Will this make Franklin Graham an enemy of the Palinites?  In a recent interview Graham suggest, from time spent with Governor Palin, that she “does not like politics and is not running for President.”  The question is, that I am sure the Palinites will answer swiftly, is how much does he know about Palin and her political/non-political ambitions?  Below is the full interview from Newsmax.com:

The Rev. Franklin Graham said Sunday that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin doesn’t like politics and is not running for president.

Graham, one of the most influential evangelical ministers in the country and the son of the legendary Rev. Billy Graham, knows Palin well. He told ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour that he traveled with her to Haiti and said the former Republican vice presidential candidate “likes speaking on the issues, and I agree with many of the issues she brings up. I don’t see her as running for president,” according to Politico and ABC News.

AMANPOUR: You have traveled to Haiti with Sarah Palin.

GRAHAM: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Is she the kind of candidate you would like to see run for election? Would she be your candidate of choice?

GRAHAM: I don’t think Sarah’s going to — I don’t think she// likes politics. I think she likes speaking on the issues, and I agree with many of the issues that she brings up, but I believe — I don’t see her as running for president.

AMANPOUR: If she did, would you support her? Would she be your candidate?

GRAHAM: It depends on who the other candidates are.

AMANPOUR: So, that’s not a yes.

GRAHAM: No. I mean, we’re so early. But I do like Sarah.

Graham said he is undecided on the other presidential candidates, but did give a shoutout to both Mitt Romney and Donald Trump during the interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

Mitt Romney has “proven himself” and is “a very capable person,” Graham said.

“Donald Trump, when I first saw that he was getting in, I thought ‘Well this has got to be a joke,’” Graham said. “But the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, ‘You know maybe the guy’s right.’”

When Amanpour asked whether he might support Trump, Graham said, “Sure, yeah. Sure.”

President Barack Obama, whom Graham has met with, is “a very nice man.

“He’s a very gracious person,” Graham said. “But I think our country is in big trouble.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Franklin Graham: Palin Not Running for President
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama’s Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

National Journal Magazine has a new political “insiderss” poll out today showing that both Republican and Democrat insiders believe that Romney will be the strongest candidate to face Obama.   You can see the Republican insiders overwhelmingly gave Romney their confidence.

Mitt Romney Ranks as Strongest Candidate to Go Against Obama

Q: Who would be the Republicans’ strongest presidential nominee in 2012?

Democrats (111 votes)

Rank/Candidate
1. Mitt Romney 29 percent
2. John Thune 15 percent
3. Tim Pawlenty 13 percent
4. Mitch Daniels 11 percent
5. Newt Gingrich 6 percent
6. Haley Barbour 5 percent
6. Jeb Bush 5 percent
8. Mike Huckabee 3 percent
8. Bobby Jindal 3 percent
8. Sarah Palin 3 percent

Also receiving votes: Dick Cheney, 2 percent; Michael Bloomberg, Eric Cantor, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Colin Powell, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, no one, 1 percent each.

Romney

“He can raise money, has something of a national base, has been around the presidential block, can talk about the economy, looks good on TV, and handles himself well.”

Q: Please rank the top five candidates, 1 through 5, in terms of who you think is most likely to capture the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Republicans (109 votes)

Rank/Candidate/Insiders Index*
1. Mitt Romney 81
2. Tim Pawlenty 46
3. John Thune 38
4. Haley Barbour 28
5. Mitch Daniels 25
5. Sarah Palin 25
7. Newt Gingrich 14
7. Mike Huckabee 14
9. Jeb Bush 6
10. Bobby Jindal 5

*METHODOLOGY: All 127 Republicans among National Journal’s Political Insiders were asked to name and rank the top five contenders for their party’s 2012 presidential nomination; 109 participated. In tallying the rankings, a first-place vote was worth 5 points, a second-place vote 4 points, and so on. The Insiders Index reflects the percentage of points that each contender received out of the maximum possible. For example, Mitt Romney scored an Index rating of 81, meaning he received 81 percent of the possible 545 points, the number he would have had if all 109 participants had ranked him first.

Romney

“In a downturn, trading a community organizer for a businessman may seem like a no-brainer.”

Mark B. Lowe over at Race42012.com gave this analysis:

My analysis: The first thing that leaps out at me is the questions. It is not, “Whom would you vote for”, or ,”Whom would you like to see”? The question to the Democrats was, “Whom would be the strongest opponent”? The question to the Republicans was, “Who is the most likely to obtain the nomination”? Note the difference? None of this “favorables” touchy-feely stuff.

The second thing that strikes me is the term “political insiders”. The grass roots like to sneer at them, but it has long been my experience that the middle layers of any organization are the ones who really run things. They are the ones that make things work in spite of the ravings from the top. The top determine policy. The middle actually sees that it gets done in spite of the top echelon in many cases. So don’t blame them for the policy screw-ups during the Bush years.

