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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 20th on 16:31
These are my links for April 20th from 16:31 to 16:49:
- Mike Murphy on the 2012 presidential election – Campaign season is upon us. I called my favorite Republican political consultant, Mike Murphy to get his quick-hit takes on all of the possible candidates for president. Murphy has worked for everyone from John Engler to John McCain to Mitt Romney to Meg Whitman. He has a great column in Time magazine on the state of the race that I urge everybody to read. Murphy told me Republicans are doing everything they can to make 2012 a difficult election, but “the best news is, one of them could actually win.” Let’s turn to the candidates:
Mitt Romney: “Weak front-runner. But as others drop out, he becomes a stronger front-runner. His problems are all real, but he may be a little over-underrated, if you know what I mean. He may not be as vulnerable as the conventional wisdom thinks.”
Tim Pawlenty: “Understudy. Decent shot to win. He’s in the old Lamar Alexander position, but he’s got a decent path. I watch his ads and I expect a huge alien to be slayed at the end.”
Mitch Daniels: “Serious, formidable candidate — and not going to run.”
Haley Barbour: “More campaign manager than candidate. Unknown how well he’ll do. Great operative. I know Haley could run a winning presidential campaign, just don’t know if he’s the candidate. BBQ / Twang-factor could be too high for general-election voters.”
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Read it all.
Mike Murphy is an interesting character and this is a funny, yet true analysis.
- Papa Johns, Huggies, Vanguard Drop Ads on Wonkette Attacking Trig Palin – Three large companies have dropped their advertisements on the liberal, pro-abortion Wonkette blog after it ran a post earlier today bashing pro-life former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Conservative political activists are up in arms because the post, which Wonkette has defended, calls Palin’s son trig, who has Down syndrome, “retarded,” “somewhat alive,” and includes crass claims that Palin conceived her son as a victim of incest.
Below are images of messages each company placed on Twitter responded to people who shared their concerns with the corporations in an impromptu conservative boycott of Wonkette’s advertisers that erupted on Twtter Wednesday afternoon.
Papa Johns pizza confirmed it would not advertise with Wonkette.
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Boycott all of Wonkette's advertisers
- Wonkette Editor Ken Layne Comments on Reprehensible Birthday Greeting to Trig Palin – Political humor website Wonkette has long been trending toward nihilistic snark for snark’s sake, but Jack Stuef’s column “honoring” Trig Palin’s birthday is about the most irredeemably vile, unfunny thing I’ve ever seen. As if jokes about Trig’s Down Syndrome aren’t bad enough on their own, Stuef goes the extra mile to pen kneeslappers about incest, child rape, and fetal alcohol syndrome. I don’t want to reproduce too much of it here, but this quote is fairly representative:
Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.)
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Read it all
Think I will consider a boycott of anyone who advertises on the Wonkette site.
- Mike Murphy on the 2012 presidential election – Campaign season is upon us. I called my favorite Republican political consultant, Mike Murphy to get his quick-hit takes on all of the possible candidates for president. Murphy has worked for everyone from John Engler to John McCain to Mitt Romney to Meg Whitman. He has a great column in Time magazine on the state of the race that I urge everybody to read. Murphy told me Republicans are doing everything they can to make 2012 a difficult election, but “the best news is, one of them could actually win.” Let’s turn to the candidates:
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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 19th on 15:11
These are my links for April 19th from 15:11 to 15:57:
- Pay Attention to Sarah Palin! – In the two years and eight months that Sarah Palin has been a political celebrity, I've never heard a conservative complain about the media ignoring her. Not until last night. That was when Palin's web consigliere Rebecca Mansour loaded up Twitter and started tweeting at official media accounts to ask when they hadn't given more coverage to Palin's Tea Party speech in Madison this past weekend. She tag-teamed with Jim Nolte, the editor of Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood site — that's why @jimnolte is mentioned in the tweets.
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Read it all.
Well, Sarah's stock has fallen the past few months and Mansour has to justify her existence if Palin does not seek the Presidency.
