Look out Washington, Sarah Palin is coming.

Palin will be the Republican speaker at the annual winter dinner of the Gridiron Club of journalists in Washington on Dec. 5.

“The governor is very excited and was honored to accept the invitation,” said her spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton.

The former Alaska governor, who rose to fame as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee last year, is about to go on a book tour to promote her memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Nathaniel Wilder (Palin talks to well-wishers in Fairbanks in July)

Pundits always use sports analogies for politics, we’re thinking of trying something different — a hair color analogy.

Virginia returned to its red roots tonight after an impetuous experiment last year with blue, the state’s political color of a generation ago.

OK maybe it doesn’t work as well. To put it more simply, the Republicans won the governor’s race in Virginia. That was in contrast to last year when Barack Obama captured the state which voted Democrat in a presidential election for the first time since 1964.

After Virginia was called, Republicans could not hide their glee, joy, smiley faces. And they were quick with reactions to Republican Bob McDonnell’s victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds.

Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele issued a statement and repeatedly went on CNN including on the “Larry King Live” show. “It sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president’s liberal agenda,” he said.

Then he boarded a plane for New Jersey. Hmmm is that a sign?

Democrats smiled and acted as if it were no big deal. Really. UNDERSTATED SHRUG. After all, they said, it’s the New Jersey governor’s race that means more because it’s a traditionally Democratic state.  And that race hasn’t been called yet.

Outgoing Virginia Governor Tim Kaine who is Democratic Party chairman also appeared on CNN and had this to say about the race to fill his old job.

“Creigh was the underdog candidate,” Kaine said. “But not every underdog wins.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Eric Gaillard (hostesses at Monte Carlo ball), Reuters/Hyungwon Kang (campaign signs in Virginia)

After catching the national media off guard with Friday’s pre-holiday weekend bombshell that she was resigning as Alaska governor, Sarah Palin gave the television networks a chance to catch up with a round of stage-managed interviews for the morning news shows.

Television correspondents lined up to land a few minutes with Palin, decked out in overalls and wading in the surf at husband Todd’s family fishing operation. With children in tow on the fishing trip/photo op, she explained her decision to bail out of office more than a year early.

It had nothing to do with running for president in 2012, she said. She’s just unconventional. Once she had decided she was not running for re-election, she knew she could not “play the political game that most politicians do,” she told NBC.

“That is who we are as Alaskans and it’s certainly who I am,” she told CNN. “I’m not going to take that comfortable path. I’m going to take the right path for the state.”

To ABC: “I’m extremely happy. Politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it.”

But in all the interviews, which included plenty of footage of Palin looking like the fisherwoman next door, she refused to close the door on a presidential run.

“I can’t predict what the next fish run is going to look like, much less the next few years,” she told NBC. To CNN: “All options are going to keep on being on the table.”

But she sounded like she had read some of the critical stories about her vice presidential run last year. Using a word critics sometimes use to describe her, she told NBC that having the kids work at the fishing operation “teaches these kids to work extremely hard and to not be divas.”

Palin’s round of interviews managed to top the round done by President Barack Obama, who has been talking non-stop during his visit to Moscow. In several interviews, Obama took pains to correct Vice President Joe Biden’s comment that the administration “misread” the economy.

 ”I would actually, rather than say misread — we had incomplete information,” Obama said on NBC. “In some ways you’re seeing the economic engine turn, but what we always knew was that a) this recession was going to be deep and b) it was going to last a while.”

 ”There’s nothing that we would have done differently,” he told ABC.

Obama even commented on Palin, saying he respected her comment the decision was a family matter. “She has a fairly loyal constituency in the Republican Party and the conservative movement,” he said on NBC.

As for the topic that dominated the morning news shows, singer Michael Jackson’s funeral, Obama had this to say about Jackson: “What I do believe is that black sports figures and black entertainers helped to create a comfort level with African-Americans that had an impact historically.”

