michelle bachmann

Bachmann Overdrive Leaves Sarah in Dust UPDATE:// UK bookies say Bachmann twice as likely as Palin to win 2012

As The New York Times reports, Michele Bachmann electrified a July Fourth crowd in Clear Lake, Iowa yesterday.

The excitement surrounding Mrs. Bachmann rivaled the attention paid to most candidates in recent years, including in 2007 when Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived with her husband in tow…One week after Mrs. Bachmann declared her candidacy in Iowa, where she lived until age 12, her campaign has swept through New Hampshire and South Carolina, drawing bigger crowds than any of her Republican rivals.

A year ago, I’m sure Sarah Palin supporters would have envisioned the exact same scene, but with Sarah as the center of attention.

It was not to be. All Sarah could muster for the holiday was a typically stale, banal tweet:

“Let Freedom Ring! Happy Independence Day… thank God for America, thank God for our troops.

Sarah may still be asking herself, “To be or not to be?” but the answer matters less with each passing day.

The GOP circus train has moved on, leaving Sarah stranded at the Wasilla depot with nobody even caring any more.

 

 

UPDATE: The UK betting agency, William Hill, which is seeking approval to take presidential bets in Las Vegas next year, has posted their current odds on the 2012 race.  Why is the chart below a valuable guide to what’s actually likely to happen, as opposed to what partisans hope for?  Because William Hill couldn’t care less who wins.  As long as they adjust their odds to stay ahead of the curve, they make their profit regardless of the outcome.  Thus, their take on 2012 is something hard to find in U.S. media and on blogs:  expert and dispassionate.

William Hill odds don’t differ significantly from those recently offered by Ladbrokes, which I posted here, but they are more current.

Take a look:

Next US President


4/9
Barack Obama
6/1
Mitt Romney
8/1
Tim Pawlenty
12/1
Rick Perry
14/1
Michele Bachmann
18/1
Jon Huntsman
28/1
Sarah Palin
40/1
Ron Paul
40/1
Marco Rubio
50/1
Hilary Clinton
50/1
Joe Biden
50/1
Rudy Giuliani
50/1
Rick Santorum
50/1
Herman Cain
66/1
Newt Gingrich
100/1
Jeb Bush
500/1
Randall Terry

 

Bachmann at 14/1 offers only half the reward that a bet on Sarah at 28/1 would return–the surest sign yet that God has grown tired of holding open the door.

Of course, Obama at 4/9 suggests that a bet on any Republican would be putting “trickle-up” economics into action (i.e. your money will trickle up into William Hill’s already bloated coffers.)

p.s.  William Hill offering 9/4 on Brazil to win the Copa America (South American championship) currently being played in Argentina.  Having watched all first-round matches (Univision/Telefutura have great HD broadcasts) I’m tempted…also tempted by the 10/1 currently offered on Brazil’s Pato to wind up as individual high scorer.

But not at all tempted by 28-1 on Sarah What’s-her-name.

FULL DISCLOSURE:  In 1999, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.  In the end, the award went to a bedridden “septuagenarian knight” for his social history of English cricket. I congratulated Sir Derek by telephone soon after the presentation. He was utterly charming and I’m glad his final days were brightened by the award.

Anyway, how’s a Yank named Joe gonna beat out a septuagenarian knight for a London book prize?

The William Hill people made the awards ceremony a splendid event, and as second prize I received a £750 credit to the new wagering account they established for me. No need to tell you how long it took me to run through that!

 

Meet the new Sarah Palin: Nikki Haley of South Carolina

As Sarah’s free-fall into political irrelevance accelerates, Bachmann has already replaced her as the right-wing Republican woman who might matter in 2012. But it’s Nikki Haley (pictured with Sarah above) who threatens to erase all memories of the Wasilla Weirdo.

[By the way, thanks to commenters and others who worry that nobody will care about THE ROGUE when it is published on September 20. Worry not. My publisher, Crown, is not concerned. In fact, the people at Crown are wildly excited about the book’s prospects, and growing more so every day. THE ROGUE contains enough startling new revelations–as well as my first-person account of what it was like to live next to Sarah last summer–to assure the sort of national interest that previous books about Sarah did not achieve. Major national media attention is already guaranteed, although I’m not permitted yet to get specific.]

But think longer term: Bachmann will burn out this year and next because she’s just as dopey and as enslaved to Dominionist Christianty as is Sarah.

