Palin Proves That "Mama Grizzly" Has Bite

GOP watch: Palin's mixed record
“If Sarah Palin, the former Alaska Governor, decides to run for president in 2012, she will now have plenty of help,” the New York Times writes, adding, “Ms. Palin was not on any ballot. But the self-described “Mama Grizzly” had plenty at stake on Tuesday night as she sought to bolster her credentials as the Republican Party’s Most Powerful Kingmaker and the voice of the newly empowered Tea Party movement. Ms. Palin had endorsed dozens of Candidates, including...

What's on Joe Miller's wishlist? Time.
(CNN) - Joe Miller wants more time for Alaska election officials to tabulate ther results of the hotly contested three-way Senate race in Alaska. The republican nominee for Alaska's Senate seat is urging caution and due diligence as all votes are counted in the race where he appears to be trailing Incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski. In an interview with CNN's Drew Griffin, Miller said, "We want to make sure the law is followed and that is something that hasn't been done in some cases up until...

Despite Mixed Record, Palin Declares Victory
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is, as usual, making waves with her Facebook page on Thursday, posting a web video that declares victory for the Candidates she endorsed this fall. From a macro and shallow perspective, Palin had a strong record this year. She endorsed 64 Candidates and, at this point, half have won (five races with Palin-backed Republicans are still Undecided). But a closer look at the video and Palin's actual Campaign schedule in the closing weeks of the Campaign undercuts those...

'Sorry, mom!' Bristol Palin didn't vote in election - but wants Sarah to run for president in 2012
Bristol Palin remembered her dance moves well enough to survive another round on "Dancing with the Stars," but she forgot to do her civic duty. Sarah Palin's daughter admitted Wednesday she didn't vote in the Midterm Elections. "I did not send in my Absentee Ballots to Alaska," Palin told Inside Edition. "I'm going to be in trouble. Sorry, mom!" And how. Sarah Palin's reputation as a Kingmaker is on the line in her home state because she is personally backing Tea Party favorite Joe Miller for...

Murkowski Write-In Ballot Count to Begin Wednesday in Alaska
It's not over in Alaska but Sen. Lisa Murkowski appears to be in the driver's seat as Election officials prepare to count Absentee Ballots and examine the all-important write-in votes that suggest the Incumbent came out ahead in a three-way contest for U.S. Senate. Murkowski told NBC's "Today" show Thursday her bid to make history as the first Senate write-in Candidate to win since 1954 is "not yet complete," but she feels good about where the race stands. "We are poised," she said. "Write-in" l...

Exclusive: Fox News Has No Plans To Hire Christine ODonnell As Contributor
The Midterms are over, and while the GOP regained control of the House, the coronation of the Tea Party movement is still up for debate. Sure, a number of Tea Party Candidates won their races, but perhaps the most visible — Delaware Senate Candidate Christine O’Donnell — suffered a rather significant defeat. So what’s next for Ms. O’Donnell? Some are suggesting that, not unlike her endorser Sarah Palin, a Fox News contributor-ship is just around the corner. Not so, ...

Palin celebrates Tuesday wins with web video release
Though she wasn’t on a ballot, Sarah Palin is one of the most talked-about political figures in the wake of Tuesday’s GOP wins. The chatter won’t stop today, as Palin released a web video this morning touting winning Candidates she backed. The polished video, a little over a minute long, features a Palin voiceover alongside pictures of Tea Partiers and newly elected Governors-elect Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez, Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Rand Paul of Ken...

Murkowski says she's poised to make history with write-in Senate campaign
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is confident about her write-in campaign for re-election, saying that while she is "not yet complete with making history," she is "poised and it feels good." In an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today," Murkowski criticized former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who rallied for the official GOP Senate nominee, Joe Miller. Murkowski said she would not support a presidential bid by Palin, whom she described as lacking "a worldly approach." Murkowsk...

Palin celebrates victories in web video
(CNN) - Look too quickly, and you'd think it was an early 2012 Presidential Campaign ad. But less than 24 hours after votes had been tallied in the Midterm Elections, Sarah Palin is out with a glossy Web video touting a string of victories Tuesday of GOP Candidates she backed this Election cycle. The more than 60-second spot, which was e-mailed to supporters Wednesday, features the voice of a Palin stump Speech amid images of several conservative Candidates who enjoyed the backing of Palin...

Tea Party Candidates Must Learn the Art of Fencing
Tea-Party favorite Christine O’ Donnell lost her bid to become Delaware’s newest senator by a whopping 16% margin. She lost it to a condescending, nasty fellow that nobody in Delaware actually likes very much. In Nevada, Sharron Angle — another Tea Party favorite — also lost, by a narrower margin, her Senate race against Harry Reid, a condescending, nasty fellow that nobody in Nevada actually likes at all. Angle ran against an established senator and lost by only 5%, ...

Tea partyers jockey for position in Satan's cauldron
Well, okay:  for position in Washington, DC. While the newcomers will be keeping an eye on the establishment, the Tea partiers who elected them will be keeping an eye on them. A handful of national groups, including FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots, plan to pay close attention to the way the new Congress, and its newest members, vote. Those who don't follow the principles of Limited Government and low taxes risk primary challenges in subsequent Elections, organizers said. In...

The Mama Grizzly Scorecard: Not That Great
Sarah Palin is deciding whether to be a queen or a queen maker, but the high profile races where she interjected didn’t do all that well for her. Palin will point to a positive win-loss record—49 of her 77 Candidates triumphed, (6 races had yet to be called by Wednesday morning.) But many of the highest-profile races, where she had loudly interjected herself, her Candidates—Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and John Raese in West Virginia—lost. The hig

Murkowski says she's poised to make history with write-in Senate campaign
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is confident about her write-in campaign for re-election, saying that while she is "not yet complete with making history," she is "poised and it feels good." In an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today," Murkowski criticized former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who rallied for the official GOP Senate nominee, Joe Miller. Murkowski said she would not support a presidential bid by Palin, whom she described as lacking "a worldly approach." Murkowsk...

