show of support that We Americans are behind her.
Sarah Palin’s Book Tour Heavy On The Battleground States
Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue Book Tour will take the 2008 vice presidential candidate to some key political battleground states, including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri, Minnesota and Iowa. Kathy Kiely and Bob Minzesheimer, writing for USA Today, opine that the former governor’s road trip which begins next week “looks more like a whistle-stop campaign” than a book tour:
Of 20 stops that have been announced through Dec. 7, only nine are in counties where Republican John McCain beat Democrat Barack Obama in last year’s presidential election.
“Publishing a book is like a political campaign,” said Peter Osnos, who has published a number of well-known politicians’ books through his imprint, Public Affairs. “She is going to go out there and stump for it.”
Osnos points out there’s a precedent for politicians using book tours as launching pads. The publicity tour for Obama’s second book, Audacity of Hope, “became a huge part of his political ascendancy,” Osnos said.
Like everything Sarah Palin does, her book tour will be unconventional. None of the interviews she has scheduled to promote her memoir are with print publications, and none of the stops for book signings on her tour will be in big cities:
Instead, the former Alaska governor will hit small- and medium-size cities starting Wednesday, mostly in the South and Midwest. She’ll be making two and sometimes three stops a day, traveling in a bus painted with the cover of her book, says Tina Andreadis, a spokeswoman for HarperCollins, Palin’s publisher.
“These are the places where she had her biggest fans and where we think we will sell the most books,” Andreadis said.
And sell books she will. Going Rogue is #2 on Amazon.com’s Bestsellers list behind only Stephen King’s new blockbuster, and it has been in the top 100 for 43 days based solely on pre-release sales. Publisher HarperCollins has ordered a first printing of 1.5 million copies.
Sarah Palin will be making some big city appearances to promote her book, however. She will hit the television studios of Fox News and ABC in News York for major interviews, and her first in the series of interviews will be in Chicago for the Oprah show. Also, former Gov. Palin will venture inside Washington D.C.’s Beltway to speak to the Gridiron Club early in December.
Our updated Going Rogue Book Tour schedule is here.
The Sarah Palin Going Rogue Book Tour Schedule (Updated)
Still a work in progress, as HarperCollins is filling in the blanks, but here’s what we have so far:
11/18: Grand Rapids, MI – Barnes & Noble, Woodland Mall, 3670 28th St SE, Kentwood, 6 PM (Link)
11/19: Fort Wayne, IN – Meijer – 10301 Maysville Rd, Fort Wayne, 12 Noon (Link)
11/19: Noblesville, IN – Borders Books and Music, 13145 Levinson Lane, 6 PM (Link)
11/20: Cincinnati, OH – Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 2692 Madison Rd, Norwood, 12 Noon (Link)
11/20: Columbus, OH – Borders Books and Music, 6670 Sawmill Road, 6 PM (Link)
11/21: Washington, PA – Sam’s Club, 80 Trinity Point Drive, South Strabane, 11 AM (Link)
11/21: Rochester, NY – Borders Books and Music, 1000 Hylan Drive, Henrietta, 6 PM (Link)
11/22: Roanoke, VA – Barnes & Noble, 4811 Valley View Blvd N NW, Valley View Mall 11 AM, (Link)
11/23: Fort Bragg, NC – AAFES Post Exchange, Bldg. #8-5050 Butner Rd, North Post Mall 11 AM (Link)
11/23: Birmingham, AL – Books-A-Million, 757 Brookwood Village, Birmingham, 4:30 PM (Link)
11/24: Jacksonville, FL – Books-A-Million, 1910 Wells Road, Orange Park, 9 AM (Link)
11/24: The Villages, FL – Barnes & Noble, 1055 Old Camp Road, Lake Sumter Mkt Sq, 2:30 PM (Link)
11/24: Orlando, FL – Barnes & Noble, Colonial Plaza, 2418 East Colonial Drive, 7:30 PM (Link)
11/26 – 11/29: Thanksgiving Break
12/01: Roswell, NM – Hastings Books Music & Videos, 1705 N Main St, Roswell, NM, 7 PM
12/02: Springfield, MO – Borders Books and Music, 3300 S. Glenstone Ave (Link)
12/03: Fayetteville, AR – Sam’s Club, 3081 North Highway 112 at I-540, exit 66 (Link)
12/03: Norman, OK – Hastings Books Music & Videos, 2300 W Main St, Norman, OK, 7 PM (Link)
12/04: Fort Hood, TX, Place and time TBA (Link)
12/04: Dallas, TX – Legacy Books, 7300 Dallas Parkway, Plano, 11AM – 2 PM, (Link)
12/06: Sioux City, IA – Barnes & Noble, Southern Hills Mall, 4400 Sergeant Rd, 1PM (Link)
12/06: Sioux Falls, SD – Barnes & Noble, 3700 West 41st St, Sioux Falls, 5PM (Link)
12/07: Bloomington, MN – Barnes & Noble, 118 East Broadway Suite 238, Mall of America, 7 PM (Link)
12/10: Coeur d’Alene, ID – Fred Meyer, 560 W Kathleen Ave, (208) 665-4703 (Link)
Possible:
Albuquerque, NM (Link)
Phoenix, NM
Redding, CA
Billings, MT
Anchorage, AK
This post will be continuously updated as more locations and venues are announced.
