Sarah Palin vs. Levi Johnston, the sequel: Can too much exposure ruin a potential presidential candidate?

 
The timing had to be awkward.

Just as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was wowing crowds in a book tour for "Going Rogue," her one-time almost son-in-law Levi Johnston -- the father of her grandson, Tripp -- celebrated a publication of his own -- full-length photos in the nude for Playgirl Magazine.

Palin, who does not mention Johnston in her book, told Oprah that she considers his poses porn.

"By the way, I don't know if we call him Levi -- I hear he goes by the name Ricky Hollywood now, so, if that's the case, we don't want to mess up this gig he's got going," she said. "Kind of this aspiring, aspiring porn -- the things that he's doing. It's kind of heartbreaking."

As for Johnston's relationship with his son, Palin said: "He hasn't seen the baby for a while, but we will let that be the discussion between Bristol and Levi, as they work out their relationship. Because Levi will forever be the father of this beautiful little baby, and I continue to hope for the best, and pray for Levi."

Asked if he would be invited to Thanksgiving, Palin said, "He is part of the family...This can all work out for good."

Johnston has already generated some political heat by saying, in an interview with Vanity Fair, that Palin found her job as governor "too hard" and that she offered to adopt Tripp to hide the teen pregnancy.

The Playgirl shoots provide further evidence that even as Palin's national profile rises, Johnston's not going away anytime soon. As The Times' Meghan Daum put it the other day, "He's hot, he's cute, he's playing hardball."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Levi Johnston, photo credit: Getty Images

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Fox News rolls wrong video of Palin 'crowds.' Will heads roll too?

A few weeks ago, Fox News had the White House on the defensive. Network anchors were scoring political points by ridiculing President Obama for ignoring the largest news cable audience in television. Glenn Beck pounded green-jobs czar Van Jones, who eventually resigned.

Today, it's Fox News that's on the defensive, after anchor Gregg Jarrett waxed on about the crowds former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had been getting on her book tour. Except it turned out the footage Fox was using at the time was from the 2008 campaign.

Fox executives, embarrassed by the flap, are considering "serious disciplinary action" against someone in the control room, according to our friends at the Swamp.

Small wonder.

Last week, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart called out Fox's Sean Hannity for running video of a huge tea party protest in Washington last September -- as he was discussing a rally by the same causes outside the Capitol this month -- where far fewer protesters showed up.

Hannity apologized on air for what he called an inadvertent error. 

-- Johanna Neuman

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Michelle Obama liked Biden for vice president over Hillary Clinton, and other juicy tidbits from East Wing

"Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House?" First Lady Michelle Obama reportedly asked her husband. "Could you live with that?"

According to a new book by Christopher Andersen, Michelle Obama also convinced her husband, despite his misgivings, that his trademark campaign slogan -- "Yes We Can" -- would be effective. "It will work," she told the future president. "Trust me."

An excerpt of the book, titled "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage," is slated to be published Tuesday in the New York Daily News.

Among the highlights:

•  The couple struggled with fertility issues, and Michelle discussed adoption with friends.

• In the early days of their marriage, Barack bristled at his wife's "constant criticism" about his role at home, calling her complaints "unfair" and "shortsighted."

• Daughter Sasha's meningitis scare in September 2001 helped the couple reconnect.

• Despite her husband's long absences on the campaign trail, Michelle never questioned his fidelity. "He's never given me reason to doubt him," she said.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Reuters

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Russ Feingold's 'yes' vote on concealed-weapons measure puzzles the left

Russ Feingold is one of the most reliably liberal voices in the U.S. Senate.

First elected in 1992, the Wisconsin Democrat was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act and was one of 23 to vote against authorizing George W. Bush's war in Iraq. He has a 98% lifetime average from Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal ratings group.

So it came as something of a surprise to some on the left on Wednesday when Feingold voted in favor of an amendment by South Dakota Republican John Thune allowing interstate transfer of concealed weapons. The amendment, which only fell two votes short of mustering the needed 60-vote majority, was decried by its critics as the "handgun in every glove compartment" measure.

To be fair, Feingold was not the only Democrat to back the amendment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, facing a potentially tough re-election fight next year in Nevada, voted for it. So did Virginia Democrat Jim Webb, who has a license to carry a concealed weapon himself and whose red-turning-to-blue state is big on gun rights. Webb described the amendment as a safety measure for truck drivers who travel the interstate highways and sometimes sleep in their cabs.

But Feingold has no political motive to vote against a measure that New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said would have done more to threaten the safety of New Yorkers than anything since the repeal of the assault weapons ban. One thing the senator from Wisconsin does have is a long history of backing gun rights issues. He voted to lift the ban on semi-automatic firearms, and to allow airline pilots to carry firearms in cockpits. Yesterday, explaining his vote on the Thune amendment, he said, "Americans’ right to possess a firearm to protect themselves or their families does not stop at a state border."