Obama should be so lucky as to have Bachmann as his 2012 opponent. (No, he couldn’t possibly be so lucky as to have Sarah to wipe up the floor with next year: if he did, he might win all fifty states.)

No matter who it is, he’ll be reelected. Yes, you heard it here first. No matter how short the odds, bet Obama in 2012.

Current odds from Ladbrokes in the UK:

Barack Obama
1/2
Mitt Romney
5/1
Tim Pawlenty
12/1
Rick Perry
14/1
Jon Huntsman
20/1
Michele Bachmann
20/1
Sarah Palin
33/1
Rudy Giuliani
50/1
Herman Cain
50/1
Ron Paul
66/1
Newt Gingrich
66/1
Rick Santorum
150/1
Gary Johnson
150/1
Thaddeus McCotter
150/1

If you bet $1,000 on Obama to be reelected, you’d receive $1,500 the day after election day, 2012.
That’s a fifty percent return on your money in sixteen months.

I personally, of course, do not endorse wagering in any form.

Nonetheless, you might be interested in Ladbrokes’ take on the GOP nomination:

Mitt Romney
11/8
Tim Pawlenty
4/1
Rick Perry
5/1
Michele Bachmann
7/1
Jon Huntsman
10/1
Sarah Palin
14/1
Rudy Giuliani
25/1
Herman Cain
25/1
Newt Gingrich
33/1
Ron Paul
40/1
Rick Santorum
66/1
Gary Johnson
66/1
Thaddeus McCotter
66/1

Rick Perry, who hasn’t even said he’ll run, is 5/1, while Sarah, slipping fast, is 14/1 for the nomination.

But let’s look beyond the easy money Ladbrokes is putting on the table. Let’s look to 2016, by which time Sarah will be only that bad taste you might burp up if you ate too much pizza last night.

The GOP/Tea Party/hot chick meme will still be out there. There will be no incumbent President.

Beware Nikki Haley of South Carolina. The New York Times has just anointed her as the future of the Tea Party here.

And the Haley piece was written by Kim Severson, formerly of the Anchorage Daily News.

So she knows how this stuff can happen.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO ALL WHO READ THIS BLOG AND COMMENT ON IT, AND ALSO TO ALL OF OUR TROOPS SERVING OUR NATION, BOTH HERE AND ABROAD, AND ESPECIALLY TO THOSE WOMEN AND MEN WHOSE LIVES ARE IN DANGER AS THEY SERVE IN WAR ZONES.

It’s not only Sarah Palin who cares about you.

Rhinestone Christian

Who do we know who is so utterly lacking in class, taste and true respect for the God she claims to worship that she could wear the belt pictured above at a public appearance in Iowa this week?

Hint: it’s neither Michele Bachmann nor Michelle Obama.

Answer can be found here at Gryphen’s Immoral Minority.

Sarah sinks ever lower: will sign “books” with Bristol at Minnesota mall

So desperate is Sarah for cheap and easy publicity–and a few extra bucks–that, as Associated Press reports, on Wednesday, she’ll be horning in on her daughter’s first “book” tour appearance at the Barnes & Noble in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Pure coincidence, of course, that Michelle Bachmann (aka “The Sarah Palin of 2011/2012”) is from Minnesota.

Someone less cynical about the Palins than I am might look at this as a manifestation of motherly love and show of support for a daughter whose “screw & tell” memoir hasn’t even cracked the amazon.com top 500 list despite Bristol’s appearance on Good Morning America today.

As I’ve made clear in earlier posts, I simply do not care about Bristol. Nor about any of Sarah’s other children, except for continuing to wonder who really gave birth to Trig.

I care about the phenomenon of Sarah only because–by many light years–she was the least qualified and most deranged person ever nominated for the presidency or vice presidency of the United States, and because she continues to successfully seduce the Beltway chattering class.

“To be or not to be,” is no longer the question. Now it’s, “Will she or won’t she?”

Like water, however, trash seeks its own level. Sarah’s appearance alongside her no-talent daughter at a Minnesota shopping mall is the clearest indicator yet that the 2008 Republican candidate for vice president of the United States is finally becoming not the national leader she never could have been, but part of our national landfill.