- ‘Koch brothers’ confusion results in death threat for Iowa company – A case of mistaken identity has entangled a small family-owned Des Moines company in union protests and led to a death threat.
Angry callers are mistaking Koch Brothers, a Des Moines office supply firm, with the brothers who own Koch Industries, the global energy conglomerate. Billionaires Charles and David Koch have fought Wisconsin unions, financed the tea party and opposed climate change rules.
Dutch Koch, president of the Des Moines company, wants everyone to know he’s not one of those Koch brothers, and he’s not politically active.
“I initially thought it was humorous to be confused with a multibillionaire,” he said, but then a death threat was left on his answering machine. Koch reported the call to the FBI, which he said traced it to a California man.
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Read it all.
Koch Derangement Syndrome strikes again
- Pay Attention to Sarah Palin! – In the two years and eight months that Sarah Palin has been a political celebrity, I've never heard a conservative complain about the media ignoring her. Not until last night. That was when Palin's web consigliere Rebecca Mansour loaded up Twitter and started tweeting at official media accounts to ask when they hadn't given more coverage to Palin's Tea Party speech in Madison this past weekend. She tag-teamed with Jim Nolte, the editor of Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood site — that's why @jimnolte is mentioned in the tweets.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for April 18th on 10:17
These are my links for April 18th from 10:17 to 11:28:
- President Barack Obama coming to Reno on Thursday – President Barack Obama is making a three-day swing to explain his vision for reducing the national debt and it concludes Thursday in Reno.
The White House issued a press release that day Obama will come to Reno to discuss " the ways the leaders in Washington can come together and meet the expectations of the American people."
It follows town hall meetings on Tuesday in northern Virginia and on Wednesday in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Hitting all of the key battleground states – Virginia and Nevada.
Plus, fundraising in California.
Obama does know how to run a campaign. Too bad he sucks as a President.
- Former Sarah Palin aide Frank Bailey writing tell-all book – Due Out in May – When a book is called "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin," you can guess it's not a happy story.
An imprint of Simon & Schuster announced Monday that it had signed up "Blind Allegiance," a long-rumored tell-all by former Palin aide Frank Bailey. The imprint, Howard Books, will release Bailey's book May 24. Excerpts from an early draft were leaked to reporters earlier this year.
Bailey worked with Palin while she was governor of Alaska and when she was John McCain's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket in 2008.
Howard Books is calling "Blind Allegiance" a "chilling expose." Author Ken Morris and Alaska political blogger Jeanne Devon helped write the book.======
Now, this should be interesting summer reading – but only if Sarah is running.
- Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Election Snafu Is a National Wake-Up Call – It's been over a decade since the Bush-Gore recount in Florida was supposed to spur a wholesale modernization of our election systems. But a stunning mistake made by a Wisconsin county clerk in a nationally watched state Supreme Court race reminded us of how far we have to go.
Wisconsin voters went to the polls on April 5 in an election that could have flipped the state Supreme Court's majority from conservative to liberal. On the morning of April 6, liberal challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory by a margin of some 200 votes. But the next day Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced that she had excluded some 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield when she gave her final tally to the Associated Press on election night. The revised tally put conservative incumbent David Prosser more than 7,000 votes ahead of Ms. Kloppenburg, and he has since been verified the clear winner.
Ms. Nickolaus's error could have been easily avoided through transparency. She had ended the prior clerk's practice of reporting election results for individual cities because it was "not her responsibility" and she didn't "have the staff to enter all the data"—an absurd statement given that many smaller counties post such data on their websites. Many states, such as Kentucky, offer user-friendly websites to track returns statewide.
Not so in Wisconsin—and if we don't view this month's mess as a wake-up call, we'll have only ourselves to blame if next year's presidential election turns into a rerun of Florida 2000. Americans know it could happen: The Brookings Institution reports that in a 2004 poll of 37 nations, Americans were more likely than citizens of any country save Russia to say that their elections are "very dishonest."
Mexico—which has a national photo ID requirement for voting—spends roughly 10 times more per capita than the U.S. and has virtually eliminated charges of voter fraud or incompetence. We can vastly improve our system with much smaller investments.