Now, liberal groups are weighing in. One blogger on the Daily Kos argued that when politicians are elected with the Left's help -- like Feingold and Webb -- they should be held to account to a liberal agenda. "We have a problem that needs to be addressed," he said. "They would not have become senators without the support of progressives and liberals.  ... We need to establish limits to the levels of cynicism and hypocrisy we are going to permit without consequences."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Hans Neleman / Stone/Getty Images

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What President Obama told Green Bay today -- and vice versa (text)

Here's the transcript of what President Obama just finished saying at his town hall meeting in Green Bay.

Notice how right off the bat the skilled politician goes for bipartisanship: He's for both the Bears and Packers doing better this fall, which is an impossible regional contradiction in terms.

The intended theme of this traveling White House sales session, as The Ticket reported here a short time ago, was driving healthcare reform, which Obama says he wants wrapped up by fall, along with many other things.

And if some local citizens start leaning on their elected representatives to do what they heard the president say he wants, well, that would be not only a good thing for the president but the main unspoken point of flying a 747 full of officials and staff into that place to say what he could have said back in Washington much cheaper.

So most of the discussion here was on healthcare, although there was one rather annoyed local teacher who forced the president to admit that the entire educational system is not failing, as seems to be the theme most described in Washington where so many officials have their children in private schools.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Remarks and Answers by President Obama at Green Bay Town Hall Meeting, June 11, 2009, Southwest High School

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Green Bay. (Applause.)  It's good to see you. Thank you. It is great to be back in Green Bay. (Applause.) We are hoping that both the Packers and the Bears do better this year. (Applause.) Come on, we can bring everybody together.

I want to make just a few acknowledgments; we've got some wonderful special guests here today. First of all, can everybody please give Laura a huge round of applause for sharing her story?  (Applause.) I want to thank our hosts, Principal Brian Davis and his beautiful family, and Superintendent Gregg Maass, please gives them a big round of applause. (Applause.) Your outstanding governor, Jim Doyle, is here; give him a big round of applause. (Applause.) Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton is here, give Barbara a big round of applause. (Applause.) Congressman Steve Kagen is here, Congressman. (Applause.)  Your own Mayor, Jim Schmitt. (Applause.) And Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is here as well.  (Applause.)

I want to thank all the tribal leaders of Wisconsin who are with us here today. (Applause.) And they couldn't be with us, but I want to acknowledge the great leadership that you're getting in the United States Senate from Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, give them a big round of applause. (Applause.)

This is a town hall meeting, but if you don't mind I want to make a few comments at the outset, sort of to frame the discussion, and then we'll get to the fun part and you guys can bombard me with questions.

As I said, I want to thank Southwest High School for hosting us. (Applause.) I especially want to thank Laura for sharing her story. It takes courage to do that and it takes even more courage to battle....

Oops, Conan O'Brien suffers from a little premature jocularity tonight

Funny lines are not unusual in Conan O'Brien's opening monologue, even in his 9-day-old gig as new host of NBC's "The Tonight Show."

Tonight is no exception.

"Speaking of President Obama," NBC's new late-night host had in his Tuesday script, "earlier today, President Obama spoke at a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Half of the Wisconsin crowd had never seen an African American and the other half had never seen a skinny person."

A funny comment for many, unless you're among Wisconsin's dominant white Cheeseheads. Some of them overweight. And these shows do always try to be topical.

Unfortunately, reports of Obama's Green Bay town hall meeting, like Mark Twain's death, are premature.

The town hall doesn't happen until Thursday. Minutes before the show's airtime in the East tonight, the show's L.A. writers, asked for comment, were scrambling to determine what, if anything, to do. Clipping out the error is one possibility. Watch and see how they handle it.

(Update: 8:35 p.m. Pacific. No snipping for the Eastern time zone. They ran the joke as was.)

Maybe they could rerun Tuesday's joke on Thursday's show? Green Bay officials, btw, are already worried about an extra $30K in police overtime to protect the Great Change Agent this time.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: NBC

Obama may be sports fan in chief, but he's not a luxury-box kind of guy

A local sports team known as the Washington Capitals has managed to force the first-round National Hockey League playoff series to a seventh and final game.

To most Washingtonians, this is something of a yawn. This is a Redskins town of football nuts, a metropolitan area of Wizard basketball fanatics. Even the Nationals, worst team in baseball, have a loyal fan base. Also it's 90 degrees here. Hockey is a winter sport, played on ice.

Still, pressure is mounting on President Obama -- who already has developed something of a reputation as Sports Fan in Chief -- to attend Tuesday's game against the New York Rangers at the Verizon Center -- about eight blocks from the White House.

As the Washington Times' John Taylor noted, "It's a somewhat timely appeal."

After all, the in-shape, basketball-loving president played golf on Sunday morning at Andrews Air Force Base (his foursome: Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, presidential aide Marvin Nicholson). Last week, he hosted the Florida Gator football team in a public meeting and golf mega-star Tiger Woods in a private one. And today, he welcomes the NCAA champion University of Connecticut women’s basketball team.

Caps' team owner Ted Leonsis has stepped up his lobbying campaign by telling Obama that he would reserve a spot for him in the luxury box. As he recounted in his own blog, Leonsis delivered the message in person recently at Georgetown University, where the president was talking economics, and Leonsis, an alum, offered to host him at a playoff game. Obama gave the usual presidential brush-off: "I have heard great things about your team and I bet it will be a lot of fun. We will get back to you."

