Oprah quits and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is displeased (only he'd put it a little differently)

According to Chicago Mayor Richard "Have a Nice Day" Daley, you can just blame (credit) that dad-gummed media again for chasing that Windy City institution Oprah off of television after compiling a personal federal reserve of only about $2.3 billion.

Oprah has announced she'll close down her daily syndicated chatfest in 2011 (see her tearful announcement video below). But she likely won't be gone long. O, gee, whatever will she call her own channel?

The diva of daytime TV, who's seen the ratings slip some since her prominent presidential campaign involvement, says she's retiring because it's time to leave and it's cold in Chicago and it's warm at her palace in Montecito, California. Also, she's got her man in the White House now.

Chicago's Democrat mayor hasn't been in a real good mood since his president failed to acquire the 2016 Summer Olympics for his adopted hometown.

According to Da Mayor, the real issue over the global star's departure is the stink the media churned up over the city closing down North Michigan Avenue for two days in September to accommodate Oprah's season-opening show taping.

The Chicago Sun-Times quotes the longtime mayor son of a longtime mayor as putting it this way:

She loves this city, and I will be talking to her, but again, that became a big rhubarb of the Chicago press: Beat up Oprah. And so, you keep kicking people, and people will leave. Simple as that.

Speaking in his usual straight face, and strangely in the past tense, Daley....

... also said: "I think she was the most successful woman that we will ever know in the history of this country." That should warm up the temperature for her -- and the rest of the planet.

According to sympathetic city officials always eager for the municipal publicity, the 48-hour closure of that main drag cost only $54,832, which Oprah's company repaid. So what's the big deal? asks the head of the Democrat machine that allowed Barack Obama to emerge on the South Side as long as he didn't make too many waves.

That price to the city, however, doesn't count the cost of increased blood pressures in thousands of notoriously genial Chicago drivers forced to divert to crowded State or Wabash Streets. No reimbursements there.

The mayor's theory may be right, although that would not account for why he and his late father stuck around town for so very many years despite their share of media bashings, scandals, trials and the like. If you have an opinion to share with the mayor, his door is always rarely open. But Daley's office phone is: 312-744-4045.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Oprah would no doubt want you to console yourself by clicking here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot.   And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: George Burns / Harpo via Associated Press; Chicago Tribune (Mayor Daley on a good day).

Obama now pleading for money to fight Sarah Palin

Never shy about $eeking money, Democratic President Obama's Organizing for America is now using the threat of Republican Sarah Palin as an opportunity to acquire more.

It has just sent an e-mail out to its millions of supporters today pleading for urgent donations to fight the mother of five, now on her heavily-publicized, cross-country book promotion bus tour. She holds no political office currently; in fact, she's among America's unemployed, though doing quite well financially.

Perhaps you've heard a little something about Palin in recent days.

The former governor of Alaska has written a book called "Going Rogue" that details her experiences in last year's presidential campaign, her values and thoughts on various issues.

Some San Francisco bookstores are declining to sell the book. And no one really cares about her or the book, obviously (see photo above), because she only sold 300,000 copies the first day.

Some people (bipartisan) think (fear) she may become a candidate for the 2012 presidential election.

Since the Republican Party that chose her as its first female presidential ticket member last year has such a glaring national leadership vacuum these days, she's getting tons of publicity in her symbiotic hate-hate relationship with the media, which doesn't mind attracting crowds with her name either (see headline above).

Although the Democratic National Committee dismisses Palin as an ignorant non-factor, it's invested way more time and effort this week attacking Palin than selling Obama, who was on another overseas publicity trip of his own.

Attempting to use Palin as a lucrative opportunity, too, today's e-mail plaintively asks: "Please chip in $5 to help."

The committee says its goal is a half-mill in one week, chump change for the one-time senator's $750-million presidential campaign.

Today's electronic missive calls Palin "dangerous," blames (credits) her for the term "death panels," and says it needs the money to combat her lies (claims), which will be magnified in coming weeks by well-known complicit conservatives in the media.

The donation plea also warns ominously that "the rest of our opponents will likely parrot those attacks."

It says the money will be used for event organizing, advertising and funding calls to Congress in support of Obama's beleaguered healthcare legislation to counter "right-wing attack groups."

Naturally, Palin is also playing off of Palin's publicity. If you give $100 to her SARAHPac here by midday next Wednesday, she'll give you a free signed copy of "Going Rogue."

-- Andrew Malcolm

Won't you please help a beleaguered blog by donating one cursor click here to get free Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item? Or follow us @latimestot.   And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: Indianapolis Star via Associated Press (Long lines of Palin book-buyers stretch around the entire mall parking lot in Noblesville, Ind.); Getty Images.

