Sarah Palin chasing the legendary Mr. T

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Sarah Palin provokes love and hate. Now both fans and frenemies can always have a dose of Sarah within reach. It’s a novelty. It’s a talking keychain. It’s ‘Sarah Palin in Your Pocket.’

The gizmo is the brainchild of a New Orleans company, which earlier brought the world ‘Mr. T in Your Pocket’ and other talking keychains. It’s got 11 of Palin’s sound bites, from ‘I’ll betcha!’ to ‘You can see Russia from Alaska’ to ‘We eat, therefore we hunt.’

Entrepreneur Steve Winn attributes the popularity of the Palin device to a triumph of style over substance. ‘Its the rhythm, the cadence, the cartoony up and down of her voice,’ Winn said. ‘I don’t know how to describe it. I’ts beautiful. It’s enchanting!’

Winn’s Emanation Inc. has sold about 35,000 of the keychains online and through retailers like Urban Outfitters, he said. It will take some doing to overtake his all-time biggest seller, ‘Mr. T in Your Pocket.’ That keychain, about a decade on the market, features classic T-isms like ‘Pity The Fool’ and ‘Quit Your Jibba Jabba!’

Winn considers the Palin sound bites fair game for commercial use, thrown into the public domain during news events. Palin could not be reached. But we suspect her response to that might not be a hearty, ‘You betcha!’

--James Rainey

--Twitter: latimesrainey