Men can appreciate Palin's looks and women can identify with her difficulties as a working mother. What does Gingrich have going for him?

For Palin to stay around, she'll have to prove she can walk and chew gum at the same time. When McCain crashed his campaign by selecting her, she was still in the late 'honeymoon phase' of her 1rst term. Record oil prices left her with a socialized windfall to distribute.

Now she's back to being Alaska's Governor, oil revenues are way down and what's been learned of her governing style is less than flattering. Things probably won't be so rosey for Palin from here on out. Alaskans may very well wonder if the time Caribou Barbie spent prancing on the national stage would have been better spent back home. This could cost her dearly and effectively pull the rug out from under her.

Men can appreciate Palin's looks

Sure, if you like hookers winkin' at cha. But that wouldn't be my first choice for a president.

Well, the head of the RNC has been renamed The Captian Edward Smith permanent chair, so, it is appropriate that the elephant be replaced with a polar bear and Sarah can shout, "I can see icebergs from my front porch, while she hums "Nearer my God to thee".

I'll take Dysfunctional Families for $300 Alex...

Meanwhile, the English Bulldog seizes the pitbull by the nape and refuses to let go:

Sullivan:

Her eldest son has a history of vandalism and was given a GED on the way to Iraq; her oldest daughter was removed from high school for a mysterious length of time last year and is now about to have a baby (due December 18, Palin told us); her youngest daughter, Piper, missed school all fall because she was being carted around the country in Neiman Marcus underwear. And the governor herself, of course, couldn't manage to stay in one college, graduated with a degree in sports journalism, cut her own town's library funds and leveraged the town's budget on a new sports stadium (with new house thrown in!).
Seriously: this woman is the future of Republicanism?

Only thing Andrew misses here is Piper's four-inch heels and Levi apparently going on the lam...

doesn't really matter - they're all a bunch of clowns...let them publicly claw each others' eyes out. If this is what's left of the republican party: palin, jindal, and including guiliani, romney, and huckabee, that bodes really well for Democrats to be up against such a cast of known misfits.

Forgive this grammatical digression, but ...

... but those with similar ambitions aren't going to just hand her the reins.

You spelled "reins" right! I swear, this is the first time in YEARS that I've seen "reins" NOT spelled "reigns" in the context of "means of control, as of a draft animal such as a horse."

Thank you.

There should be someone in the Democratic Party whose sole function is to keep Sarah Palin in the public eye, and make it seem like she is the leader of the Republican party. President Obama should go out of his way and antagonize her every few months on some issue of importance to Alaska. The people who support her will never support Obama, so its not like he will be losing any support.

If Palin does rise to the top it's a sign the business money that traditionally bankrolls the GOP has abandoned the party. Republicans are a top-down bunch, and all recent GOP presidential nominees (i.e. from Nixon '68 on) were vetted and chosen by the business wing.

Sarah is part of the trailer-trash crazies who are expected to vote for whoever the business types choose; if said crazies are allowed to promote one of their own (like Sarah), the business types will not only fail to support her, but probably work to undermine her.

Picking Sarah in '08 would be a sign that the GOP is embracing irrelevance. My guess is they won't do it, for two reasons:

1. The business wing will see she gets destroyed between now and then. The presidency is too important and too lucrative for the really rich types to risk it on a rube like Sarah.

2. I don't think she has the smarts to spearhead a successful multi-year presidential run. Obama made it look easy, but it isn't. There are minefields all along the way, entrenched and powerful figures to be pushed aside/co-opted, and most of all, the need for both luck and timing. Even if Sarah makes it past all the other stuff, she could simply end up being Mondale to Obama's Reagan.

The party of dumb and dumber will continue to embrace stupid as a virtue. Posted by: John R

Gringrich is counting on this, otherwise he's out of a "job."

What the hell does he do to earn a buck anyway?

The reason the Republican establishment will never embrace Sarah Palin is because she actually is one of the wingnuts. She's not Regan or Bush Sr. or Rove who cynically used the right to get elected. She's not Bush Jr. who came late to the evangelical world and still identifies more with his privilaged background and thinks in those terms. She's not Gingrinch who used right wing talking points to gain a Republican majority but never really planned to implement any of them.

She's not McCain or Schmidt who used allusions to Ayers and Muslims in a cynical manner to drive up Obama's negatives. McCain does not believe that Obama is a socialist. It was all just tactics to him.

Sarah Palin actually BELIEVED what she was saying. That's the difference. That's why she is still spouting off campaign talking points. She is a full-fledged member of the wingnut community. She believes Obama is a socialist who practices Islam and worked with Ayers to blow up the capital.

That's why the 'intellectual' wing of the party rejected her so completely. It's one thing for them to cynically use the Religious Right to garner votes and get elected. It is a far different matter to actually put one of them in a position of real power. The money people will not accept a zealot like Palin in power.

As I've said before, they would rather be ruled by someone with a brain in their head than a bible in their hand.

Read this article by Newt in the October 30 Business Week, "Let's end Adolescence":
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_45/b4107085289974.htm?chan=magazine+channel_opinion

I don't think that it was tongue in cheek, but with Newt how can you tell?

Zandru: You spelled "reins" right! I swear, this is the first time in YEARS that I've seen "reins" NOT spelled "reigns" in the context of "means of control, as of a draft animal such as a horse."

I had exactly the same response! Hooray for grammar! I put "reigns" up there with "reaching across the isle" and the classic: "you loose!"

Palin's 15 minutes are up. She has no depth of knowledge or gravitas on any issue and she isn't going to keep press attention by wagging on about William Ayres and Obama's inexperience. Her lack of interest in governing in her own state will become more evident. The bloom is off the Sitka Rose.

So, a Gingrich/Palin ticket in '12?

Gingrich for President is the perfect example that
moral hypocrisy is the rights' biggest failure, far above greed and need for power.

"Sure, if you like hookers winkin' at cha."

Leathery, daytime hookers at that.

What the hell does he do to earn a buck anyway?
Posted by: Jeff II

Have you never heard of Wingnut Welfare? Gingrich lies on behalf of corporate power, and is rewarded handsomely.

"She's not going to be the de facto leader."

What a pompous twat the man is. He speaks gibberish just like Palin, but his gibberish is grammatically correct.

Palin is as cynical as Gingrich. Gimme a break.

As liberals, we *must* support Palin standing as the GOP candidate in 2012 - surely she would present the best opportunity for another Obama term?