Sarah Palin's Post-Gubernatorial Career Blossoms

Earlier this summer, when Sarah Palin announced her early retirement from the gubernatorial post in Alaska, there was, naturally, a lot of speculation about why she'd quit us -- and even more about what she might do next. "Only dead fish go with the flow", she declared in her inscrutable farewell speech, which is all well and good, but still leaves a lot of room for interpretation about what might come next. A presidential run? Radio talk show? A yearning for the lower 48? Fishing?

Today brought some insight into, if not what you could call "a plan", at least a sense of how she'll be filling her datebook. First up, Palin will be traveling to Hong Kong to deliver a speech at the CLSA Investors Forum, an annual conference of global investment managers. Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Alan Greenspan have all spoken here before. What Palin will bring to the table is, as yet, unclear. According to the AP report, "the topic has not yet been confirmed."

This is Palin's first commercial speaking engagement. Though in all likelihood it's not her last, as Politico reported on Monday that she has begun to work her way through some 1,070 odd invitations for paid speaking engagements and political appearances. The paid speeches are going for six figures, though Palin has yet to commit to any besides the aforementioned Asian trip.

Lastly, the AP reports that according to Palin's father, Palin is hard at work on her book -- and the glimpse he offers foreshadows what could be heavy reading.

Heath [Palin's father] told the Spokesman-Review he frequently gets e-mails from her seeking trivial information for her book - like how many points she scored in a basketball game or when the family attended the Boston Marathon.

Comments

[jimbeaux1961]

"Sooo, How are 'ya doin' with the whole Investment thingy? Back in Alaaaska, we get all Mavericky on Double-Coupon days at the Quik-Sak! Also, with the whole Jobs Creating thing we're goin' full steam, and too, re-loadin' yer own bullets saves us a BUNCH! Thank You, Thank You, and God Bless you Godless Heathens!"

yeah...right

[Snow97]

Dear Sen. McCain:

Thank you, once again and not-seriously, for introducing the Diva to our political landscape. We notice that you, ahem, have found ways to avoid crossing paths with her since your ill-advised and short-lived venture last year. Would that we were as fortunate as you. Instead, we have rumors that the Diva is to set up shop in Orange County, California, in an effort to muster up some sort of "base" of support and fundraising with which she can spring into the 2012 campaign. While we do not begrudge the people of the great state of Alaska -- if these rumors are true -- their good fortune in seeing the last of the Diva, we are understandably dreading the Diva's invasion of our state. We are imperfect, but we strive to be better. We do not need the Diva to come and pull us all down into the mud.

Sincerely,

Californians for Obama

[Luv2Purple]

Palin didn't "retire" SHE QUIT! There is a huge difference. A true world leader, Winston Churchill once told us "Never, never, never QUIT". Palin is a wh - o r - e who is running as fast as she can in her red fxxk me pumps to GRAB THE MONEY with her grubbly little hands! This is all about "HER" career not serving anything or anyone else.

[angiemomma]

Yup.

[airtyme]

Oh, this about sums it up, with regard to the wonderful Obama:

http://politicalintegritynow.com/?p=433

Tell the man to get a spine! 45,000 troops requested but only 14,000 sent. Oh, he is also substituting the support with contractors. Who is he paying of now?????

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/afghanistan

[Luv2Purple]

airtyme....your vitriol surprises me....as a loyal patriotic american I would think that you would be appalled by Shrubbushjr's COWARDICE at learning America was under attack...he sat FROZEN w/ FEAR pretending to read "My Pet Goat" to the schoolchildren rather than taking leadership action! Also where were bush's balls when it was time to capture or kill Bin Laden at Tora Bora? the loudmouth didn't even have the nerve to send in OIUR troops, when we had him surrounded, possibly wounded and vulnerable. bush chickened out, sent in locals who gave away the store. The great MYTH is that bushjr "kept us safe" NO the TRUTH is that we were hit by terrorists on the rethuglican watch due to criminal negligence and hubris.