You can order sarah palin’s Book Going Rogue from Amazon by clicking here and Save 50% of Original Book Price
Sarah Palin’s new memoir provides heart-wrenching anguish about her teen daughter’s pregnancy playing out before a national audience. But the 413-page tome doesn’t contain a single reference to the father of her granddaughter, soon-to-be Playgirl model Levi Johnston.
Going Rouge
In “Going Rogue,” which will be released Tuesday, Sarah Palin also laments about everyone in her entourage being forced to wear fancy clothes she couldn’t afford — preferring simpler, cheaper garb. But it’s as if Johnston, who was among those hastily spiffed up to appear at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, had never left Wasilla.
The tactic does appear to have merit; Johnston, who has sparred repeatedly with his former mother-in-law-to-be, continues to warn that she should leave him alone, or he might dish some serious dirt that “will hurt her.”
While the book — which contains 68 color photos but no index — stays away from Johnston, the former vice presidential candidate digs in when it comes to those who ran Sen. John McCain’s campaign.
Confirming that there was substantial tension between her advisers and McCain’s, Sarah Palin bitterly details how she was prevented from delivering a concession speech on election night, how she’d been kept “bottled up” from reporters during the campaign and prevented in many ways from just being herself. She also contends she was prepped to give non-answers during her debate with Joe Biden.
The book, which has a first printing of 1.5 million copies, has been at or near the top of Amazon.com and other best-seller lists for weeks, ever since publisher HarperCollins announced it had been completed ahead of schedule and moved its release date up from next spring. The Associated Press was able to purchase a copy Thursday.
While the book follows her life from birth in Sandpoint, Idaho, to wondering about the next stop in her future, Sarah Palin, who received an advance of at least $1.25 million, saves her strongest words for run-ins with McCain staffers and her widely-panned interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric.
She describes Couric as condescending, biased and “badgering.” She contends the anchor chose “gotcha” moments while leaving the candidate’s more substantive remarks on the cutting room floor.
Sarah Palin takes another dig at Couric while asserting her expertise on energy matters. She writes that she was shocked Couric had asked her which newspapers and magazines she read; given what she called Couric’s lack of knowledge about energy issues, Sarah Palin wondered whether she should have asked the news anchor what she read.
The closest Sarah Palin comes to naming names occurs in the passages about chief McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. Quoting another campaign official, she writes that Schmidt felt she wasn’t preparing enough on policy matters and even wondered if she was suffering from postpartum depression following the April 2008 birth of her son Trig, who has Down Syndrome.
She says Schmidt also was upset if anyone in her personal circle tried to correct — without approval from the McCain camp — what they perceived to be incorrect portrayals of Sarah Palin’s record as Alaska governor.
Sarah Palin comes across as particularly upset about being stuck with $50,000 in legal bills that she says were directly related to the legal vetting process for the VP slot. She says nobody ever informed her that she would have to personally take care of expenses related to the selection process, and jokes that if she’d known she was going to get stuck with the bill, she would have given shorter responses.
According to the book, Sarah Palin asked officials at the Republican National Committee and what was left of the McCain campaign if they would help her financially. She says she was told that if McCain had won, the bills would have been paid, but since he lost, the bills were her responsibility.
Trevor Potter, the McCain campaign’s general counsel, told the AP the campaign never asked Sarah Palin to pay a legal bill.
