In a rather bizarre, rambling announcement speech last summer, Sarah Palin announced she was resigning her position as governor of Alaska after just two years in office. She was doing it, she said, for Alaska.
Rather than take “the quitter’s way out” of hunkering down and plodding through her duties, she said, she had decided to take another course, “to build UP this state and our country, and her industrious, generous, patriotic, free people!” She wouldn’t go with the flow, because “only dead fish ‘go with the flow’.”
In reality, as a new story in New York magazine documents, Palin did it for the money, and it lays out a pretty good case that the decision was the right one:
“The numbers are staggering. Over the past year, Palin has amassed a $12 million fortune and shows no sign of slowing down. Her memoir has so far sold more than 2.2 million copies, and Palin is planning a second book with HarperCollins. This January, she signed a three-year contributor deal with Fox News worth $1 million a year, according to people familiar with the deal. In March, Palin and Burnett sold her cable show to TLC for a reported $1 million per episode, of which Palin is said to take in about $250,000 for each of the eight installments.”
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with making money, and these days there’s no more American way to make money than to cash in on your celebrity, whether you acquired it by having eight children, playing golf better than anyone on the planet, sleeping with the guy who plays golf better than anyone on the planet or running for vice president.
Reading the “New York” piece, you get the sense that Palin probably won’t be making a serious bid for the presidency because in an odd way she has become bigger than all that. She is a brand, and the confines and demands of a presidential campaign wouldn’t allow Sarah to be Sarah.
“Running for president is no doubt part of her business model,” Gabriel Sherman writes. “But forget elections (as many Palin supporters already seem to have done); she’s already the president of an alternative America — and also its CEO.”
324 comments Add your comment
jewcowboy
April 26th, 2010
7:19 pm
mike,
“I can make any kind of hateful comment I want and be justified as long as somebody I never met who also happens to be a liberal made a similar comment.”
Umm…where is my hateful comment about Bristol Palin?
jewcowboy
April 26th, 2010
7:20 pm
mike,
And is it true you used to work for the AJC?
josef nix
April 26th, 2010
7:22 pm
jewcowboy
“And is it true you used to work for the AJC?”
He still does. He’s a Bruin plant just to keep things hopping!
mike
April 26th, 2010
7:30 pm
jewcowboy –
Actually, pretty much all of the posts that you put up over your afternoon attacking a teenage girl who got pregnant were hateful.
You would never make fun of a pregnant teenage girl unless you were driven by hate. Sorry that you are too removed from civil society to understand that, but that’s the way it is in the real world.
But enough of your silly diversion. Can you explain the relevance of the comments from Limbaugh and McCain? Your point seems to be that boorish behavior on your part is acceptable because those two are boors too. So great. You are as boorish as Rush Limbaugh. As I said before, whoopee.
Your exisitence makes me sad. It seems to be dedicated to hatred of people you have never met. Lame.
mike
April 26th, 2010
7:32 pm
“He still does. He’s a Bruin plant just to keep things hopping!”
Uneccessary. jewcowboy can be counted on to turn hundreds of page views a day by himself. What else would he be doing? Spending time with friends? Volunteering in his community? Enjoying life.
Nah. He is going to be here talking about Levi Johnston or some other meaningless subject every single day for hours without fail. Lame.
jewcowboy
April 26th, 2010
7:34 pm
mike,
“Actually, pretty much all of the posts that you put up over your afternoon attacking a teenage girl who got pregnant were hateful.”
Please point out which ones…and did you work for the AJC?
Keep up the good fight!
April 26th, 2010
7:36 pm
mike, a very sorry attack….as jewcowboy posted…when Bristol became a national spokesperson as an adult and states what she proclaims to be an opinion others should listen to, then she is fair for criticism. She is not a child. She is now an adult and beign paid for her work. She wants to influence others, then she is subject to critique. Its not hatred to point out her hypocrisy.
If she were an 11 year old and a private person not seeking to be a public figure, then the assessment changes but she is not is she?
josef nix
April 26th, 2010
7:47 pm
“Nah. He is going to be here talking about Levi Johnston or some other meaningless subject every single day for hours without fail. Lame.”