Going berserk over 'Going Rogue;' Democrats' reaction to Sarah Palin book and publicity

Wow, for somebody who's supposed to be such a political joke, an Arctic ditz and eminently dismissable as a serious anything except maybe a stay-at-home hockey mom, Sarah Palin is sure drawing an awful lot of attention from Democrats and eager critics.

The launch of her "Going Rogue" interviews Monday on "Oprah," of her book today, of her on-air chat today with Rush Limbaugh at 10 a.m. Pacific and of her mid-America bus book tour Wednesday ignited a surprisingly large blizzard of derogatory Democrat dis-missives.

Every few minutes another note from Democratic National Committee operatives and others dropped into electronic mailboxes across the media-verse, helpfully passing on even the tiniest tidbit of negative news about Palin.

You know how sometimes a friend tells you how much he/she doesn't really care about....

Oprah's Sarah Palin interview incites 'perky' reactions

Sarah Palin's rogue book tour made a pre-taped stop in Chicago today for the former Alaska governor's much-hyped appearance on "Oprah."

Palin dropped some doggone fascinating tidbits during the interview. She said she has no plans to run for president in 2012. Well, actually she said it's "not on my radar," which is Politician for "It might be over the horizon."

That might ease the worries of conspiracy theorists convinced that the adorable political celebrity could ring in the 2012 apocalypse. On second thought, no, it won't convince the "anti-" crowd of anything.

Oprah Winfrey, who supported her hometown senator, Barack Obama, in the election, questioned Palin about her unintentionally hilarious interviews with Katie Couric. Palin refused to refer to Couric by name, instead calling her "the perky one." Gosh!

Don't worry, plenty more to come after the book's official release tomorrow. There's a five-part Barbara Walters chat on ABC and a long radio conversation with Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern.

As entertaining as the Oprah chat was, we also like to watch the comments from fans and haters. Did Oprah go too easy on Palin? Some said, You betcha. But others admitted that Palin is starting to grow on them.

We grabbed some of the best we found on Twitter. Here they are (unedited):

Good news: Obama creates 30 new jobs in one congressional district. Bad news: No such district

Chicago politics, where voting is such a revered civic duty that people do it even after they're dead, cold, stiff, stuffed, boxed and buried beneath the permafrost for years, has now come to D.C. with the Obama administration.

This afternoon comes the most encouraging economic news, courtesy of our keen-eyed buddy Rick Klein over at ABC, that the Obama administration's $787-billion economic stimulus has, for example, thankfully created 30 new jobs in a little-known rural corner of Arizona at a cost to American taxpayers of only $761,420.

That works out to only $25,380.67 spent to create each individual job.

Seems like a lot per slot, but those 30 folks must be happy to be employed again and paying taxes.

This will be a real feather in the cap of Vice President Joe Biden, who's been left behind and assigned by the ever-campaigning president to monitor the stimulus plan, its spending and effectiveness moving into the crucial midterm elections of 2010. Might the Democrats snatch that House seat?

So the people of that 15th Congressional District in staunchly Republican Arizona should be pretty happy about this.

Trouble is, there is no 15th Congressional District in Arizona. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Doesn't exist. Not in Arizona. Not even on paper at the Democratic National Committee. There are only eight. Period.

But the administration's much-vaunted recovery.gov website reported these jobs as being created there.

Could well be a computer glitch. Lord knows humans would never make such a dumb, misleading mistake, even in politics.

But then the trouble is that just months after grandly unveiling the recovery.gov website to showcase its economic prowess and tech-savvy, the Obama administration just spent 18 million additional taxpayer dollars to redesign the still new website.

And that site proudly also reported nonexistent new stimulus spending not just in Arizona but other states across the country.

So that looks to have worked pretty well, at least if you're counting computer designer jobs created.

Anyway, how do you think the 15th will vote next year?

-- Andrew Malcolm

For only $2 billion each, click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Just kidding. It's all free. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: Josua Roberts / Bloomberg News

Sarah Palin back on the trail: What to watch for

 

Well, it looks like these ladies got the memo about Blue Monday.

This is Barbara Walters of ABC, shown here on the right, posing with the latest celebrity she's interviewed in her very long, diligent career of interviewing famous people about things we didn't know we wanted to know about them. Like their favorite tree, for example.

Walters is very good at it. Such conversations powered by public curiosity have proved addictive to Americans in a long tradition of popular American journalism since Dolley Madison captured the public's fascination as first lady for not one, but two, presidents -- her actual husband, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, a widower who in those days couldn't really bring his black mistress in as White House hostess.

Anyway, about the latest, biggest political celebrity ever, Walters might happen to mention some of her favorite moments with Palin every few minutes on "The View" this week, which also happens to be on ABC.

It's a match made in PR heaven: A politician whose supporters can't wait to see....

'Face the Nation' wins crucial demographic among Sunday TV talk shows

"Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer broke major ground in Sunday's most recent TV ratings face-off.