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Photo credits: REUTERS/Tami Chappell (Palin waves to crowd at rally in Georgia in December); REUTERS/Jim Young (Obama delivers remarks at Moscow)

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford hurt many people when he spent the last weekend “crying in Argentina,” as he put it at a press conference yesterday.

There’s his family, of course, and his Republican Party, where he had emerged as a rising star.

But there is opportunity in every crisis, as Rahm Emanuel likes to say, and one man stands to benefit from Sanford’s downfall: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

Barbour took over as head of the Republican Governors Association yesterday after Sanford resigned the post. From this perch, he can burnish his credentials as a party leader and Washington outsider as he assesses a possible 2012 presidential bid.

Barbour, a former lobbyist, is a longtime party insider who headed the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997, a time when the party’s fortunes were rising.

He won high marks as governor for his response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, in contrast to the chaos in neighboring Louisiana and at the federal level.

He opposed taking federal stimulus money earlier this year for unemployment benefits, saying it would eventually force the state to raise taxes. That stance won praise from conservatives worried about runaway spending, though it probably made him less popular with those down on their luck.

Party insider Ron Kaufman said Barbour’s reputation for competence could help restore a tarnished Republican brand.

“He’s got a very loyal group of people and now he’s proven he can govern. He’s a serious player,” said Kaufman, an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2008.

“If the byword for the 2008 elections was change, then the byword for 2012 is competence,” Kaufman told Reuters.

photo credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Barbour at a dinner for the National Governors Association at the White House, Feb. 22)

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America may have a president and Congress that support abortion rights, but a new Gallup poll suggests that for the first time such a stance is not the majority view.

Gallup said on Friday that a new poll, conducted May 7 to 10, found "51 percent of Americans calling themselves 'pro-life' on the issue of abortion and 42 percent 'pro-choice.' This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995."

"The new results, obtained from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50 percent were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. Prior to now, the highest percentage identifying as pro-life was 46 percent, in both August 2001 and May 2002."

Underscoring how divisive the issue remains, the poll further found that 23 percent of Americans felt abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and 22 percent said it should be legal in all circumstances.

Still, it found that 53 percent held to a middle view -- that is should be legal in certain circumstances. That figure, Gallup said, has been steady since 1975.

A few other things stand out. The percentage of Republicans and those who lean to that party who lablel themselves "pro-life" rose by 10 percentage points over the past year to 70 percent. As there was essentially no shift among Democrats on this issue (33 percent said they were "pro-life," unchanged since last year) much of the shift clearly came from the Republican side. Does this suggest a hardening among the party faithful, whose numbers have also been in decline, in reaction to the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama?

Much of the opposition to abortion in America has been faith-based, led mostly though not exclusively by conservative Catholics and evangelicals. The latter in particular have for decades been a key base of support for the Republican Party.

There has been much recent talk among the media and Republican strategists that the party needs to move away from divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage in a bid to broaden a base which many see as shrinking. This poll will be ammunition for those who say the party needs to stick its guns on these issues.

The findings are sure to stir both sides of this emotional debate, especially as Obama seeks to fill a new vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, where the legality of issues such as abortion can ultimately be decided.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst - An anti-abortion protester holds a sign in front of the US Supreme Court building during the March for Life in Washington, D.C., January 22, 2009. 

Dan Quayle played golf in Arizona. Al Gore taught journalism in New York. But Dick Cheney is breaking with the tradition that former vice presidents quietly leave Washington and the public eye when they exit the White House. Even Cheney’s ex-boss, George W. Bush, has refrained from criticizing the Obama administration, saying the new team deserves his silence. But Cheney was positively gabby on a Sunday talk show.

While many in official Washington were recovering from Saturday evening’s White House Correspondents Association dinner — where President Barack Obama got off some memorable one-liners and comedian Wanda Sykes took aim at radio talk jock Rush Limbaugh, among others — Cheney gave a lengthy interview to “Face the Nation” on CBS television. The replay of clips from that chat were still reverberating on Monday’s morning shows on CNN, NBC and ABC.

