Saturday, September 18, 2010

Moose Tracks Of Clay, Part 2

I'm thinking if Sarah Palin really is serious about running in 2012, treating Iowa like a particularly amusing book tour stop and playing "will she, won't she" with reporters isn't going to help her very much.

Republicans in Iowa, as in many places these days, believe they are on the cusp of resurgence. The party is hoping to take back the governor’s office, which 12 years ago Democrats won for the first time in a generation.

It is the season when candidates — and their events — are everywhere, but Ms. Palin spent little of her time with them. She did not appear at a rally, impromptu campaign stop or closed-door one-on-one meetings with party activists. The few Republicans who did get a moment of private time with her had to wait in a photo line at a small reception.

When politicians accept speech invitations at party occasions, particularly outings like the annual Ronald Reagan Dinner, they often do a host of behind-the-scenes events. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. But Ms. Palin declined to do any additional appearances. Instead, she went for a run.

The reception Ms. Palin received on Friday evening from a crowd of 1,500 people was enthusiastic and polite. She was greeted and sent on her way with standing ovations. But she did not carry the crowd with her through the entire 33-minute speech. When she talked about the beauty of the Tea Party movement, the party activists in the room barely responded.

There are few more sophisticated or demanding political audiences than in Iowa or New Hampshire, where the road to the White House traditionally begins. It is often not the speeches that are most remembered, but rather the face-to-face time where a voter can shake a visiting candidate’s hand, ask a question and get a gut-level feeling about whether he — or she — would make a good president.

This is why many Republicans are not at all convinced that Ms. Palin is running. Whether she should is a subject many Iowans politely declined to discuss, but there was widespread agreement that should she decide to, she would have to do it the Iowa way. 

The problem is that Sarah Palin wants to do things her way, and is insisting that the rest of the Republican Party plays catch up to where she's going.  This "too cool for school" attitude and rock star "famous for being famous" stuff may play to the FOX News crowd, but Iowans aren't stupid.  They expect, if not demand, a certain amount of respect for their role in picking Presidential nominees.  Ask Barack Obama, for instance, what paying attention to Iowa can do for your run to the White House.

Sarah Palin, for all her talk that she's all for "Real America" and that liberals treat Iowa like "flyover country" that doesn't matter, well, blowing off the state's GOP apparatus to go jogging will be quite memorable in a bad way.

She's beginning to believe her own FOX News press.  That's a mistake.

Well, She Could Probably Take Edward In A Fight

This made me giggle for ten minutes.

Full version of the video:




Brilliant stuff.

Quitters Never Win, Winners Never Quit

Unless you're Sarah Palin, then all bets are off.

Sarah Palin may be edging closer to a 2012 presidential run, telling Fox News "I would give it a shot" if the American people think she's "the one."

The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee was in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday for the Reagan Dinner, a big GOP fundraiser in the heart of water-testing country for presidential candidates. 

Palin has remained coy about her ambitions, but she elaborated a bit in an interview with Fox News, attaching several conditions to the possibility of a 2012 presidential run.

"If the American people were to be ready for someone who is willing to shake it up, and willing to get back to time-tested truths, and help lead our country towards a more prosperous and safe future and if they happen to think I was the one, if it were best for my family and for our country, of course I would give it a shot," she said.

"But I'm not saying that it's me. I know I can certainly make a difference without having a title. I'm having a good time doing exactly that right now."

Raise your hand if you think Snowmobile Snooki here isn't running for 2012.  Yeah, right.  Didn't think so.

She has been since November 2008, folks.  It's going to be fun for the whole family.

This Week's Busted Banks

We've hit the 125 mark on the way to eclipsing last year's 140 as more and more community banks are collapsing across the country.

Banks in Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin were closed by regulators, according to statements posted yesterday on the website of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was named receiver. This week’s failures cost the agency’s deposit- insurance fund $347.6 million.

“Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship in order to retain their deposit insurance coverage,” the FDIC said in each of the statements.

Banks are failing at a faster pace than last year, which saw the most failures since 1992, as real estate values remain depressed and economic recovery stays sluggish. Regulators closed 140 banks last year. The FDIC’s list of “problem” banks climbed to 829 lenders with $403 billion in assets at the end of the second quarter, a 7 percent increase from the 775 on the list in the first quarter, the FDIC said last month. 

We've seen 280 banks fail during this Great Recession.  Odds are pretty good we'll see 300 soon, possibly 350 before the end of the year.  There will be more bank failures in 2011 as commercial real estate continues to collapse, office space remains unsold, and business loans are defaulted upon.  The era of the local, commercial bank is ending right before our eyes, replaced by Too Big To Fail.

That's a damn shame.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!