NBC's "Meet the Press," the perennial leader in the morning talk show race, still hung on to the top spot with 3.01 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. But the CBS show with Schieffer won the most viewers in the coveted 25-to-54 demographic.

"Face the Nation" had 910,000 in that group, followed by the NBC show with David Gregory at 900,000 and ABC's "This Week" at 850,000.

In overall viewers, "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos tied "Face the Nation" with 2.65 million.

"Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace remains down below, having barely broken a million on Sunday morning.

However, if you count its two reruns (the show airs later in the day on the Fox News Channel), viewership is much higher -- an additional 2.39 million watched the Fox News airings.

As usual, by the way, The Ticket publishes each weekend's guest lineup at noon Pacific time every Saturday.

-- Mark Milian

Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: John Paul Filo / CBS

Video clips of Sarah Palin with Oprah

As you may have heard mentioned somewhere, Sarah Palin has a book coming out next week, called "Going Rogue: An American Life."

HarperCollins says it has printed 1.5 million copies, which is a lot of books to sell, even at Amazon.com's deeply discounted $9 price. So the successful Alaska governor and unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate starts her promotional tour with a coolly polite interrogation by one of the president's biggest boosters, another big O -- Oprah. 

Here, courtesy of CBS, are two video clips from the interview, which was taped Wednesday in Chicago and will be aired nationally Monday. First, Palin's thoughts on the PR disaster of her campaign interviews with a CBS News anchor.

Also below is a list of our recent items on this subject.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

And then, of course, the obligatory question about the father of her grandchild who's selling his nude pictures to a magazine since the electrician apprentice thing didn't work out.

Talk about going rogue!

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Related items:

Oprah talks about what Sarah Palin talks about

What's actually in Sarah Palin's book

Palin's roguish book tour schedule details

The secret Sarah Palin speeches we never heard

Sarah Palin breaks with GOP to endorse Conservative

-- Andrew Malcolm

Be your own independent roguish person. Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

As Obama leaves for Asia, GOP gains first lead on generic congressional ballot since he took office

Time was when American presidents in domestic trouble would travel abroad to be seen positively back home as a world leader.

Then-freshman Sen. Barack Obama was hoping for a little of that back in the summer of 2008 when he staged his expensive campaign rally with an adoring throng in downtown Berlin. Alas, Germans couldn't vote for him -- or a Republican. But it looked great stateside for a few days.

After a brief media statement this morning to get him plastered on the daytime news, President Obama will make the long flight (just ask Sarah Palin) to Alaska to talk with U.S. troops at Elmendorf Air Force Base at local lunchtime while Air Force One refuels for a flight to Tokyo, beginning the president's nine-day trip across Asia. Talk about throngs.

Obama could use some good political news because as he boards the plane with his own bedroom and shower stall, word spread from the Gallup Poll folks that for the first time in over a year, more Americans say they would pick Republicans on a generic congressional ballot than a Democrat.

It's now 48% Republican and 44% Democrat. And this comes after months of the ...

Oprah talks about what Sarah Palin talks about

As we pointed out here last week when the manager of Barack Obama's never-ending presidential campaign agreed to go on the dreaded Fox News Channel to sell his book, book tours have a way of making superficial friends out of past opponents.

Thus, we will be treated Nov. 16 to the sight of Oprah Winfrey, arguably Obama's biggest celebrity booster, chatting up Sarah Palin, arguably America's most argued- over celebrity politician in recent years.

The subject, of course, is Palin's new book -- "Going Rogue: An American Life" -- which goes on sale the next day, with 1.5 million copies in print so far.

Palin took Piper and Willow with her to Chicago for the interview, which was taped at Oprah's studio Wednesday.

As The Ticket reported Wednesday night, Palin wrote on her Facebook page that the unlikely pair had such a great conversation that they ran overtime.

Which, goldarnit, means that Oprah will have extra exclusive minutes of video she'll simply have to post on Oprah.com for folks to click on. One thing exiting audience members said was that when asked if she wanted her own TV show, Palin did not say no.

And then, of course, Barbara Walters gets second crack at Palin, which will be broken into five parts on various ABC platforms midweek. What's-her-name and what's-his-name over at CBS don't seem to be on the Palin schedule just yet.

Right after Palin left the studio, Oprah (who looks shorter without makeup) made a short video here to....

...describe the O-P encounter and what all they talked about: inside the campaign, The Pregnancy, both babies and, well, pretty much everything.

Related items:

What's actually in Sarah Palin's book

Palin's roguish book tour schedule details

The secret Sarah Palin speeches we never heard

Sarah Palin breaks with GOP to endorse Conservative Party candidate

-- Andrew Malcolm

Be your own independent roguish person. Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: Joe Burbank / campaign pool.