On waterboarding terror suspects, which critics say doesn’t work in getting useful information — aside from it being torture — Cheney disagreed. “Khalid Shaikh Mohammed … an evil, evil man that’s been in our custody since March of ‘03 … did not cooperate fully in terms of interrogations until after waterboarding. Once we went through that process, he produced vast quantities of invaluable information about Al Qaeda.”

Any regrets about his time in the White House? “No regrets. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. I’m convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.”

What about the detention center at Guantanamo, which Obama has said will be closed within a year? “We had to have a place, a facility, where we could capture these people and hold them until they were no longer a danger to the United States … we released hundreds already of the less threatening types. About 12 percent of them, nonetheless, went back onto the fight as terrorists. The group that’s left, the 245 or so, these are the worst of the worst.”

And what about Cheney’s Republican Party, now dealing with the defection of high-profile Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania? Should it move to the left to broaden its appeal to voters? “We are what we are. We’re Republicans … I think we win elections when we have good solid conservative principles to run upon and base our policies on those principles.”

If he had to choose between Rush Limbaugh and Colin Powell — the former Secretary of State and former head of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff — Cheney said he’d pick Limbaugh.

“Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.”

Does any of this matter? After all, Cheney is no longer in government. You tell us: should Cheney continue to speak out or does he owe the Obama administration his silence in its early months?

Photo credit: REUTERS/Mitch Dumke (file photo of former Vice President Dick Cheney, October 15, 2008, Washington DC)

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama has yet to turn around the troubled U.S. economy, but American voters have confidence in his efforts and see him headed in the right direction.

Those are among the findings of a survey released on Tuesday that also showed Americans have greater confidence in Obama’s fellow Democrats than they do in rival Republicans.
 
The survey, however, had some troublesome numbers for the Democrats’ third-highest ranking elected official — House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
 
Just 26 percent of respondents said they had a “great deal” or “some” trust in the California Democrat, who stands second in the line of succession to Obama, behind only Vice President Joe Biden.
 
The poll found that more respondents, 38 percent and 28 percent, respectively, had such a level of trust in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the failed 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, and conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, respectively.
 
The Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO nationwide survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted March 27-31 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
 
The poll found that 66 percent of respondents said they have a “great deal” or “some” trust in Obama, who has battled Republicans as well as some Democrats in the U.S. Congress, largely over fiscal policy, since taking office on January 20.
 
The survey found that 52 percent of respondents have a “great deal” or “some” trust in Democrats, while just 40 percent have such a level of confidence in Republicans, who vigorously opposed Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package and $3.5 trillion budget plan.
 
The survey found with Obama at the helm, 54 percent of respondents said they believe that the U.S. government is headed in the right direction, up from 35 percent in December before the new president took office.
 
Obama, in a speech on Tuesday in Washington, said there were signs of economic recovery but cautioned “by no means are we out of the woods just yet.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing - U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the economy at Gaston Hall at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 2009.

Republican U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, 79, of Pennsylvania appears to face a tough run next year for reelection to a sixth term.
    
And he can blame his problems largely on his decision last month to break ranks with fellow Republicans and vote for President Barack Obama’s $787 economic stimulus package.
    
Those are the findings of a Quinnipiac University poll of about 1,000 Pennsylvania voters released on Wednesday.
 
The Connecticut-based university found that Specter, viewed as a moderate, trails former conservative congressman Pat Toomey, his likely Republican primary challenger, by a margin of 41 percent to 27 percent. Specter narrowly defeated Toomey in a 2004 primary battle.
 
Another and somewhat smaller poll by Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania was a mixed bag for Specter.
 
While the survey showed Specter leading Toomey 33 percent to 18 percent, it found that 49 percent of respondents were undecided or favored others.
    
That survey of 662 people also found that less than half — 40 percent — believe Specter deserves another term, with 46 percent saying it is “time for a change.”
    
The Quinnipiac survey showed Democrats and independents backed Specter’s support of Obama’s stimulus package. But Republicans opposed it — 70 percent to 25 percent.
 