[airtyme]

You liberals do not realize that you are the ones that are building her power. The more you chastize her, the more support she gets. Not too mention, many who did not support her early on, are starting to think twice as they are catching on to the "Why are they so afraid of Sarah? If she is not a threat, then why don't they just leave her alone?" Ralph Nadar is a prime example. The jokes about him could be endless, yet he provides no threat to the lefts agenda, therefore, he is typically left alone.

Get the picture?

I invite you to keep it up, bash and bash away...you are sealing your own fate as a democratic party, and I couldn't be happier. Combine that with Obama's dramatically fallen approval numbers and 2010/2012 is looking oh so sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Luv2Purple]

airtyme - you are SO COMPLETELY THOROUGHLY WRONG! You likely think W was a good president too don't you? Sad how many have drunk the cool aid.

[angiemomma]

We're not afraid of her. We're afraid of the ignorant masses who adore empty headed politicians like her. There are so many of you, after all.

[Zibop]

Then why are you complaining?

Sorry that we don't take clowns seriously. They're for entertainment purposes, doncha know.

[jimbeaux1961]

Silly me; I thought it was John McCain and the GOP that put her on the national stage. I'm sure Iraq, Iran-Contra, and Watergate were my fault, too! My bad!

[Carsy]

I wonder if Palin will take this opportunity to use a quote from a fridge magnet in this speech?

[juneaugal]

Printing her life story in Crayola crayons is going to take a VERY long time.

[loudyk]

And I'm sure she won't be able to color inside the lines either.

[Hammerofthor]

Palin power, influence, and prestige growing stronger every day.

[inmyopinion]

Hammerofthor, start thinking with your real head and stop thinking with your "little head" in your pants.
You are obviously not from Alaska. Not even her remaining fans in Alaska, much dwindling in number, would say the crap you do.
Yes, Sarah Palin may rake in a lot of money from here on in, or try to rake in a lot of money, but doing so is highly unethical and dishonorable. She claimed when she quit as govenror that she was serving a higher calling. That higher calling, obviously, is herself and her wallet.
It is unethical to use her state office, a position of trust, to make a bunch of money.
She claimed she would be serving Alaska. She obviously lied. She is out for herself. Alaskans do not take too kindly to the fact that the entire state was used by the grfiter to pad her wallet. You should hear what her former staffers have to say about their ex-boss.
As for the idea that her cashing out somehow equals credibility, well, Britney Spears makes a lot of money, too. Maybe that's a bad example, because Britney is a lot more intelligent, moral, ethical and credible than SP.

[mychagal]

She is the most dishnonorable human being on the face of the earth. She fails miserably, she lies and makes disgraceful remarks about our president, quits, doesn't give a damn about anyone but herself. She's a crook, has left both Wasilla and the state of Alaska in a miserable state, she's a hypocrit of epic proportions and she's simply a disgrace to all former politicians and women as a whole.

How does this piece of crap end up with such high earning potential. It's unconscionable and completely unforgivable. I hope that lawsuits keep going her way, so that every dime she makes is used to pay her legal fees and I hope she ends up in the poorhouse. That's truly all she deserves.

[DCinFrance]

Oh, for sure, for sure!!

[Archivist1000]

Hammer .... do you have even a bit of an understanding of what the word 'prestige' means?

SNL had their biggest ratings on the nights Tina Fey did her Sarah re-enactments. People like to watch many things, and in Sarah's case, people love to watch her make a fool of herself.

She really is a walking joke, because she just doesn't get how foolish she appears. When Sarah starts presenting herself in forums where she can submit herself to questions, I can't take her seriously.

The fact that she doesn't do that, shows her for the airhead that she is.

[Freesia2]

You might want to check this out before you invest too much of your heart into that (very funny) thing you wrote there. It's from Shannyn Moore's blog here on Huffpo citing the Business Insider. It seems the people giving Palin her new glow of prestigious influential power have a long history of bringing people in as a joke.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/palin-punked_b_274244.html?show_comment_id=30117198#comment_30117198

Maybe the "Luminary" should have another little chat with Nicholas Sarkozy before she boards the plane.