These are not part-time political junkies. These are the guys whose very jobs and careers depend on their political judgment. If outsiders such as us call a political shot wrong, we lose face. If they call a political shot wrong, they lose their jobs.

The final thing that strikes me is that I pretty much agree with them. As I see it now, the two people most likely to win the nomination are Pawlenty and Romney. They are the ones making the right moves in order to lay a foundation for a successful run. Huckabee and Palin are acting more like celebrities than candidates. If they are truly going to run, I see them making the same mistakes now that ultimately cost Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson the nomination last time.

Mitt and Ann Romney were recently by Fox News’ Gretchen.  That interview will air on Wedsnesday.  Here are some excerpts of what Governor Romney had to say about his plans for 2012.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says he will decide after the 2010 Congressional elections whether to take on pro-abortion President Barack Obama. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, ran as a pro-life candidate against eventual nominee John McCain.

Romney is one of several Republicans considering a bid against Obama and consistently polls in the top three in most surveys of Republicans and American voters.

He has ranked as one of the top potential candidates along with pro-life former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

In a new interview with Fox News slated to air Wednesday, Romney discusses his plans.

“It’s always a possibility, and you keep the options open, but, you concentrate on the task ahead, for me that’s trying to get some good people elected in 2010,” he says on the Fox News program “Fox and Friends.”

“And, I know once that’s done the next item on the agenda is what’s 2012 going to be; and, Ann and I will give that some thought and make the decision then,” he added.

Appearing like a candidate, or at least an advocate for “change” in 2010, Romney voiced criticism of Obama, saying he has governed from the left when he pledged to be a moderate.

“I had higher hopes for him,” Romney said. “I knew he was a smart individual — I thought that he would learn that governing from the middle was the right way to go, as president Clinton learned his second term, but he’s made a lot of the mistakes that ideologues often do, which is thinking that everybody in the country voted for their extreme agenda.”

Romney also talked about Palin in the interview on the Fox News show and diffused rumors that she may consider a third-party presidential bid.

“I don’t know what her plans are but my expectation is that she’ll stay in the Republican party,” he said.

“Look, she’s a great, energizing member of the party. She has good ideas that have galvanized a lot of support for the party and she’s a welcome addition,” he added.

During the campaign, Romney said he is pro-life on abortion and went as far as endorsing the overturning of Roe v. Wade so states can again protect women and unborn children from abortion.

However, the former governor came under fire from some quarters for his state health care plan, which includes taxpayer-funded abortions. Romney countered that the state Supreme Court required abortion funding under the program.

A Gallup survey asked Republicans to say whether they would like any of several potential presidential candidates.

Some 71 percent of Republicans say they would seriously consider voting for Huckabee while the same 65 percent say they would consider Romney or Palin, both of whom ran as pro-life candidates in 2008.

A previous Rasmussen poll found 29% of Republican voters nationwide say Huckabee is their pick to represent the GOP in the 2012 presidential campaign.

The survey had 24 percent preferring Romney and 18% would cast their vote for pro-life former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

The full interview is set to air on Wednesday but Fox was able to give us a peak into their interview with Ann:

I sure wish Evangelicals For Mitt had the option on commenting on their posts.  I say we all send Nancy and David French e-mails requesting they do so because there are a number of posts that seem like they are designed for commenting but no one can do so.  That’s not a true blog!

At any rate, David created a post with a few questions for 2010, which I would like to respond to on his blog, but again, no option to do so.  David has a few prediction of his own and I’d like to see what other’s perspectives are on what David had to say and how things will go for Huckabee, Palin, Romney and Obama.

Here is an excerpt from David French’s post:

(2) How much longer before Mike Huckabee goes after Sarah Palin with both barrels? Right now Huckabee is reeling, but a politician doesn’t go to the pages of the Washington Post to defend his horrific clemency record when he intends to go gently into that good night. I will give one prediction: Mike Huckabee will attempt a political comeback. But Sarah Palin will stand in his way. Her poll numbers are strengthening, she’s an Evangelical Christian, and she has one huge advantage over Huckabee (and no, it’s not her looks): She’s actually conservative.

If there’s one thing we learned about Mike Huckabee, it’s that the (former) pastor has a thin skin and some sharp claws. In time he’ll learn he can’t beat Mitt Romney unless he first beats Sarah Palin. Good luck with that, Governor.

If I could respond to David, I would tell him that I think he is spot on with his prediction of Palin and Huckabee, and the difficulty a Palin run would cause to a Huckabee campaign.  I actually did a post not too long ago titled “Huckabee’s greatest fear for 2012 -Sarah Palin” in which I stated pretty much the same things that David in his article quoted above, and how I think Mitt will benefit from it.

Please, share your prediction and don’t be afraid to speculate.  Speculation is really fun!  So let’s have fun with this.