Murkowski says she's poised to make history
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is confident about her write-in campaign for re-election, saying that while she is "not yet complete with making history," she is "poised and it feels good." In an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today," Murkowski criticized former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who rallied for the official GOP Senate nominee, Joe Miller. Murkowski said she would not support a presidential bid by Palin, whom she described as lacking "a worldly approach." Murkowski...

Palin takes victory lap
Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin is out with a new video Thursday touting the victories of her chosen Candidates – brushing aside the many that fell to defeat on Tuesday. “Across the country, everyday Americans are standing up and they’re speaking out,” Palin says in the video, titled "Together," that cuts between images of her winning Candidates and Tea Party Activists. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 “Based on what I’m seein...

Alaska plans faster count of write-in, absentee ballots in Senate race
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Even as Sen. Lisa Murkowski appeared to be ahead by a commanding margin as a write-in Candidate for re-election, her leading opponent said he was optimistic that he would ultimately win. Amid the mixed signals, Elections officials announced that they would begin manually verifying write-in Votes next week, sooner than they had initially planned. By Wednesday, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, the "Write-in Votes" category had 41 percent of the vote, compared with ...

God & Man; Great Morning Reading
On this cold rainy day: Start here, with Pat Gohn’s How To Grow a Priest. That’s a must-read. Swinging Catholics: and their effect on the election An insightful piece on Mad Men: The Fall of Don Draper Greatest Title Ever: How the Gray Lady became Margaret Dumont; and of course, a good piece, too! The Tea Party Must Learn to “Reagan” the Press: my own piece today at PJM. The Tea Party is off to a good start, but it needs to learn how some bladework, if they want to use...

Did Polls Underestimate Democrats' Latino Vote?
The two Senate races where the actual winner was different from the leader in our polling-based projections were Colorado and Nevada (it’s also probable that we’ll miss Lisa Murkowski’s victory in Alaska once all her write-in votes are — eventually — counted). The miss in Colorado wasn’t bad — our forecast had Michael Bennet as about a 1-point underdog, and he won by 1 point instead, although there are still a few votes left to count. In Nevada, howeve...

Did midterm elections lift Sarah Palin higher, or not? (The Christian Science Monitor)
A Day after Election 2010 one thing is clear: Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting former GOP vice-presidential Candidate, just raised the stakes for a Tea Party-flavored 2012 Presidential run that, let's face it, could start in a matter of months. To begin with, Ms. Palin's Endorsement win-loss record was 27-15 (with eight races still Undecided), coming amid a historic Republican Midterm sweep of a kind the Party hadn't enjoyed since the 1920s. Palin, who has become the "Mama grizz...

Sarah Smiles
Just a quick note on the left's current bete noire, Sarah Palin: She endorsed 43 House Candidates this time around, and 12 Senators. Of those she backed, 30 of the Representatives won, seven of the Senators, and nine of the House races are still Undecided. That puts her success rate at a minimum of 67% and a maximum of 84% (rounded off). True, a couple of her higher-profile Candidates lost, and it really doesn't look good for Joe Miller, but still... 67% minimum. Man, imagine what she'd be do...

Election night media metaphors include tsunamis, Dracula - Keach Hagey
MSNBC’s election coverage was led by a panel comprised mostly of its opinionated Prime-time hosts (Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, along with frequent contributor Eugene Robinson), with nary a conservative voice in the mix. In contrast, Fox News’s was provided by two anchors from its straight-news dayside, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier, along with a panel that included Conservatives like Karl Rove as well as Liberals like Juan Williams. Bil...

Mitch McConnell: GOP priority is to sabotage Obama presidency
If the priority of the Republican Party is to sabotage the Obama presidency, then America is in big trouble. Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Like a spoiled child holding their breath until they get their way, GOP Leader Senator Mitch McConnell does not feel that representing and serving the American People should be the go...

Revved-Up GOP Ponders 2012
At WSJ, "Palin's Viability as Presidential Front-Runner Is Closely Scrutinized; 'Ideas Are Going to Matter'": A revitalized Republican Party began looking toward the 2012 Presidential Election with renewed optimism about its prospects but uncertainty about who was best positioned to lead the charge. Republican Sarah Palin was drawing especially close scrutiny from some in the GOP for signs of her viability as front-runner. Ms. Palin emerged from Tuesday's Elections as a champion of the Tea part...

Sarah Palin Releases A New Video: Congratulations America!
Sarah Palin may not have convinced many people that she’s qualified to be president but there’s no question the woman could run a major media operation. Of course, one might argue that’s exactly what she’s been doing since quitting her job as Alaska’s Governor. Behold her latest offering. A new video from SarahPAC titled ‘Together’ featuring a slew of Tuesday’s big winners (and Palin Endorsements) including: Rand Paul , Marco Rubio , Nikki Haley ...

Sorry, mom! Bristol Palin didnt vote in election but wants Sarah to run for president in 2012
‘Sorry, mom!’ Bristol Palin didn’t vote in Election - but wants Sarah to run for president in 2012 S.E. Cupp’s Diary: Election Edition! Bristol Palin remembered her dance moves well enough to survive another round on “Dancing with the Stars,” but she forgot to do her civic duty. Sarah Palin’s daughter admitted Wednesday she didn’t vote in the Midterm Elections. “I did not send in my Absentee Ballots to Alaska,” Palin told Inside E...