[angiemomma]

Prestige? Caribou Barbie has a lot of things (ignorance, bigotry, hate), but not prestige.

[Archivist1000]

There is no doubt Palin is a celebrity .. Paris Hilton gets hundreds of thousands, plus expenses, just to show up at a party in Europe.. or to be there for the opening of a new night club.

Paris is a whole lot smarter, and much more intesting.

BTW .. Paris wrote that 'response' to McCain herself .. it was pretty cute too!

[Freesia2]

I didn't know that. (I thought it was cute too.) But I didn't know she wrote it herself. Good on Paris.

[deosil]

Yes, it was quite witty. We weren´t expecting much ftrom Paris...but it was good.

[Zibop]

Paris proved she's much more intelligent than the sarah. Much!

[suz1941]

No matter how much Sarah Palin makes and what it will provide for her and her family. She will still be Sarah Palin - the quitter, the lier, the uneducated, the diva, the whackjob and the verball challenged unless she hires a great speech writer. My mother used this saying years ago "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Sarah Palin is to politics what Tanya Harding was to ice skating. Don't mess with her just ask Nancy Kerrigan.

[aufman]

Sarah Palin will take Asia by storm and she will convert all of Asia into American style conservatives. This is the beginning of the rise of Sarah Palin as she accumulate her foreign policy experience such that it will exceed that of Obambi, Biden and even McCain. She WILL become America's next and GREATEST president of all times in 2012 after she PWNS Obambi in the largest electoral landslide in HISTORY! America and the whole world will fall in love with Palin and Palinism will spread around the world like wildfire as the whole world adopts Palin Conservatism over their existing government ideology.

Palin is TRULY GOD's CHOSEN ONE, GOD INCARNATE and the LIVING EMBODIMENT OF GOD HERSELF!

[inmyopinion]

Yikes. I can only assume you're being sarcastic. If so, the Alaska business community finds your comment incredibly funny..
"American style conservatives," I guess, would increase taxes on their states' top investors by 400 percent, right?

[aufman]

Palinism is the Doctrine that will save this world from a complete economic collapse. Palinomics has the DIVINE POWER of GOD HERSELF! Palinist Christian Conservatism is the ideology of GOD HERSELF and it is the ideology that will bring the world to greater glory and prosperity. The Palin Revolution will spread around the world like wildfire and it will defeat Communism and all forms of dictatorial government.

The whole world will KOWTOW to the almighty Sarah Palin!

[1djn]

All of the Palin critics are boring and saying the same old things. Palin is going to be a political superstar whether her critics like her or not. She is going to take the Country and the World by storm.

By the way, 2 badly edited interviews for Palin, so what. Our current VP has more gaffs than I can count, and our own Harvard Educated President has a few himself, including visiting 57 states.

Palin will be able to buy her own clothes in 2012, and she will not need Gibson or Couric, who no one watches anyway.

[imnofred]

Could you tell me what medication that you are taking that makes you so delusional???

[conservativelady]

Don't bring up the clothes issue please, don't remind me about what a taker that woman is.  She has benefited by far the most from her political service.  The woman has accomplished next to nothing and she quit half way through her first term.  She is beginning to seem like not much more then some sort of welfare queen who takes advantage of the system.  She is little more then a cult figure and a lousy role model as a conservative. She is a celebrity. Only horny middle aged men and their stupid wives are stupid enough to fall for the quitter who just takes and takes. So save your worship for God. You are just completely ignoring how incompetent that woman is, no those lousy interview performances were not the result of bad editing. You are so delusional!

[inmyopinion]

At this point, Palin is as despised by Alaska conservatives as she is by Alaska liberals. Probably more despised by conservatives.
Yes, she's a cult figure, and an incompetent boob and terrible role model to boot. You have that pegged.

[Archivist1000]

Badly edited??