“To my knowledge, the campaign never billed Gov. Sarah Palin for any legal expenses related to her vetting and I am not aware of her ever asking the campaign to pay legal expenses that her own lawyers incurred for the vetting process,” Potter said.
If Sarah Palin’s lawyer billed her for work related to her vetting, the McCain campaign never knew about it, Potter said.
Written with Lynn Vincent, “Going Rogue” is folksy in tone and homespun. For example, Sarah Palin says her efforts to award a license for a massive natural gas transmission line was turning a pipe dream into a pipeline. She writes in awe about how the McCain campaign had hired a New York stylist who also had worked with Couric.
Taken aback by the fussing, she wondered who was paying for the $150,000 worth of clothes the campaign gave to her and her family. Also, Sarah Palin did not like the forced makeover and said she wondered at the time if she and her clan came across as “that” unpresentable.
Family members were told the costs were being taken care of, or were “part of the convention.” The designer clothing, hairstyling and accessories later grew into a controversy.
Sarah Palin shares behind-the-scene moments when the nation learned her teen daughter Bristol was pregnant, how she rewrote the statement prepared for her by the McCain campaign — only to watch in horror as a TV news anchor read the original McCain camp statement, which, in Sarah Palin’s view, glamorized and endorsed her daughter’s situation.
She writes that the incident made it clear to her that McCain headquarters was in charge of her message. She said when she tried to find out what the McCain camp would and would not allow her to say, Schmidt told her to simply “stick with the script.”
Sarah Palin laments that she wasn’t allowed to bring up loads of family members to the stage while McCain gave his election night concession speech, having found out minutes earlier that she wouldn’t be permitted to give her own speech.
Interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters will be televised next week in conjunction with the book’s release. Her tour begins next week in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and will skip major cities in favor of smaller localities.
In limited excerpts of the prerecorded Winfrey interview, Sarah Palin says Johnston is still part of the family. Johnston was quoted as saying that any attempts at reconciliation are fake.
‘Drill, baby, drill’: Host says Sarah Palin the next Cheney on energy
Liberal sees big oil similarities with Sarah Palin, Bush VP
The latest Republican rallying cry of “Drill Baby Drill” might seem to be just a right-wing twist on the phrase “Burn Baby Burn,” which came out of the violent 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles. Air America and GoLeft’s Mike Papantonio, however, finds a much more sinister significance: sex, Dick Cheney and Exxon’s plans for all Americans.
“The new Republican slogan ‘Drill Baby Drill’ … is not just a possible metaphor for rumors of a [Sarah] Palin sex scandal,” Papantonio began. “It’s more a sign of the times, where it’s become clear that Exxon’s trying to buy themselves another Dick Cheney. … When you hear that almost maniacal chant of ‘Drill Baby Drill’ coming from the convention floor, you’re hearing the voice of Exxon, trying to make their last big land grab by making sure we elect a new and improved Dick Cheney as VP — just one a hell of a lot better looking.”
Papantonio reminded his audience of Cheney’s secretive 2001 Energy Task Force, saying, “Cheney promised Exxon there’d never be any windfall taxes put in place. … He promised the energy industry that the Bush administration would slow down global warming research. … He’d see to it that the number of oil leases were increased. … He promised the oil industry that they’d be permitted to rape and pillage Iraq and that American troops would be sacrificed if necessary.”
“Sarah Palin?” Papantonio asked. “Well, she’s big oil’s new chance to drill the American public one more time.”
“So when you hear the words ‘Drill Baby Drill’ being screamed from the Republican convention floor,” concluded Panantonio, “more than a picture of seedy hotels in out-of-the-way Alaskan towns should come to your mind. Exxon has another kind of drilling that they’re thinking about — that involves all Americans getting drilled.”
Sarah Palin has been a strong supporter of oil and gas development during her tenure in Alaska. She awarded a major pipeline project to a Canadian corporation.
Cheney gave Sarah Palin a warm review Monday, speaking to reporters in Rome.
“Each administration is different. And there’s no reason why Sarah Palin can’t be a successful vice president in a McCain administration,” he said. Such a White House, he asserted, “won’t look exactly like the Bush administration or the first Bush administration, the Ford administration. It’ll be relatively unique to this president and this time that they’re in office.”