- Why California Should Tax Online Sales? Or Not… – On this “Tax Day” and throughout the year, millions of Californians do their part to sustain the schools, health care, public safety, and other foundations of a healthy state. But projections show today’s collection will come up at least $1 billion short of what is due because most Californians won’t add the sales tax they owe on online purchases to the bottom of their California income tax form. With the state once again facing tough budget times, these dollars could go a long way to close our gaping budget gap.
Most Californians may not realize that if a retailer fails to collect the sales tax due on a book, a pair of shoes, or other purchase made online, the purchaser still owes the tax. This requirement is nothing new – it’s been part of state law since 1935. The hitch comes in trying to collect the tax. In fact, only 1 percent of those who buy online from out-of-state companies like Amazon.com currently pay the taxes due. As online sales soar, they also take a big, and growing, bite out of the state’s revenue collection.
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There is NO good reason and these leftists use the fairness argument to justfy their redistribution schemes and the right of the state to YOUR money.
One problem which I have written about extensively is the loss of jobs and the fact the state of California really won't realize any more revenue.
Oops….
- President Barack Obama coming to Reno on Thursday – President Barack Obama is making a three-day swing to explain his vision for reducing the national debt and it concludes Thursday in Reno.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for March 29th on 18:25
These are my links for March 29th from 18:25 to 18:34:
- California’s Red Lining – The San Diego GOP – The Sacramento Bee reports that only 31 percent of residents are registered Republicans and 44 percent Democrats.
No Republican holds a statewide office.
In 2010, Gov. Jerry Brown won 53.1 percent of the vote, while Sen. Barbara Boxer was reelected with 52.1 percent.
California has 34 Democrats in the House, compared with only 19 Republicans. Both of its senators are Democrats.
The California State Assembly roster has 52 Democrats out of 80 representatives, and the Senate roster lists 25 Democrats out of 40 State senators.
Conservative victories in San Diego also include passing, by nearly 75 percent, Proposition A, which is a countywide ban of project labor agreements. Nearby Oceanside and Chula Vista passed similar bans. The old rules allowed unions were to control municipal construction projects and avoid competition.Republicans lead in voter registration, too. According to a February 10 report, Republicans have 3,053 more registered voters in San Diego.
So what can the California Republican party learn from these victories?
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Read it all
- Shocker: Organized labor mulling its own California ballot measure on taxes – The California Labor Federation is considering a ballot initiative on taxes after budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican lawmakers broke down this afternoon.
Art Pulaski, the federation's executive secretary-treasurer, said his organization has made no decision on an initiative but that, "We're certainly not going to sit back and watch the state fall apart."
He said, "We are going to move forward."
A voter initiative is one alternative Brown is considering to put tax extensions on a ballot without Republican support in the Legislature. The Democratic governor has not said how he might proceed.
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But, the unions and Democrats, particularly Jerry Brown wanted political cover from the GOP.
They could have done this from the beginning.
- Maher, Palin and Arianna – Hey, Arianna! Andrew Breitbart called Van Jones a “punk.” Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a “cunt.” Which one did you ban again?
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Yeah Arianna….is Maher off the front page?
- California’s Red Lining – The San Diego GOP – The Sacramento Bee reports that only 31 percent of residents are registered Republicans and 44 percent Democrats.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for March 24th on 08:00
These are my links for March 24th from 08:00 to 09:50:
- How television created and then killed Sarah Palin’s political prospects – It was television that destroyed Sarah Palin, just as it made her. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again – the arrival of Palin as a major political figure in 2008 was an emanation of the reality-TV culture, anchored in the belief that ordinary or “everyday” people, inarticulate though they may be, and with all the baggage of messy personal lives, are truly compelling public figures. Palin was the political equivalent. A figure who refracts national identity as it is shaped by the culture’s most powerful medium. Authentic, populist and dismissive of sophistication in thought and action.