Well, I saw her answer to Katie ... or rather, her non-answer. Anyone who can't name OFF THE TOP OF THEIR HEAD what they read to be informed .... DOESN"T READ.

I also saw her unable to answer Gibson's question about the bush Doctrine ... she didn't know what it was, not a clue.

The Debate wasn't 'edited' either ....

Oh .. and when someone says she doesn't agree with some Supreme Court decisions she should be able to name them, and why she doesn't agree...

I could go on and on about how Palin showed herself to be clueless and sadly uninformed about

[Archivist1000]

............ on and on about the many times Palin showed herself to be undereducated and thoughtless. She thinks and speaks in soundbites, there is no depth to her opinions, as does anyone who 'supports' her. They respond to her shallow folksy sayings.

I won't even go into the outright deliberate lies/misinformation she is comfortable with spreading....... except that we got a good look at that, in a Memo from a high-up in the McCain campaign, who told her that she was lying about Todd's membership in the Alaska secessionist party.

Back to the debate though .... here's a cute Flow Chart of her debate prep ...

http://archivist1000.blogspot.com/2009/08/palin-debate-flow-chart.html

[phyllisFL]

Palin must have Michael Steel setting up her speeches. You would think Hong Kong would maybe have Bernake or a top official to discuss the enconomy instead of Sara Palin who did not even know what newspaper she reads. I would love to hear what the questions and answer session would be like. I would be worried about what she would say about the Obama adminstration. She must have an excellent public relations crew. How scary to think she is the one that was chosen to an event Gore had spoken at as well. What was Hong Kong Thinking?

[Freesia2]

That she's prettier than Al Gore.

That she will draw a crowd who will be content to look at her legs and the story they can tell after to their friends that they met smoking hot Sarah Palin who was kind of dumb but - hey - who cares (laughing into their sake).

That they will have done a favor for their monied American friends by making their barbie doll welcome and treating her like she's not a barbie doll for the cameras. Their monied friends might make it worth their while in a sweet business deal in gratitude. Their monied friends might be able to get her in the White House like they did Bush and there will be more sweet business deals.

That they don't care what newspaper she reads.

[tm68]

One speaking engagement and her career is "blossoming"? I wouldn't be too quick to congratulate her on this- she hasn't actually spoke at this thing yet. She has a tendency to back out of her speaking engagements citing never having committed in the first place.

[Freesia2]

She's being paid a lot of cash for this one. This isn't like ditching some evangelical holy rollers last week at a pro-life event where she was going for her "beliefs". Here they're going to pay her handsomely, give her a nice trip to Asia at swanky hotels, let her rub elbows with the kind of men who will pay a lot of money to rub her pretty elbow, and for the Republicans desperate to give her an aura of importance it will play well to their desperate hopes they can shine her up for 2012.

She'll make this one. She'll probably do okay too. Because someone else will write the speech, in English, and give her charming things to say though she'll go off script there with cleverismly things about how China is her favorite and in fact she owns two sets "also" and serves caribou moo shu on it every day. She'll show.

[zanzig]

"let her rub elbows with the kind of men who will pay a lot of money to rub her pretty elbow" Didn't realise it wasn't an investor forum. At least in Australia when we had a mining and exploration investors conference we invited Nouriel Roubini. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

[imnofred]

Where is Politico getting these numbers from? If they are coming from the Palin camp, I would not believe it because they are known to exaggerate the truth. I highly doubt that over 1,000 would be calling to have Sara speak at their events.

[zanzig]

What is the American equivalent of the Australian Country Women's Association? The group that gets together and bakes pumpkin scones and talks about the lot of the farmers' wives?

[sunnyjane]

I think she'll go and make a well-prepared speech (although not written by HER). There is money involved here, and that means they probably made her sign a contract -- if they're smart, they did. That way she can't back out of the commitment.

What would be interesting to see is the question-and-answer session after the speech. She can't communicate on her own, as we all know from the interviews in 2008.

[tm68]

Oh god how I love Chuck Heath! He always tells it like it is. LOL