No, no,,,you left off the accent…lamé
Okay, okay, just trying to be funny….
jewcowboy
April 26th, 2010
7:56 pm
josef nix,
“No, no,,,you left off the accent…lamé”
Yep that’s me…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3vfgraSPEE
mike
April 26th, 2010
8:14 pm
“good fight” -
“when Bristol became a national spokesperson as an adult and states what she proclaims to be an opinion others should listen to, then she is fair for criticism”
Even if it was true that her daring to be a public person means that she deserves to be mocked by partisan haters like jewcowboy, she was the subject of mocking from hateful liberals from the day that word of her pregnancy came out.
And yes it is all about hate. Let me explain:
1) jewcowboy hates people who don’t share his narrow minded views
2) Sarah Palin does not share jewcowboy’s narrow minded view.
3) jewcowboy hates Sarah Palin and because his intolerant hatred for those who dont share his views overrides any sense of basic civility, he enjoys mocking her children.
The best part is that jewcowboy thinks the he is the tolerant one. LOL
mike
April 26th, 2010
8:17 pm
I love the rationale of the folks on the left here:
“She has spoken publicly, so she deserves my utter contempt”.
Of course, these are the same hypocrites who think that any criticism of the President is a sure sign of racism. I guess Obama is not a public figure who “is fair for criticism”. The hypocrisy is laughable.
josef nix
April 26th, 2010
8:21 pm
jewcowboy
jewcowboy
April 26th, 2010
8:21 pm
mike,
“The best part is that jewcowboy thinks the he is the tolerant one. LOL”
No mike, for the last time, you cannot have my number. It’s not you, I swear. You’re a great guy, really. These things happen. In time you’ll meet someone, I’m sure of it.
Atlanta 1
April 26th, 2010
8:23 pm
In a CBS poll, just 21 percent wanted Palin to run; 71 percent did not. Even among Republicans, 56 percent did not want her to run. Just 30 percent did.
As a politician, she has no broad base of support. As a celebrity, she has exactly what she needs to make a lot of money, which is a very intense if relatively small segment of fans
But yet, here you are writing about her. And your not alone. This woman is attacked on a weekly basis. What is it about this woman that liberals find such a threat? Look how many times she was attacked in this blog alone.
And for the record. I am an independant and would never vote for her. However, it is clear that she has struck a nerve. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that she is outspoken and dares to take on the ‘politcally correct’ in this country unravels the nerves.
Let me help you all out. It doesn’t matter if you are on the left or the right today. What matters is if you are fiscally careful (note I did not say conservative). The party that convinces the American public that they will reel in the spending and not increase taxes wins. And it will NOT be close.
Don
April 26th, 2010
8:28 pm
Democrats aren’t scared of Palin – if she ran, she’d be the best thing FOR the democrats.
Laurie Davis
April 26th, 2010
8:38 pm
New York magazine discovers that Sarah Palin is making a lot of money, and dutifully quotes Kathy Griffin date/nude model/ne’er-do-well Levi Johnson.
The figures: “The numbers are staggering. Over the past year, Palin has amassed a $12 million fortune and shows no sign of slowing down. Her memoir has so far sold more than 2.2 million copies, and Palin is planning a second book with HarperCollins. This January, she signed a three-year contributor deal with Fox News worth $1 million a year, according to people familiar with the deal. In March, Palin and Burnett sold her cable show to TLC for a reported $1 million per episode, of which Palin is said to take in about $250,000 for each of the eight installments.”
