ON A WHOLE 'NOTHER LEVEL:

Palin remains a red-hot number (AP, November 23, 2008)

Oprah Winfrey wants her. So do David Letterman and Jay Leno.

The Republican vice-presidential candidate crunched state budget numbers last week in her 17th-floor office as tumbling oil prices hit Alaska's revenues. Her staff, meanwhile, fielded television requests seeking the 44-year-old Mrs. Palin for late-night banter and Sunday morning Washington policy.

Agents from the William Morris Agency and elsewhere have come knocking. There even has been an offer to host a TV show.

"Tomorrow, Governor Palin could do an interview with any news media on the planet," said her spokesman, Bill McAllister. "Tomorrow, she could probably sign any one of a dozen book deals. She could start talking to people about a documentary or a movie on her life. That's the level we are at here."

The combination of her celebrity and support from the base, Mitt's money, and fear of running against Barack Obama in 2012 may well leave her an easy field to defeat.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 23, 2008 12:00 PM