WonderfulPessimist.com

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and reality TV producer Mark Burnett are teaming up to shop a reality TV series around Hollywood, which would focus on Alaska and the Palin family, according to numerous online reports. Considering a reality show, even if approved for next fall, could spend as much as a year in production and it’s already 2010, the chances of Palin running for the GOP presidential nod in 2012 are starting to look slimmer and slimmer.

No one can begrudge Palin wanting to cash in and make a living for her and her family; but with her job search possibly impinging on the 2012 presidential campaign season, it’s looking like Palin may have her sights set on 2016 and beyond, or has embraced the celebrity life.

The reason a reality TV jaunt could impinge on a presidential run goes not just to conflicting schedules, but to FCC campaign standards. If Palin wishes to run, no broadcast show featuring her could air once her campaign for the White House officially begins, without invoking the specter of “equal time” laws regulated by the FCC. Since it’s unlikely any broadcast or cable net is going to give the green light to a Palin reality show that it would need to clone for some twelve to twenty candidates from the two major parties as well as minor party candidates, the chances of a show getting green-lit by Hollywood would likely depend on assurances from Palin that she’s committed to the show over a presidential run… at least until the first season completes airing.

There are numerous precedents for such situations; in 1980, broadcast TV had to cease airing old movies and TV shows featuring Ronald Reagan until after the Carter-Reagan showdown was over. More recently, in the late 1990s, former pro wrestler and talk radio host Jesse Ventura was forced to step down from his radio gig to run for Minnesota governor.

After his stunning victory in liberal Massachusetts, Scott Brown is being courted by some in the GOP to be their anti-Obama candidate in 2012. The main problem with this is that he’d be only as experienced as Obama himself was when he first ran; while Brown is the hero of the moment, the GOP needs to realize that however poorly he is faring, Obama will not lack executive experience in 2012, so fielding a candidate with a bit more gravitas might be the better course.

Senator-elect Brown is also a bit of a question mark; not perceived as particularly conservative, he doesn’t have enough experience to show his true colors yet, and the party could end up with a second John McCain headlining their presidential ticket, which is no way to win against the most clearly socialist president in US history.

The GOP would be better served by not only someone with more experience and gravitas, but someone who clearly strikes a clearer contrast to Obama.

My suggestions? Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry are all good names; even John Thune would make some sense! Send ‘em all some personalized gifts and see what happens!

As the GOP candidate most in need of a good fat burner, Haley Barbour faces the William Howard Taft/Grover Cleveland dilemma: can a man who is solid on the issues but physically not very camera-friendly (e.g., very overweight) win a modern election in which having the right on-camera look is deemed equally important – if not more important – than experience, command of the issues and did I mention experience.

Barbour has governed Mississippi well, is a solid conservative and has been a party chair and a great leader since the time of Reagan; however, he’s just not that camera-friendly. Should it matter?

Well, no more than it ought to matter that he’d bee the white governor of a Deep South state running against the nation’s first black president; but it would matter, for better or worse.

Barbour is more temperate in his religion than Huckabee, more experienced and more conservative. But electable against Barack Obama? Not at the top of the ticket.

When he’s not perusing Outer Banks vacation rentals, Newt Gingrich is flirting with a GOP presidential run. He has long been a favorite of mine, but he recently fell out of favor with me when he backed an ACORN-loving, liberal Republican in the New York Congressional race, rather than a true conservative, Doug Hoffman. The race was tight and Gingrich’s support might have made a difference.

But in all honestly, Gingrich has been slipping a lot since leaving office as Speaker of the House; he has cozied up to liberals and Democrats to push forward global warming solutions in an effort he calls “green Republicanism” when he ought to be shouting “swindle and fraud” from the rooftops against the cap-and-trade scam that global warming alarmism is a backdrop for.

While Gingrich has had solid conservative credentials in the past, there is now room for a reasonable amount of skepticism as to its authenticity. Too bad.

In assessing, early on, the 2012 presidential field for the GOP, in the contest to face off with Barack Obama, the first name I’m going to tackle is a favorite of evangelicals and some party faithful. He’s been raising his profile and money, going as far as to accept credit cards from donors, but nothing’s official yet.

My problems with Huckabee as a banner-carrier, at this point, are manifold. First, if he runs again, he needs to remember he’s running to be commander in chief of the military and CEO of the country, not the national pastor. In 2008, Huckabee wore his religion on his sleeve even more obviously than did George W. Bush for two election cycles; it didn’t even sell to the party’s base.

But there’s a deeper problem with Huckabee, and that is that he’s not a conservative on most issues; he sees big government as simply misdirected by liberals, and would maintain a big government philosophy in office, simply redirecting the power of governmental power, as did GWB.

That’s the wrong direction for the party, which needs to re-embrace its constitution-loving, Reagan roots. Thus far, all Huckabee has proven himself to be is a “more Christian and pro-life” version of John McCain. And that, we don’t need.

General David Petraeus may be doing his best to make nice with the new commander in chief, but the latest buzz around Washington don’t center around ADHD symptoms, but around a possible White House run in the military commander’s future.

