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Sarah Palin, John Coale and Paying Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Debts
John Coale (Greta Van Susteren’s husband) can be seen standing in the background during Iron Dog finish
Photo Credit:Andrew HalcroDid Sarah Palin entertain the idea of paying off Hillary Clinton’s campaign debts which she amassed running against Barack Obama?Well, that is the leading question that Jonathan Martin is implying.
In an unusual attempt to forge an alliance between two of the most prominent families in American politics, John Coale, a Washington-area Democratic donor and onetime adviser to Sarah Palin, urged the conservative Alaska governor to use her political action committee to help retire the presidential campaign debt of Hillary Clinton.
Coale, a wealthy trial attorney and the husband of Fox News talk show host Greta Van Susteren, approached Palin with the improbable plan in February while in Alaska with his wife, who was taping an interview with the former Republican vice presidential nominee.
An outspoken Clinton supporter during the Democratic primary who switched his allegiance to the GOP ticket for the general election, Coale made his case to Palin at the Iron Dog snowmachine competition in Fairbanks, where Todd Palin was competing over Valentine’s Day weekend. His broader aim, say Palin camp insiders, was to help Palin develop a relationship with the former first family that he thought could bolster the polarizing governor’s standing with Democrats and independents.
Palin was amenable to getting acquainted with the Clintons but was skeptical of using her PAC to help the former first lady.
She expressed concern to aides about Coale’s request that weekend and a few days later directed Meg Stapleton
, an Alaska-based campaign aide, to tell Coale that she would not help retire Clinton’s debt.John Coale is a scientologist political kingmaker/matchmaker with a prominent wife in the media. Should Palin continue the whacked out association with this groupie it will be to her detriment with her conservative base.
And, Flap agrees with the observation that Sarah Palin needs a Washington based GOP political operative to move to Alaska to help her win re-election and then immiidatley therafter help her re-emerge on the national political scene.
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Greta Van Susteren Sets Record Straight on Sarah Palin Access and Her Husband John Coale
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Sarah Palin Rated Solid for Re-Election as Alaska Governor
The Cook Political ReportSo rates the May 12th Cook Political Report.Sarah Palin without a colossal gaffe or misstep looks like a lock for re-election.
Watch for the attacks from the LEFT to increase.
Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin
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Day By Day by Chris Muir May 19, 2009 – Repeat, Please
Day By Day by Chris MuirPresident Obama is trying subterfuge with blasting multiple issues to his constituency groups while the economy continues to tank.Soon, the public will realize that the economic mess is no longer a Bush-Cheney blame session and that Obama’s hope and change is nothing but the old Demcorat tax and spend with a teleprompter spin.
Watch the California budget special election today to gauge the amount of latent unrest with the old Democrat policies of spending the government blind.
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Technorati Tags: Day By Day, Barack Obama
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links for 2009-05-19
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Gov. Jim Gibbons said today that President Obama has denied his request to meet with him in Las Vegas later this month.
The governor had sent the president a letter last month saying he wanted to discuss the economic difficulties facing the state's tourism industry. Gibbons said today that he was notified Obama won't meet with him while the president is in Las Vegas on May 26 for a fundraiser for Sen. Harry Reid.
"I am disappointed at the hypocrisy shown by this administration," Gibbons said in a prepared statement. "President Obama is coming to Las Vegas later this month for a political fundraiser, but he will not help the struggling families in Las Vegas and Nevada who are out of work because of his reckless comments."
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Dâ€Mont.) and
Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (Râ€Iowa) today released policy options for financing reform of
America's health care system. The options released today are the third and final round of policy options
for discussion before the Finance Committee marks up legislation in June. The options for financing
health reform follow the release of policy options for reducing costs in the health care delivery system
and for expanding quality, affordable health care coverage to all Americans. Three areas of potential
funding sources explored in the financing options are: savings achieved from within the health care
system from reductions in current levels of spending; reevaluating current health tax subsidies; and
changing nonâ€health tax provisions. -
For the first time, key senators (Sens. Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley) have laid out the range of possibilities for how to pay for health care reform–a big question for those trying to reform it. Reform will undoubtedly cost billions, even with savings added to the health care system. Baucus and Grassley put forth a slew of suggestions (including in-system savings), some of them being taxes on alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages (soda, etc), taxes on hospitals that don't meet non-profit standards, modifying tax deductions for health care expenditures, and taxing some employer-provided health plans as income. Paying for reform is a difficult business, as evidenced by the committee's list, and some of the options sound better than others (especually after a presidential campaign during which Democrats hammered John McCain for suggesting a tax on health care). Soda tax, anyone?
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If, as expected, the first five referenda go down in flames, you'll hear a lot of chatter about what it all means: the use of referenda to express populist rage, the populace's demand for ever-more government programs without a willingness to pay for it, Governor Schwarzenegger's unpopularity, lawmakers' unwillingness to set priorities in the budget, etc. But at least one inescapable fact will be clear: Even in deep-blue California, where Obama won 61 percent to 37 percent, voters chose steep service cuts over tax increases.
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Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., says he now disagrees with President Barack Obama's timetable to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in January 2010.
But Webb supports Obama's idea of reviving military commissions to try some terror suspects now detained there.
Webb, appearing on ABC's "This Week" program, acknowledged that in January he said the president had established a reasonable timeline for closing the detention center.
He said he has changed his mind on the timetable.
"We spent hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions at Guantanamo to try these cases," Webb said.
"I do not believe they should be tried in the United States."
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The Republican strategist who helped Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman prepare for a possible presidential run says the Republican party is in for a devastating defeat if its guiding lights are Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. "If it's 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we're headed for a blowout," says strategist John Weaver, who advised Huntsman and was for years a close adviser to Sen. John McCain. "That's just the truth."
Huntsman, a favorite of GOP moderates, left the Republican presidential race last week after accepting President Obama's offer to become U.S. ambassador to China.
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Although CNN's Sanjay Gupta rejected his offer of the surgeon general's job, President Obama shouldn't give up looking at TV news personalities for inspiration. May we suggest Fox's Greta Van Susteren? She doesn't play a doctor on TV, but she recently did in real life, potentially saving the life of Washington blogger and Air America Radio host Ana Marie Cox.
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