Then, television duly destroyed the Palin authenticity. The arc of her national political career began with a defining speech at the Republican National Convention in September, 2008, and ended in November, 2010, a few episodes into Sarah Palin’s Alaska. The show, a cringingly inevitable reality-TV series, gave her a huge platform and she blew it. If her exposure on TV in 2008 brought out the authenticity, the show brought out Palin’s inner princess. She talked about being a mom 87 times an episode (I’m exaggerating , but only a little) and made dubious attempts to make political parables linking her family, the outdoors and wildlife. It was ego unbounded. And this after quitting her job as governor of Alaska.
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Interesting enough Sarah Palin's next career will most probably be on television. - Why is Jon Huntsman running for president? – This is like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) without the war record and without the bona fides on national security. And speaking of which, Huntsman’s hiring “key members from McCain’s team at the helm.” That alone is enough to freak out many in the base, who came to detest the McCain campaign crew for incompetency and disloyalty to its VP pick.
I’m trying to figure out who a “Huntsman voter” is. Rudy Giuliani attracted moderates before his campaign imploded (fizzled, actually). But he led New York through Sept. 11, governed like a no-nonsense fiscal conservative and offered up conservative positions on school choice, health care and tax policy. And he never served in a liberal president’s administration. Perhaps there is an untapped segment of the electorate to the left of Giuliani who doesn’t think that poorly of Obama. Unfortunately for Huntsman, they likely are Democrats.
You do have to wonder how Huntsman, an intelligent man with business experience, was sold on taking the plunge. And you really have to wonder how thrilled his family will be if he decides to risk a chunk of the family fortune.
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Good question – because he has the massive fortune to do so?
- California must enforce ‘use’ law — now – Or Support Internet Taxes – So be it. Holding affiliates hostage in a desperate effort to continue tax-exempt merchandizing shouldn't be condoned. Barnes & Noble, which does collect the sales tax, has offered to pick up some of the Amazon affiliates. Other online retailers could, too.
If the tax-free e-tailers retained their affiliate marketers and began collecting the taxes, Skinner estimates, her bill would net between $250 million and $500 million annually for the bleeding state general fund.
But California this year will be stiffed much more: $1.7 billion in taxes that should have been paid on Web purchases, according to a University of Tennessee study.
Another bill, by state Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), would grant the Board of Equalization more power to force tax collections. She estimates it could gain the state more than $1 billion annually.
A key backer is Democratic equalization board member Betty Yee.
"Amazon used to argue that it didn't have the capability to collect the taxes, given the various different tax rates," she says. "They can track individual consumer preferences about products but can't track sales taxes? That's kind of crazy."
Runner says, "The only way to solve this problem is with a national solution. You can't do it piecemeal."
Perhaps. But a lot of California retailers could fold before the feds ride to their rescue. Meanwhile, deficit-plagued states are denied the taxes they're owed.
Sacramento politicians should move swiftly to protect local businesses and demand the state's legal share. They should get off their inertia.
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George Skelton, the LA Times Columnist is an old tax and spend liberal who never met a tax he didn't like.
He supports the loss of jobs to California affiliates of Amazon.com and Overstock.com.
I suggest that those affiliates cancel their paid subscriptions to the Los Angeles Times.
Oh wait, they already read the rag for free on the internet.
Internet taxation is a bad policy for California and America.
- How television created and then killed Sarah Palin’s political prospects – It was television that destroyed Sarah Palin, just as it made her. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again – the arrival of Palin as a major political figure in 2008 was an emanation of the reality-TV culture, anchored in the belief that ordinary or “everyday” people, inarticulate though they may be, and with all the baggage of messy personal lives, are truly compelling public figures. Palin was the political equivalent. A figure who refracts national identity as it is shaped by the culture’s most powerful medium. Authentic, populist and dismissive of sophistication in thought and action.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for March 18th on 18:23
These are my links for March 18th from 18:23 to 18:25:
- President 2012: Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush – Re: Sarah Palin – My friend Pete Wehner took my criticism of President George W. Bush and some of his most senior staff as a challenge to compare Bush to President Ronald Reagan. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/17/answering-mark-levins-challenge/ Comparing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is like comparing Margaret Thatcher and John Major. That's not to put down Bush or Major, both of whom were fine leaders, but they were not the historical figures their former staffers and supporters insist.