And in case you were wondering, no, I won’t be bringing Levi along on my own tour for THE ROGUE in September and October. (Media appearances already arranged in New York, Washington, Toronto, Alaska, Seattle and Los Angeles.)

Honestly, I’m not desperate enough to sit behind a table in a Minnesota shopping mall.

Although I willingly appeared on Fox & Friends with my son, Joe McGinniss Jr., when his novel, THE DELIVERY MAN (soon to be a major motion picture) was published in 2008.

Here’s a difference between McGinniss books and Palin “books.” Joe Jr. and I write our own: Sarah and Bristol aren’t able to do that.

And here’s another difference: neither my son Joe nor I would ever use/abuse a child the way Sarah did Trig at her Going Rogue signing at The Villages, Florida, in November, 2009.

I was there, in the company of my great friend Ray Hudson, of Newcastle, England, who after a brilliant career as a soccer player has become the world’s best soccer announcer for whom English is a first language. In his recent extraordinary profile of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, Jere Longman of the NYTimes made clear how Ray and only Ray can transliterate Messi’s genius into English. If anyone thinks world-class soccer is boring (I readily concede that the sub-standard version played in the U.S. is yawn-inducing), please check out this one clip among dozens on YouTube wherein Ray Hudson demonstrates that it’s not. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyEls-EqdOY

Ray flew up from Fort Lauderdale so I wouldn’t have to endure the Palin appearance at The Villages, an hour north of Orlando, on my own.

And thank God he did. Even in his great company, it was an ordeal.

But I snapped out of my torpor and into parent/grandparent mode when I saw how Sarah mistreated Trig.

As I write in THE ROGUE:

She emerges [from her bus], holding Trig. Once the TV cameras and still photographers have had their fill, she hands him off to an assistant, who soon puts him down on the asphalt parking lot and lets him crawl. The lot is covered with broken glass, cigarette butts, and old chewing gum, and Trig is barefoot. Eventually, Piper comes along and puts him in a stroller.

This is almost the full monty, family-wise. Chuck and Sally and old Aunt so-and-so, plus Piper and Trig. Chuck and Sally work the crowd. Leaving Trig in the stroller, so does Piper. She’s eight years old and has the fake smile of a ten-term congressman. For some reason this sticks with me as the saddest sight I see all day.

And now, on Wednesday, in a Minnesota shopping mall, patrons will get a twofer: Sarah and Bristol showing off their fake, smarmy smiles side by side as they peddle their fake books.

Sarah: where’s Trig?

Bristol: where’s Tripp?

Can either of you care about anybody but yourselves?

p.s. I’ve said I don’t care about Bristol or Levi and I don’t. But when they start poaching on my turf–taking up space in book stores with their whiny, self-aggrandizing, adolescent tripe–I’d be remiss not to point out the difference between thoroughbred race horses (i.e. Geoffrey Dunn and myself) and the steaming piles of shit said horses leave on the ground behind them (i.e. Sarah, Bristol, etc.)

Bachmann Steals Sarah’s Thunder: Sarah Quits Again & Lets Her Take It


It’s tough to catch lightning in a bottle.

Equally tough to recapture the sound of thunder once someone else has spirited it away.

Sarah Palin’s endless, erratic dithering about her 2012 intentions has created a vacuum on the evangelical right that Michelle Bachmann has been quick to fill.

Who was all over the Sunday talk shows today? Bachmann. Suddenly, the press is all about her.

Just look at this.

Through her fear of engagement with America’s opinion-makers, and movers and shakers, Sarah has painted herself into a corner at which fewer and fewer people even bother to glance.

Bachmann has effortlessly slid into the groove that Sarah once occupied.

Suddenly, it’s Bachmann who is the “serious” female candidate for the GOP nomination.

Suddenly–or not so suddenly–Sarah has been shoved to the sidelines, from which her shrill cries can barely be heard.

I start the last chapter of THE ROGUE by writing:

The time has come to strike the tent.

That may seem like a strange thing to say in the last chapter of a book about the star performer of the circus. But no matter how much my book sales might benefit from a Palin presidential campaign in 2012, I sincerely hope that the whole extravaganza, which has been unblushingly underwritten by a mainstream media willing to gamble the nation’a future in exchange for the cheap thrill of watching a clown in high heels on a flying trapeze, is nearing the end of its run.