While those close to Petraeus can’t imagine it being anywhere on his agenda, many are speculating that Bush’s former right-hand man in Iraq may choose to take Obama down at the polls if the climate seems right for it in 2012.

The military man has no elected office experience, but would be a tiger on foreign policy. Trouble is, he’d have to run as a Republican to oppose Obama and no one but the General himself knows much about his political views outside of the foreign policy sector.

The U.S. Senate and House are faking the “struggle” to pass health care reform, and members of the mainstream liberal media have their most creative journalists cribbing tips from suspense authors like James Patterson to make it seem like they’re leaping over huge hurdles to accomplish this.

But let’s be honest, shall we? Right now, the Dems have a 60-seat majority despite the death of Ted Kennedy – since he’ll inevitably be replaced by another Dem anyway – and that prevents even a filibuster on the issue in the Senate. In the House, the Dems also have a commanding majority, despite all the talk of mythical “blue-dog Democrats.” (Psst… you’re not a “blue dog” if you vote the party line every time it counts.)

And, of course, they control the White House as well, right down to the light fixtures.

So forget all those conspiracy-laced yellow-journalism articles from the New York Times on down. Pay them no heed when they allege how hard Republicans are going to fight them.

Because the truth is, the Dems do not need a single GOP vote to pass this Obama-nation of a bill by a huge majority. So the real test here will be to count how many turncoat Republicans will flip at the last second and vote for this monstrosity.

And then, it’ll be up to the voters to make all those Dems and turncoat Republicans pay for their votes in the next election cycle.

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential contender Sarah Palin’s autobiography will hit store shelves November 17, according to the latest reports; the book, titled “Going Rogue: An American Life,” will receive an initial print run of 1.5 million copies, and is coming out nearly six months ahead of schedule, clocking in at a respectable 400 pages or so.

While there’s no mention of any private placement memorandums, Palin’s book is expected to span her entire life, not merely her run for the VP spot with John McCain. Palin is a favorite among the GOP’s conservative wing for the 2012 race for the White House against Barack Obama.

No matter how arrogant the Democrats get, Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent after his party decided he wasn’t extreme-enough to the left and tried to oust him for an even wackier liberal, kept his former party honest this weekend, calling an effort to push through health care reform a mistake.

If the so-called “public option” is forced through, Lieberman said, “that the public is either opposed to, or of very, very passionate mixed minds about” would be bad “for the system. Frankly, it won’t be good for the Obama presidency. He has got other fights to fight.”

Like getting a couple million into the budget for some pond filters at the White House, perhaps? Or trying to re-con people into re-electing him in 2012?

The Boston Globe – bastion of liberalism – has nevertheless called on Ted Kennedy to resign his US Senate seat. Not because of Mary Jo Kopechne, nor because of his need to lose belly fat, nor because of his absolute corruption of the Kennedy name, but because he’s sick, has brain cancer, and probably will not be able to live out his final term, which ends in 2012.

Kennedy has been absent for most of the US Senate’s 270 roll-call votes this year, and Massachusetts is basically short one Senator. So of course the Boston Globe’s solution is: quick, let’s get another Democrat in there before the voters can have a say.

Kennedy, who helped strip the Massachusetts governor of his right to name a replacement back when Republican Mitt Romney was governor, is now trying to restore that power, now that the Dems are back in control of the Governor’s mansion.

See what I mean by that “absolute corruption” remark yet?

Just as he was trying to decide between hiking in the Ozarks, shopping for Naples FL custom doors or a secret trip to Argentina, South Carolina GOP governor Mark Sanford revealed he let the wrong head do his thinking for him, as he revealed his absence was due to an affair, rather than a nature-loving trip or buying smart home improvement materials.

Sanford had been positioning himself for a 2012 presidential run by being among the first to turn down President Obama’s bailout money a few months ago, so secure head-of-the-pack on the fiscal conservative front. Now disgraced and admitting it, at least, Sanford has said he will step down as president of the GOP Governor’s Association and it has yet to be determined whether the scandal will also drive him from office.

“The bottom line is this,” Sanford said. “I have been unfaithful to my wife.”

While that reads a whole lot more honest than, “That depends what the definition of the word ‘is’ is,” and worlds better than “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” it’s still tawdry stuff that’s rather unacceptable in GOP circles, at least for the moment.

So Governor Palin can rest easier tonight as one of her stronger contenders for the 2012 top of the GOP ticket is now sidelined faster than you can say, “Macaca.”

The Obama Administration is behind the latest strategy to remind New Yorkers of September 11, 2001; they chose to get a “photo op” of Air Force One flying in front of the Statue of Liberty at an elevation of only about 1,000 feet. Naturally, the airheaded stunt caused a panic in NYC that included some 9-11-style evacuations of office buildings. Those free insurance quotes couldn’t arrive fast enough!

While the President quickly claimed, ala Colonel Klink, that he knew nothing, he saw nothing … well, it’s the President’s own plane, for crying out loud. We’re supposed to swallow that? Let’s just hope New York remembers it come Election Day 2012.

“For seven years, George W. Bush kept America safe from a second 9-11… In about 100 days, Barack Obama re-enacted it. Who do you trust with America’s homeland security. It’s time to put the adults back in charge. Palin-Perry 2012!”