Who said? "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system." Well, those words would never have passed Reagan's lips. It was infamously said by Bush, in defense of his massive spending spree in the last weeks of his presidency. There's nothing conservative about it. But it sums up Bush's lack of confidence in the free market system, and his repeated and excessive use of government intervention in American society.
Bush never claimed to be the conservative Reagan was, nor did he spend his early political career challenging GOP orthodoxy, which, until Reagan won in 1980, was mostly incoherent mush of the Rockefeller-Scranton-Nixon-Ford-Bush/41 kind. George H. W. Bush and other mainstream Republican primary challengers sought to thwart Reagan because, they insisted, his conservatism would be rejected by the voters. Now, Pete insists that as president, Reagan's record, in virtually all respects, is inferior to George W. Bush's, in advancing conservative principles. This is not only counter-intuitive, it is factually defective. As I proceed with this discussion, I believe it will become evident.
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Mark Levin's response to Peter Wehner.
Read it all
- President 2012: Answering Mark Levin’s Challenge – Re: Sarah Palin – On his Facebook page, Mark Levin takes exception to some of us who have said critical words about Sarah Palin.
In his response, Mark groups Karl Rove, David Frum, and me, all of whom served in the Bush administration. While having gracious words to say about me, Mark argues that “Bush’s record, at best, is marginally conservative, and depending on the issue, worse.” He raises this point not to compare Bush to Palin, he says, but “to point out only a few of the situational aspects of the criticism from the Bush community corner.” He adds parenthetically that “If necessary, and if challenged, I will take the time to lay out the case in all its particulars, as well as other non-conservative Bush policies and statements. No Republican president is perfect, of course, but certainly some are more perfect that others, if you will.”
The gold standard for Levin is Ronald Reagan, which got me to thinking: from a conservative policy perspective, how does Bush’s record stand up to Reagan’s?
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Read it all.
- President 2012: Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush – Re: Sarah Palin – My friend Pete Wehner took my criticism of President George W. Bush and some of his most senior staff as a challenge to compare Bush to President Ronald Reagan. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/17/answering-mark-levins-challenge/ Comparing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is like comparing Margaret Thatcher and John Major. That's not to put down Bush or Major, both of whom were fine leaders, but they were not the historical figures their former staffers and supporters insist.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for March 18th on 18:23
These are my links for March 18th from 18:23 to 18:25:
- President 2012: Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush – Re: Sarah Palin – My friend Pete Wehner took my criticism of President George W. Bush and some of his most senior staff as a challenge to compare Bush to President Ronald Reagan. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/17/answering-mark-levins-challenge/ Comparing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is like comparing Margaret Thatcher and John Major. That's not to put down Bush or Major, both of whom were fine leaders, but they were not the historical figures their former staffers and supporters insist.
Who said? "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system." Well, those words would never have passed Reagan's lips. It was infamously said by Bush, in defense of his massive spending spree in the last weeks of his presidency. There's nothing conservative about it. But it sums up Bush's lack of confidence in the free market system, and his repeated and excessive use of government intervention in American society.
Bush never claimed to be the conservative Reagan was, nor did he spend his early political career challenging GOP orthodoxy, which, until Reagan won in 1980, was mostly incoherent mush of the Rockefeller-Scranton-Nixon-Ford-Bush/41 kind. George H. W. Bush and other mainstream Republican primary challengers sought to thwart Reagan because, they insisted, his conservatism would be rejected by the voters. Now, Pete insists that as president, Reagan's record, in virtually all respects, is inferior to George W. Bush's, in advancing conservative principles. This is not only counter-intuitive, it is factually defective. As I proceed with this discussion, I believe it will become evident.
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Mark Levin's response to Peter Wehner.
Read it all
- President 2012: Answering Mark Levin’s Challenge – Re: Sarah Palin – On his Facebook page, Mark Levin takes exception to some of us who have said critical words about Sarah Palin.