Someone who knows Sarah better than I do told me recently that the only thing that would propel her into the 2012 race would be a credible Michelle Bachmann candidacy. Because Sarah couldn’t bear to yield the limelight to another woman.

Yet it’s happened. I’d always thought Sarah would run for president because to not do so would destroy her credibility even among the cretins who would have supported her.

But she just didn’t have the guts, or the commitment, to do so. She’s always been a phony and a bully.

Because of John McCain’s desperate and deeply unpatriotic inanity, she got in over her head in 2008.

She’s been treading water ever since. Now she’s about to sink out of sight.

To switch the metaphor back to the circus, she’s skulked away from the center ring, conceding it to Bachmann without a fight.

A venal, lying, avaricious quitter she always was, and a venal, lying and avaricious quitter she’ll always be.

Goodbye, Sarah, “The Oft-Defeated.” We knew ye all too well.

Increasingly Desperate, Sarah Palin Supporters Pin Hopes on New Movie

As they see even what used to be her base losing interest in Sarah as Queen Esther–and as a presidential candidate–her shrinking hard core of unblinkingly blind zealots is praying out loud that the propaganda film made by one of their own can somehow overcome all that Sarah herself has done over the past two-and-a-half years to make herself irrelevant, laughing all the way to the bank.

The serious neo-cons, such as Kristol, Barnes and Krauthammer, whom she so successfully seduced in 2008, have abandoned her.

To them, she’s become a dirty joke they wish they hadn’t told.

Most of the Tea Partiers have given up on her, too, transferring their affections to Bachmann, while dreaming of Perry.

This leaves Sarah increasingly isolated, no more a “Mama Grizzly,” but a polar bear marooned on an inexorably shrinking ice floe (but one, she will assure us, that isn’t melting because of man made global warming.)

God used to open doors for her.  Now she needs a deus ex machina just to keep herself afloat.

The dwindling few who still proudly proclaim themselves as cult members see “The Undefeated” as their last best hope.

See this frantic call to arms–or at least to the box office–at The Daily Caller.

Or listen to the last gasps of the drowning at Conservatives4Palin, such as this and this.

As if a propaganda film could save her now.

For the record, Sarah Palin is not undefeated. She was not only defeated as McCain’s running mate in 2008, but she was defeated in her race for lieutenant governor of Alaksa in 2004.

“The Twice-Defeated” would be a more accurate title.

Not that accuracy has ever mattered to Sarah.

Bachmann Waves Wand: Suddenly Sarah Palin is Yesterday

 

Sarah is in danger of becoming only the second most disgusting Republican woman who wants to be president.

Bachmann’s performance in New Orleans tonight was pure (if there is any such thing) Palin, from vicious attacks on Obama down to calling male attention to her underwear.

Referring to the recent New Hampshire debate, she said:

I didn’t know if they were going to ask boxers or briefs – a girl never knows.”

It’s reported that she got a standing ovation for that line.  Which figures, given her audience.

If you look at my most recent post, you’ll see I mention that an informed source told me recently that the one thing most likely to draw Sarah into the race would be Bachmann claiming her turf as GOP’s new sexpot loudmouth provocateur.

Memo to Sarah: it’s happenin’, babe. By Labor Day your theme song could be from the Beatles:

Now I need a place to hide away,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

We’re not halfway through 2011 yet and already Bachmann is the Sarah Palin of 2012.

Will our gal just sit back and let that happen?

Stay tuned.

A year ago, Sarah’s worst problem was having me for a neighbor—though it was a problem only in her own disordered mind.

Now she’s at risk of sinking into the quicksand pit of obscurity that consumes used up political hucksters who haven’t noticed that they’re no longer tomorrow’s main course at the banquet, but only yesterday’s breakfast.

It happens fast, Sarah.  Just like your arrival from nowhere happened fast.

By next year you could be doing Sunday morning infomercials for “Sarah Palin Scottsdale SPF 100 Sun Block.”

I wonder if she’s placed an advance order for THE ROGUE.

Probably she’s hoping for a free copy.

It won’t come from me.

Even the version shown to magazines this week for possible first serial excerpt in advance of Sept. 20 publication was redacted.

Just like the Palin emails.

There are revelations in the book that Random House/Crown just won’t risk having leaked prematurely.

Let me put it this way:  if Sarah doesn’t announce her 2012 decision before Sept. 20 when THE ROGUE is published, I predict she won’t run.

And I know why.