Opinion: What Sarah Palin is confiding to her 1,072,040 closest friends (Updated)
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If you thought ‘Going Rogue’ would be the end of Sarah Palin‘s written rants, you probably don’t follow the former Alaskan governor’s fan page on Facebook.
The Republican has been blogging like crazy recently with her 1.07 million Facebook fans. (See new video below of the campaign-like scenes.) And getting thousands of comments back.
In addition to pictures from her ‘Going Rogue’ book tour -- of happy children, grinning U.S. troops and flags of the American variety -- Palin gives a more personal look behind her many interviews and individual visits with fans and customers.
According to a new industry sales report, her book is coming up on half a million copies sold in its first five days on the market, a sales rate of about 4,000 per hour around the clock. Which ought to keep her in moose chili a while.
Her Facebook page also has some touching photos of memorabilia that fans give her when buying the book. Plus, of course, the long lines of eager book-buyers at stores and malls along the way on her strategically planned 25-state tour.
Also behind-the-scenes looks at her unscheduled visit with the Rev. Billy Graham.
Her legions of Facebook fans are growing by a couple of dozen every few minutes. They grow each time you refresh the page.
In one recent post, the Republican calls Fox News’ Sean Hannity ‘a great American.’ Oh, and an apology for leaving 100 fans at a book signing in Indiana.
But the main focus of her blog posts lately has been about Congress -- things like war spending and ‘Obamacare,’ her pet name for the healthcare bill.
Palin blasts the healthcare ‘scheme’ for taxing everyone starting next year. The actual legislation, however, plans to ramp up taxes in 2011 and on a sliding scale, where richer residents are taxed more and the modestly wealthy get a 0.5% hike.
On Tuesday night, Palin was bothered over ‘liberal Congressional proposals’ that would institute a tax to fund the war in Afghanistan. Palin supports the war and the troops but not the idea of paying for it with new taxes.
‘With Congress and President Obama spending money on everything at breakneck speed, it’s interesting that they are only now getting nervous about ...
... spending,’ Palin writes, ‘but only when it comes to providing the necessary funds to complete our mission in Afghanistan.’ This qualm about the government proposing taxes on war and nothing else comes less than a week after she complained about the government proposing taxes on healthcare.
The early-stage war tax proposal called the ‘Share the Sacrifice Act,’ which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she may support, would fund a U.S. troop escalation in Afghanistan that Rep. David Obey estimates will cost $1 trillion over 10 years. [Note: An earlier version of this post called Obey a senator.]
That would buy a lot of books.
(Update: Palin, whose father was her high school track coach, has now Twittered to followers that she’s leaving the book promotion trail over the Thanksgiving holiday to travel to Kennewick, Wash., for a 5K Red Cross charity run with numerous relatives before a book appearance Sunday in nearby Richland.)
Related:
Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama: Their various poll numbers near each other
-- Mark Milian
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