Both surveys were conducted in recent days and had a margin of error between plus or minus of three to four percentage points.
 
“Pennsylvania Republicans are so unhappy with Sen. Specter’s vote for President Barack Obama’s stimulus package and so-called pork barrel spending that they are voting for a former congressman they hardly know,” said Clay Richards, assistant director of Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
 
Richards added, however, if Specter survives the primary, he would have a lot going for him in the general election since there currently seems to be no strong Democratic contender.
 
But Specter faces other problems.
 
He stepped into a political hornet’s nest on Tuesday when he opposed a bill to make it easier for workers to unionize, a top legislative goal of organized labor but anathema to many in the business community and his own party.
 
So if Specter wins the Republican primary, he can expect to be opposed by energized union supporters in the general election. 
 
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Photo by Johathan Ernst (Specter and other senators speak about President Obama’s stimulus package with reporters in Washington in February)

Republican U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, 79, of Pennsylvania appears to face a tough run next year for reelection to a sixth term.
 
And he can blame his problems largely on his decision last month to break ranks with fellow Republicans and vote for President Barack Obama’s $787 economic stimulus package.
    
Those are the findings of a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.
 
The Connecticut-based university found that Specter, viewed as a moderate, trails former conservative congressman Pat Toomey, his likely Republican primary challenger, by a margin of 41 percent to 27 percent. Specter narrowly defeated Toomey in a 2004 primary battle.

Another and somewhat smaller poll by Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania was a mixed bag for Specter.
 
While the survey showed Specter leading Toomey 33 percent to 18 percent, it found that 49 percent of respondents were undecided or favored others. 

That survey of 662 people also found that less than half — 40 percent — believe Specter deserves another term, with 46 percent saying it is “time for a change.”
    
The Quinnipiac survey showed Democrats and independents backed Specter’s support of Obama’s stimulus package. But Republicans opposed it — 70 percent to 25 percent.

Both surveys were conducted in recent days and had a margin of error between plus or minus of three to four percentage points. 

“Pennsylvania Republicans are so unhappy with Sen. Specter’s vote for President Barack Obama’s stimulus package and so-called pork barrel spending that they are voting for a former congressman they hardly know,” said Clay Richards, assistant director of Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
 
Richards added, however, if Specter survives the primary, he would have a lot going for him in the general election since there currently seems to be no strong Democratic contender.
 
But Specter faces other problems.
 
He stepped into a political hornet’s nest on Tuesday when he opposed a bill to make it easier for workers to unionize, a top legislative goal of organized labor but anathema to many in the business community and his own party.
 
So if Specter wins the Republican primary, he can expect to be opposed by energized union supporters in the general election.

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Reuters photo by Jonathan Ernst. (Specter and other senators talk to reporters about President Obama’s stimulus bill in Washington in February)

WASHINGTON - Democratic President Barack Obama finally won broad bipartisan support on Wednesday in the often bitterly divided U.S. House of Representatives. All it took was a call for Americans to help each other — and the memory of Sept. 11.
 
On a 321-105 vote, the House passed and sent on to the Senate an Obama-backed bill that seeks to expand volunteerism.
 
The proposed GIVE Act — Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education — would also urge Americans to recognize Sept. 11 as a national day of service as well as remembrance.
 
“Establishing 9/11 as a national day of service would ensure that the lives of those lost are forever remembered,” said David Paine of MyGoodDeed.org, a nonprofit created by family members of 9/11 victims.
 
House Republicans have opposed a number of the president’s initiatives including his $787 billion stimulus package, but many rallied in support of this one.
 
The measure comes in response to Obama’s call to Congress last month to pass a bill that will provide Americans with more chances to serve their communities.
 
The House-passed bill would create volunteer opportunities for Americans ranging from school children and retirees to military veterans.
 
“President Obama has renewed the spirit of a practice in our country that is as old as the union itself — the call to public service,” said Democratic Representative Carolyn McCarthy, sponsor of the bill.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Obama gives his primetime address to a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives in February)