Noel Sheppard, writing at NewsBusters, notes that the article probably shocks some New York Times readers by saying some nice things about Palin: “Sherman had some remarkably positive things to say about Palin likely to the dismay of his largely New York City-based readership: “Though Palin may not like it, she makes money for Democrats and Republicans alike. Across the political spectrum, Palin is a ratings magnet. Whenever she appears on Fox News, ratings tick up by 10 to 15 percent. At MSNBC, she’s also a ratings phenomenon, albeit with opposite adjectives. Tina Fey’s reprisal of her Palin character in early April juiced Saturday Night Live’s ratings, beating prime-time programming, a rare feat. Online, right-wing sites like the Drudge Report frequently plug Palin headlines, while Palin’s presence at liberal outlets like the Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo routinely sparks hundreds of reader comments. During the campaign, people said she could be another Oprah, but now, in many ways, she’s bigger than Oprah, an empath for people who feel, rightly or wrongly, that America has forgotten them. “People are drawn to her,” says Fox News programming chief Bill Shine. “People look at her and say, ‘She has a bunch of the same troubles I do, there’s a mom who’s there changing diapers.’ Bigger than Oprah? Not what you would expect from New York Magazine, is it?”
Ian Lazaran, writing at Conservatives 4Palin, tries to lay out how Palin can make a lot of money and have folks still applaud when she jabs at ‘elites’: “That the left believes in this narrative shows how poorly they understand how conservatives/Republicans view wealth/money as opposed to elitism. The left is conflating wealth/money with elitism. No populist-leaning conservative/Republicans has any issue with wealth or money that is earned through the free market. Governor Palin has never criticized anyone for making too much money through the free market. In fact, one reason why conservatives and Republicans so aggressively support tax cuts for even the wealthiest Americans is that those who have excelled through the free market should not be punished for their success. What conservatives and Republicans like Governor Palin don’t support is elitism, which is the idea that someone with a particular educational background or a person who comes from a high social class is inherently graced with superior ideas and qualifications. Liberals like Sherman fail to understand the distinction between money/wealth and elitism. The former is something that conservatives and Republicans like Palin applaud. The latter is something that we denounce.”
Something I would note – the very top of the heap in the punditry/talking head world has become amazingly lucrative. (Speaking from the lower rungs, I can tell you, when it trickles down, it’s almost an actual trickle.) According to Forbes, Glenn Beck Inc. made $31 million last year, and only $2 million of that was from his Fox News television show. In some ways, this is good; if these folks can get network executives, publishers, and other media leaders with money to sign the big paychecks, they’ve earned them, and they ensure that no one who enthralls the conservative base will have to worry about money.
But perhaps the Palin precedent is a little worrisome in that private life is now so much more appealing and exponentially more lucrative than working in government and trying to change policies. When the next conservative rising star appears in a governorship, or in the Senate – hey look, Scott Brown has a book deal! – or in a state legislature or some other part of public life, the option of television punditry and paid-speech tours will look much, much more attractive than the hard slog of staying in public office and actually achieving things. Even the job of POTUS “only” pays $400,000 per year, but the perks are pretty good, considering you live in public housing.
The political world is already a playground for millionaires, and those few politicians earning “only” the modest six figures probably look on in envy at the millionaires and billionaires who surround them. When you look at the life of a person outside the system, but who retains enormous political influence – i.e. Palin – why would you want the grief that comes from being president or governor?
Jay
April 26th, 2010
8:45 pm
I’ll confess to being puzzled by so many complaints from those on the right about any notice of Sarah Palin’s existence. Whatever else she may or may not be, she is certainly a prominent figure on the cultural landscape. Yet in the mind of some it is off-limits to even raise the topic.
theyeshaveit
April 26th, 2010
8:48 pm
Run Sarah, Run! Please? It would so much more fun. Sarah is no danger to the Democratic Party (although she may well prove to be a danger to a democratic way of life). On the other hand, she would be a provocative and exciting danger to the Republican Party. I would love to see Sarah run. Can you imagine an almost Miss Alaska bathing beauty as president? Princess Madeleine, eat your heart out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSdFIDygFwM
theyeshaveit
April 26th, 2010
8:52 pm
I’d like to see Sarah on a box of Wheaties.
jewcowboy
April 26th, 2010
8:54 pm
theyeshaveit,
“Run Sarah, Run!”
Scott Brown could be her running mate.
stuart smalley
April 26th, 2010
9:00 pm
I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with.
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Brett
April 27th, 2010
4:02 pm
The intellectual acumen of the GOP.