Alex Spillius

A good piece here on Politico about how all Sarah Palin’s endorsed candidates won in Tuesday’s primaries. This underlined her acute political antenna, even if some die-hard Tea Party fans disagreed with a couple of her choices. It also demonstrated how she is carrying other Republican women in the wake of her explosive vice-presidential campaign.

Her backing can make a real difference, as Nikki Haley discovered to her benefit in South Carolina. In California, Carly Fiorina would have won the GOP senate primary without Palin’s support, and in the general election Palin won’t be much help as she remains so divisive. Carly’s millions will be of use, however.

None of  this alters my argument that Palin won’t run in 2012; she has peaked as a conventional politician and her future lies as a (political) celebrity, but one who will remain a force to be reckoned with for a while yet.

On the surface Elton John may seem like the unlikeliest entertainer at Rush Limbaugh’s fourth wedding last weekend. What next? Billy Bragg playing for Sean Hannity? Will.I.Am playing for David Duke?

The groom is after all a man who has made plain his opposition to gay marriage and just last year said Aids was being “hyped” in Africa. The English crooner is on the other hand one of the most prominent openly gay celebrities in the world and runs a global Aids foundation.

But perhaps there is more than the reported $1 million fee behind Elton’s decision to entertain America’s most popular conservative radio host, his new young bride and their friends in Florida.

Limbaugh has told his biographer that he favours civil unions, the very British compromise to the gay marriage issues. Sir Elton, as it turns out, is also on the record as favouring unions over full marriage for… Read More

Helen Thomas has resigned after nearly 50 years in the White House press briefing room in humiliating fashion, leaving herself with no option after saying Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Germany, Poland or wherever.

There will be a lot of people in Washington not sorry to see her go, including a few WH colleagues who were not routinely amused by her cranky, repetitive questioning of press secretaries. Red State and others have stronger opinions, and there is no doubt she is being given an easy ride in public by her former colleagues.

The respect and deference granted because of her longevity – her downfall comes three months short of her 90th birthday – seemed based on the fact that no one could pluck up the courage to deny her coveted front row seat, even though she has not been a news reporter… Read More

Forget the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the real muck right now is in South Carolina, where not one but two Republicans claim to have slept with Nikki Haley, the frontrunner in Tuesday’s primary battle for governor.

Mrs Haley, 38, a married mother of two, has dismissed the claims out of hand and rejected the “disgusting politics” of her opponents.

Will Folks, a blogger who used to work for Mrs Haley, said he broke the news of a supposed affair pre-emptively as local papers began asking questions. Larry Marchant, who until May 26 was employed by Andre Bauer, followed that up on Thursday by asserting he had a one-night stand with the candidate in Utah.

 A spokesman for Mrs Haley, a House representative, said: “We’re not going to sink into the gutter of South Carolina politics with Andre Bauer.”

It is indeed a lowly gutter. This is the state where during the… Read More

Sarah Ferguson has rebuilt her career once in the United States, and she was reasonably well received when accepting a charity award in Los Angeles on Sunday night.

I’m not sure even if the land of opportunity and second chances will let her do so again. Her encounter with an undercover News of the World reporter was covered absolutely everywhere, with Lynne Featherstone’s blunt criticism of her often included.

It’s a bad time for this particular offence, too. Amid all this anti-Washington, anti-lobbyist fervour, influence peddling is the last thing to be caught red-handed at. What is more, she was shown smoking and inside an apartment, an act last committed on camera in this country some time in the late 1980s. If her brazen hawking of access to Prince Andrew doesn’t snuff out her chances of a rebirth, that probably will.

The biggest loser from Rand Paul’s win in the Kentucky Republican Senate primary is Mitch McConnell.

When the party’s base ignores an endorsement from a sitting senator and minority leader then candidates anywhere who become labeled as the establishment figure are in trouble. Both parties will be affected by anti-incumbent fever in November, and the Democrats are likely to sustain heavy losses.

But there will be places, and Kentucky is one, where a Right-winger running for the Republicans could hand victory to the Democrats.

Rand Paul has some interesting ideas, and is much more of a real libertarian than many others jumping on the tea party bandwagon.

 As a doctor, he favours the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. He opposes the Patriot Act for infringing personal liberty. Then there are his more eccentric views that will be fodder for negative Democratic ads: claiming that an Iranian nuclear bomb would not be… Read More

The reasons for Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Carly Fiorina in California have become clearer after a speech she made on Friday. It is part of a pattern of backing female candidates in upcoming primaries. She has given the new Republican hopefuls a name – “mama grizzlies” – after female bears that fiercely defend their cubs.

Palin’s possesses acute political acumen, but the first signs of rebellion from within her fan base can be explained by her support of the former HP chief executive with dubious conservative credentials, as I discussed here.

Palin’s goal would appear to be to create a cadre of women who would back her in the event of a 2012 presidential bid. In ideological terms she would logically back the Tea Party favourite in the California primary, Chuck DeVore, but Carly serves her (potential) goals better. Last time I looked, real conservatism wasn’t… Read More

The US has got UK election fever, of sorts. David Cameron’s arrival at Buckingham Palace and then Downing Street was carried live by all three cable channels. In Washington at least three think tanks have had discussions about the ramifications of the election on the US and/or the Special Relationship.

At the Heritage Foundation today, the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes pointed out that had Cameron been bolder in the closing weeks and put more daylight between himself and the other parties he might have won an outright majority. Immigration and Europe, where a majority of Britons are more in line with Conservative thinking, would have been the prime buttons to press. Thirteen years out of office probably explains his reticence. The interesting parallel is how bold the Republicans will be in November’s mid-terms. The signs are that the emergence of the Tea Party, by pushing candidates to the… Read More

The British election has stimulated an unprecedented interest in the United States. Clegg’s arrival on the scene has focussed minds here on the unpredictable nature of elections later this year. The heavy papers have been running a story a day on the race for a couple of weeks now; cable TV has followed suit.

In the White House, the lack of enthusiasm for a hung parliament could scarcely be greater than at Tory HQ.

Months of weak government in a close ally, a weaker pound and a Britain-as-the-next-Greece narrative, possible uncertainty in Afghan policy - none of this is good from an American point of view.

Chatting to a White House official last weekend, it was clear they are properly neutral but would be happy with a David Cameron victory, despite the nominal differences in political hue between the Democrats and Tories.

This isn’t surprising. Barack Obama’s Democrats do not share the tribal bonds with the… Read More

Arizona’s immigration law might be in trouble. Prominent Republicans are queuing up to condemn it. Some have their own motives, such as Senate aspirant Marco Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants in Florida, a state where the GOP is rigidly pro-immigrant. But even Tom Tancredo, who thinks Obama was only elected because of illiterates and non-English speakers, has doubts about the law, as do Jeb Bush and Karl Rove. Meghan McCain  has crossed her father by disapproving of the law.

The measure allows police to stop anyone they reasonably suspect to be an illegal immigrant. Race and appearance cannot be the sole reason for stopping, but then it could be 99 per cent of the reason. The law’s great problem is its ambiguity and the scope it provides headline-seeking police such as Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix to racially profile at will. Roberto Villasenor, chief of Tucson… Read More