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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Top of the Ticket, the start of Year Two

On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.

Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.

Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.

In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.

His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.

His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.

Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."

Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.

The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.

Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...

6-0 in his elections, VP Cheney watches from the sidelines this time

Vice President Dick Cheney -- remember him? -- finds some of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remarks "absolutely appalling." But Barack Obama's cousin is holding back his view of how the senator has "dealt with" his retired pastor’s inflammatory words.

"I've watched what's going on on the Democratic side with great interest, and sort of blowing hot and cold in terms of who is going to win -- whether it is going to be Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama," Cheney noted in a telephone interview with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity last night.

"I thought the controversy over Rev. Wright was remarkable,'' Cheney said. "I thought some of the things he said were absolutely appalling. And, you know, I haven't gotten into the business of trying to judge how Sen. Obama dealt with it, or didn't deal with it. But I really,...

Now, about that Texas GOP surprise for Hillary Clinton

One week ago at about this time of day we posted an item here headlined: "Do Texas Republicans plan a surprise for Clinton and Obama?"

It speculated on the possibility of Republican voters in the Lone Star state, faced with an uninteresting, essentially-decided contest between John McCain and Mike Huckabee, crossing over to make mischief in the Democratic primary by voting for Hillary Clinton to prolong the Democrats' damaging intra-party struggle for several more weeks. We'd heard rumors about this and the Dallas Morning News had written about the possibility.

Then, on his Monday broadcast, conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh with his national audience of some 13 million aggressively pushed the idea to his listeners in Texas. Bill O'Reilly, among others, also talked about the possibility on his national radio program, but did not advocate such tactics.

By now, some of you may have heard, that Clinton did pull off....

Breaking News: Barack Obama rejects VP idea

Campaigning in Casper, Wyo., Friday night for the 12 delegates to come out of Saturday's Democratic county caucuses, Sen. Barack Obama refused the notion of becoming the vice presidential candidate on this fall's party ticket.

Obama was asked by a television reporter, "Can you ever see yourself on the same ticket as Sen. Clinton?"

And the freshman Illinois senator replied: "Well, you know, I think it’s premature. You won’t see me as a vice presidential candidate. You know, I’m running for president. We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count."

Many Democrats have long thought of Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama as a dream ticket, offering both the first serious female candidate and the first serious African American candidate for the nation's top two political offices.

Clinton surprisingly broached the idea Wednesday morning after she won the popular vote in Texas and Ohio to regain some momentum after 11 straight ...

Yee hah, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton hit Wyoming

If this is March and people are traveling willingly TO Wyoming, then there must be an election going on.

Sure enough, the nation's least populated state is the destination today for just about everybody who's left competing for a presidential nomination, both of them. And the spouse of one of them was there yesterday.

In fact, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will both visit Vice President Dick Cheney's hometown of Casper today, not so much to honor him as to honor themselves and to seek support in this weekend's Wyoming caucuses. The windchill in Casper this morning was 12 degrees, which is...

BREAKING NEWS: Fred Thompson ambles back to the sidelines

Republican Fred Thompson dragged his feet getting into the presidential race, much to his detriment. He moved more expeditiously getting out of it, issuing a simple, three-sentence statement today announcing -- to no one's surprise -- that he was ending his candidacy.

Thompson bowed to what became inevitable after his third-place showing in Saturday's South Carolina primary. Less than an hour after the polls closed that night, when it was already evident he would be an also-ran, Thompson addressed his supporters in the state -- remarks that walked right up to a withdrawal but stopped just short of it. Since then, he has been absent from the campaign trail.

Some of his higher-profile backers had jumped ship before Thompson officially abandoned it. Earlier today, ex-New York Sen. Al D'Amato -- who like many Republican leaders had not so many months ago viewed Thompson as the candidate who could magically cure what ailed the GOP presidential field -- switched allegiance to John McCain. (D'Amato seems mainly motivated this campaign season to sidetrack fellow New Yorker Rudy Giuliani, long a political foe.)

Thompson entered the White House race with a semi-splash, you'll recall, using the couch on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" to proclaim his candidacy in early September. But by that time, the bloom was already off his rose. His clear interest in running -- and efforts to generate support for such a bid by his longtime political mentor, Howard Baker, and other respected Republicans -- had been a hot topic ...

Mitt Romney, a Republican who actually likes granola!

Would-be-president  Mitt Romney starts every morning with a bowl of granola with oats, honey, sesame seeds and almonds. Every other morning he jogs three miles. "And then at the end of the day," Romney tells Jay Leno on tonight's "Tonight Show" on NBC, "just to really relax, I take off a dark suit like this and put on a light one."

(Laughter)

Fresh off his Michigan GOP primary victory and on the eve of the South Carolina Republican primary and the Nevada caucuses, Romney was making fun of his own stiff image. The other day on the stump Romney asked his wife Ann to muss up his famously-perfect hair. But she wouldn't.

As usual, Leno asks a wide range of topical questions. Romney said his confrontation with an AP reporter Thursday was "a normal thing. These guys have a responsibility to be adversarial, and, you know, we don't treat them real well.  The guys that follow us in the presidential race come in a whole group.  We put them ...

Breaking News: Mitt Romney wins Wyoming

The candidate wasn't within 1,500 miles, but Mitt Romney scored a victory just now. He won most of the first Republican delegates selected in Wyoming today, which had moved its county selection date up on the calendar to attract more attention from candidates who usually just fly over most of the Rocky Mountain states.

The Republican candidates did flood the state with campaign literature. But Romney, who lived next-door in Utah while reviving the Winter Olympics, did that and then also visited twice while three of his five sons also worked the state; one son, Josh, owns a ranch in southwest Wyoming. Romney has quietly made stops in several of the less-populated once-reliably Republican states including Montana and Wyoming. And today he was rewarded with at least a minor public relations victory, seven delegates, just four days after his disappointing second-place finish in Iowa.

"Today," Romney said in a statement to be issued shortly, "the people of Wyoming took the first step towards bringing true conservative change to Washington.  From Gillette to Jackson and Riverton to Cheyenne, my family and I visited Wyoming many times, meeting with residents and addressing the issues most important to voters in the Cowboy State."

It's not big like the win in Iowa by Mike Huckabee, who got none of Wyoming's delegates, something of an embarrassment since former Wyo. Gov. Jim Geringer is a Huckabee national co-chair. Nor did big-city boy Rudy Giuliani win any. Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter, two conservatives who both campaigned in the Cowboy state, each won delegates, two for Thompson, one for Hunter. Ron Paul, a Texan who also campaigned there and beat Giuliani in Iowa, won none.

In one line of his upcoming statement sure to go down well in Wyoming, Romney added: "I will continue to campaign in this important state as the remainder of its delegates are selected and through to the general election in November. This is just the beginning." The candidate also vowed to fight for restoration of the half of Wyoming's total 28 delegates rescinded by the Republican National Committee as punishment for moving its selection date ahead of Feb. 5. Romney's Wyoming victory coincided with release of a new TV ad for New Hampshire, revealing some more rhetorical passion than other recent Romney ads.

All the GOP candidates were in New Hampshire for Tuesday's primary and focusing on tonight's ABC-TV debates and tomorrow's partial Republican debate on Fox News.

--Andrew Malcolm