In his response, Mark groups Karl Rove, David Frum, and me, all of whom served in the Bush administration. While having gracious words to say about me, Mark argues that “Bush’s record, at best, is marginally conservative, and depending on the issue, worse.” He raises this point not to compare Bush to Palin, he says, but “to point out only a few of the situational aspects of the criticism from the Bush community corner.” He adds parenthetically that “If necessary, and if challenged, I will take the time to lay out the case in all its particulars, as well as other non-conservative Bush policies and statements. No Republican president is perfect, of course, but certainly some are more perfect that others, if you will.”
The gold standard for Levin is Ronald Reagan, which got me to thinking: from a conservative policy perspective, how does Bush’s record stand up to Reagan’s?
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Read it all.
- President 2012: Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush – Re: Sarah Palin – My friend Pete Wehner took my criticism of President George W. Bush and some of his most senior staff as a challenge to compare Bush to President Ronald Reagan. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/17/answering-mark-levins-challenge/ Comparing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is like comparing Margaret Thatcher and John Major. That's not to put down Bush or Major, both of whom were fine leaders, but they were not the historical figures their former staffers and supporters insist.
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Flap’s Links and Comments for March 17th on 10:53
These are my links for March 17th from 10:53 to 11:36:
- President 2012 Poll Watch: Sarah Palin trails Charlie Sheen with independents – We've found a lot of brutal poll numbers for Sarah Palin so far in 2011: down in South Dakota, down in South Carolina, down in Arizona, only up by 1 point in Texas, only up by 1 point in Nebraska to name a few. But this has to be the worst- independent voters say they would support Charlie Sheen over Palin for President by a 41/36 margin. Seriously.
Despite her deficit with independents Palin does lead Sheen 49-29 overall. We also tested Barack Obama against Sheen and the President leads 57-24.
Sheen is one of the most unpopular figures we've ever polled on. 10% of Americans rate him favorably to 67% with a negative opinion of him. The only people we've ever found worse numbers for are Rod Blagojevich in Illinois (an 8/83 favorability spread), Jesse Jackson Jr. in Illinois (a 10/73 favorability), and Levi Johnston in Alaska (a 6/72 favorability). Sheen's -57 spread ties what we found for John Edwards in North Carolina the last time we polled him (15/72).
Sheen's unpopularity is pretty universal across party lines so it says something about the level of polarization in the country right now that Democrats would support him by a 44-24 margin for President over Palin and that Republicans would support him 37-28 over Obama. People may not have any respect for Sheen but they still think he'd be a better alternative than their opposing party's leading figure.
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Kind of funny really.
But, it points out how unpopular and polarizing Sarah Palin is.
Sarah Palin nor Charlie sheen will be running for President and that is probably a good thing.
- Rep. David Wu crashed car in Northwest Portland last year, says he fell asleep – U.S. Rep. David Wu crashed his vehicle into a parked car in Northwest Portland last year, but passed a police field sobriety test and the incident never showed up in a police report.
No one was injured after the Feb. 19, 2010 incident. The congressman's spokesman, Erik Dorey, said Wu fell asleep while driving.
Still, the woman who called 9-1-1 to report the incident said she assumed there was "some kind of disability if he was driving on the wrong side of the street." She also said that Wu did not want her to call police.
"He says he fell asleep," says Karen Fog, in the recording. "I don't believe him."
The incident, first reported Wednesday in Willamette Week, is the latest in a string of revelations about the congressman's life last year. Wu has apologized for what he calls a rough October, saying he was under extreme professional and personal stress but had received appropriate medication and counseling. In 2008, he was hospitalized for observation after a bad reaction to Ambien and Valium.
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More embarassing revelations for Rep. Wu.
Will the Democratic Party ever lean on him to resign or will they have to primary him?
Obviously, the man is disturbed and has multiple problems.
- President 2012 Poll Watch: Sarah Palin trails Charlie Sheen with independents – We've found a lot of brutal poll numbers for Sarah Palin so far in 2011: down in South Dakota, down in South Carolina, down in Arizona, only up by 1 point in Texas, only up by 1 point in Nebraska to name a few. But this has to be the worst- independent voters say they would support Charlie Sheen over Palin for President by a 41/36 margin. Seriously.