There has been much debate regarding who has the greatest shot at winning the Republican nomination in 2012.  There have also been many polls indicating who the considered front runners are -Romney, Palin and Huckabee.  Tim Pawlenty has also been considered, but is not showing well in any of the polling.

But there is one candidate, who was regarded by many as the “spoiler” of the last Republican primary, and that was Mike Huckabee.  Huckabee basically handed the nomination over to McCain when he played the religion card enabling him to take Iowa out from under Romney’s feet (just 1 month prior to the Iowa Caucus Romney held 31 percent in the polling) when he started targeting his fellow Evangelicals as well as his bigoted Mormon comment that ” don’t Mormons believe satan and Jesus are brothers?”

When I saw this excerpt from Sarah Palin’s interview with Greta Van Sustern, I got very eager to see her run for the Presidency, but not because I want her to be President, nor because I think she is qualified.  I want her to run because she will cut very deeply into Mike Huckabee’s base, and vise versa, which would allow Romney to skate through unscathed as Palin and Huckabee battle each other for the same votes.

Here’s the interview with Greta:

VAN SUSTEREN: How — I mean, you haven’t said you’re going to run. And I’m not going to (INAUDIBLE) but I mean, in the back of your mind, you must think, How can I reach the people who don’t agree with me?

PALIN: Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: OK? I mean, it’s easy to reach the people that agree with you. How do you reach the people who are a little farther to the left and way far to the left from you?

PALIN: I think that those people are going to start seeing that the direction of our country right now has got to change. And whether they agree with me personally on my values or the — some of the issues that I really grabbed hold of and tried to progress with — whether they agree with that or not, I think what they’re going to agree with is that we have to build a stronger nation economically and in terms of national security.

And the things that I’m standing for, they’re such common sense measures that have to be undertaken in order to get there for America with national security, with the economy. I think they’re going to be agreeing with that. But I’m never going to please everyone. There’s no — there’s no need to even try to please everyone. Some people will — if it comes from me, they’ll automatically not like what the idea is or what the position is.

VAN SUSTEREN: So how do you win over the people that don’t — I mean, who may have that sort of kneejerk reaction, if you want to — if you want to talk to them, if you want to reach them, at least have them consider what you have to say?

PALIN: Well, for instance, the book is a good tool to get — hey, read the book, and if you still don’t like the positions that I take or if you don’t like who I am after reading the book, unfiltered through the media, then so be it. You know, I’m never going to win you over. But at least give me a shot there in trying to figure out who I am, what my record is, what my accomplishments are and what I represent.

And then, Greta, if I can’t please them, I can’t please them. I’m not going to try. I’m not going to change who I am or compromise my positions, my values, in order to placate or to try to get some demographic or some group of people on board with me if they just don’t get it.

Is there any doubt after reading this that Palin IS indeed running for President in 2012?  This dividing of the Evangelical base could be just enough for Romney to compete very well in Iowa as well as to pull out a win there.  Nonetheless, Romney will win New Hampshire, then Michigan, which would give him to big wins in a row, then he would move on to take Nevada, as he did last go around.  By then, Iowa will have been forgotten about.  Romney may just have enough momentum with 3 wins in a row to take South Carolina, as that will be a state that Huckabee and Palin will be siphoning away each others voters.

Romney will then win Florida, as he would have last time had McCain not lied about Romney calling for a timetable for withdrawl in Irag, then move on to take CA then the rest is history folks….we have our highly qualified nominee.

I was on Race42008 the other day when there was a conversation going on about Romney and Huckabee.  The comments section was flooded with Anti-Mormon comments to the degree that many people, almost all of them non-Mormon, we requesting that these folks be banned for bigotry.

These are the followers that Mike Huckabee attracts folks!  Mike Huckabee, as bigot himself,  has no place leading anything in American politics.  He should give heed to these words from Ronald Reagan:

Also check out Palin’s interview with Billy Graham and you tell me Mike Huckabee is not crapping in his pants right now: http://www.billygraham.org/News_Article.asp?ArticleID=730

Optimism for America posted a Survey USA poll today showing that people who live in Los Angelas prefer Mitt Romney as the best prospect for Republican President.

Which of these Republicans would make a better president?

* Mitt Romney 25%
* Mike Huckabee 19%
* Sarah Palin 14%
* Newt Gingrich 11%

Among Conservatives
* Mitt Romney 27%
* Mike Huckabee 23%
* Sarah Palin 18%
* Newt Gingrich 12%

Among Republicans
* Mitt Romney 31%
* Mike Huckabee 26%
* Sarah Palin 13%
* Newt Gingrich 12%

Among Independents
* Mitt Romney 20%
* Newt Gingrich 19%
* Mike Huckabee 18%
* Sarah Palin 12%

Among Democrats
* Mitt Romney 29%
* Sarah Palin 15%
* Mike Huckabee 14%
* Newt Gingrich 7%

I know that there are Palin hopefuls out there convincing themselves that Sarah will run for President, but I just don’t think she is interested.  This article describes my thoughts:

By David Corn -Politics Daily

Recently, I asked a GOP consultant, who must remain nameless here, this question: Who advises Sarah Palin? His answer: No one. Really? I asked. Yes, he said, really.