But if Leonsis thinks an owner's box will lure Obama, he hasn't been paying attention. This a new-generation Democrat.

Unlike President Bush, the security-obsessed president who regularly did the luxury-box thing, Obama is a guy who likes to mix it up, a politician who delighted Wizards regulars recently when he went to a Bulls game -- and sat in the stands with other fans.

The game was back on Feb. 27, the president's beloved Bulls lost, 113-90, but Obama got a great welcome from Wizards fans. Check out more photos below.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photos: Associated Press (top), Getty Images (below)

Barack Obama thumping John McCain in several key states, new polls report

"Wow," Barack Obama said the other day as he gazed upon an estimated crowd of 100,000 in St. Louis waiting to hear him speak.

"Wow," The Ticket said to itself today after two polling groups released results for several of the most hotly contested states in the presidential race.

John McCain, as part of the feisty underdog role he has taken on, likes to zing Obama for "measuring the drapes" at the White House. If these new findings are even close to being right, Obama can start taking contracting bids for that basketball court he wants to install at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The jaw-dropping numbers come from the Big Ten Battleground Poll, which is supervised by two University of Wisconsin political science professors. The survey finds Obama ahead -- BY DOUBLE DIGITS -- in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota (as well as his home state of Illinois and Michigan, where McCain pulled up stakes a few weeks ago).

The error margin for the figures from each state is a relatively high plus-or-minus 4.2 percentage points. But even after subtracting Obama's numbers by that amount -- and increasing McCain's numbers by it -- the Democrat still runs ahead in every state. That includes Indiana, which no Democratic presidential candidate has carried since 1964.

Said Charles Franklin, one of the poll's directors: "In September, we saw virtually the entire Big Ten (region) as a battleground. Now Obama is clearly winning. ... The dominance of the economy as a top issue for voters is the overwhelming story.”

The polling institute for Quinnipiac University also shows Obama easily winning Ohio (by 14 points) and Pennsylvania (by 13 points).

One small bit of solace for McCain -- the Quinnipiac survey shows him down only 5 points in Florida; earlier this month, the group's polling found him trailing by 8 points.

Still, Peter Brown, the institute's assistant director, decided not to understate what the trends portend. "If these numbers hold up, (Obama) could win the biggest Democratic landslide since Lyndon Johnson in 1964," he said.

Might that be the final shock provided by this historic campaign?

-- Don Frederick

Sarah Palin: Old hunting photo, new role hunting votes

By now you may have figured out -- because the magazines and online websites sure have -- that Alaska Gov. and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is surefire box office. No accident that there's so much attention paid to John McCain's No. 2.

Good or bad, she sells.

So, as our blogging colleague Elizabeth Snead points out, there she is on the Newsweek cover with editor Jon Meacham and columnist Karl Rove arguing inside about her strengths and weaknesses.

Over on her Dish Rag blog, Elizabeth has links to the articles. In this cover image, Palin has a shotgun over her shoulder, just as her father taught his daughter when they went hunting in her teens.

So since when has the hockey mom of five had time to go hunting this fall?

She hasn't.

As Newsweek honestly explains, it's a file photo from 2002, long before Palin knew such images might help with some outdoors-people votes in crucial swing states in about four weeks.

So what's next, do you think? Barack Obama in hip waders and orange hunting jacket bitterly clinging to a dead goose's neck in a bid for the small-town Pennsylvania vote?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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New L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll finds deep-seated worries over the economy

The presidential campaign enters its final six-week leg with the public deeply troubled about the state of the U.S. economy, the results of a new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll show.

The Ticket can't reveal the precise results quite yet; for that, check back at LATimes.com about 5 p.m. EDT (2 p.m. PDT). But suffice to say that the concern over the nation's general economic condition in the wake of the turmoil roiling Wall Street is striking.

Those interviewed for the survey, conducted Friday through Monday, were somewhat more sanguine when asked if they felt more or less secure financially than six months ago. But still, the poll results for this question drive home the degree to which public confidence in the economy has been shaken.

The poll also found that Americans are far from sold on the government riding to the rescue of ailing private financial firms. And it gauged opinion on which candidate -- Barack Obama or John McCain -- is best equipped to deal with the business crisis as president.

The new survey comes as the two campaigns will be digesting new poll results from four crucial battleground states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Most pundits have assumed Obama would benefit from the spotlight turning squarely onto the economy, and that appears to be the case. The survey by Quinnipiac University, conducted in conjunction with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, found him maintaining slim leads in Michigan and Minnesota and holding a more solid advantage in Wisconsin. All three are states the Democratic presidential tickets carried in the tight 2000 and 2004 races and Obama almost assuredly needs to hold them to win the White House.

The best news for Obama comes from Colorado. George Bush won the state and its 9 electoral votes in 2000 and 2008, but Democrats view it as one of their prime pickup opportunities. And the new poll shows Obama pulling ahead of McCain there, 49% to 45%, after trailing the Republican by one percentage point in a comparable August survey.

A full report on the Quinnipiac results can be perused here.

-- Don Frederick