So that explains it.

Palin’s actions keep defying rational explanation. Her sudden retreat from her job as Alaska governor made her seem a quitter — especially when she couldn’t coherently justify the resignation during her surprise July 4 weekend announcement. Even if Palin’s pullout had been a reasonable decision, it seemed as if she had not consulted anyone with PR or political sense on how best to handle the controversial move.

Since then, her performance as a politician with a chance of snagging the GOP presidential nomination has been — to be polite — unsteady. On July 17, Palin, who had become a prolific Twitterer, sent out this message to her tweeps: “10 dys til less politically correct twitters fly frm my fingertps outside State site.” In other words, Palin — who had recently been quoting Aristotle and Thomas Paine in her tweets — would soon dump her AkGovSarahPalin Twitter account, which was being followed by 150,000 people, and start sharing her observations via a new Twitter feed. But she didn’t keep that promise — and has yet to set up a new Twitter account for all those folks who yearn for her 140-character messages. Why keep her base waiting? Any good adviser would have recommended that she keep the tweets flowing.

Toward the end of July, Palin found herself in another curious predicament when she apparently retreated from a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. On her Facebook page — her communications platform of choice these days — Palin maintained that she had not committed to attend the Simi Valley Republican Women’s event. Yet that GOP-gals outfit had issued a press release declaring that she had indeed agreed to speak at their shindig at the Reagan Library. As with an earlier dust-up over an appearance at a Republican fundraiser in Washington, it appeared that Palin couldn’t handle a routine scheduling matter.

Then there’s her book. A few days ago, a GOPer close to Mitt Romney, another potential contender for the 2012 Republican nomination, was laughing as we talked about Palin’s book, due out next month. He was tittering especially about its title, “Going Rogue.” That phrase was used by John McCain’s aides toward the end of the 2008 election to describe Palin’s off-message behavior on the campaign trail. “What voter wants a rogue president?” this Mitt-friendly Republican said to me, pointing out that Romney has finished a book of his own on weighty policy matters that will come out next year. Its title: “No Apology: The Case of American Greatness.”

Read the rest here.

McClatchy News Service reports:

WASHINGTON — In a strongly worded message to Congress outlining its priorities for a military spending bill, the Obama administration today said it disapproved of including money for pensions for 26 elderly members of the World War II-era Alaska Territorial Guard.

The Guardsmen are among those assigned to protect Alaska from the Japanese during World War II.

The Army decided this year to no longer count service in the Guard in calculating the military’s 20-year minimum for retirement pay, although it still counts for military benefits. As a result, their pensions were decreased in January.

An estimated 300 members are still living from the original 6,600-member unit formed in 1942 to protect Alaska, then a territory, from attack. The 26 men have enough other military service to reach the 20-year minimum for retirement pay but would lose it if the Territorial Guard service doesn’t count.

A Senate military spending bill up for a vote in the Senate allows the former Guard members count their service as part of active military duty, and it reinstates the payments.

State lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year to fill the pay gap until Congress made a permanent fix, but the White House said Friday it didn’t think it was “appropriate to establish a precedent of treating service performed by a state employee as active duty for purposes of the computation of retired pay.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who along with Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, sponsored the fix, called the administration move “deeply disappointing, bordering on insensitive.” The legislation honors 26 elderly Native people who are the few remaining survivors of a military unit that served the country with valor, Murkowski said.

“The administration’s justification, which is that the legislation will set the precedent of treating service as a state employee as federal service, defies logic and history,” she said in a statement. “Sixty-two years after the Territorial Guard was disbanded, the Obama administration minimizes the contribution of this gallant unit to America’s success in World War II by calling its service ‘state service.’ “

We have been told that the President’s healtcare plan will not lead to rationing.  We have been told that he would never cut off the elderly’s medical benefits to save a few bucks.  “How could you even think that the President would ever do such a thing?” we have been asked.  Only Republicans would be so cold-hearted and cruel.  In fact, many supporters of the President, including his cheerleaders in the state run media,  have called those who have said that such things were possible under his healtcare plan are all “liars.”

And yet, Mr. Obama cuts off pension benefits to 26 WWII vets and denied the applications of 37 more WWII vets, to save a few bucks.  Actions speak louder than words, Mr. President.  Give us a reason to believe your claims that you would never ration healthcare and restore the pensions of these brave veterans who deserve far better than the treatment you have given them.