Sarah Palin will today embark on a campaign-style bus tour along the East Coast of the United States, sending a jolt through the Republican presidential contest and thrusting herself back into the nation's spotlight. The tour is the strongest signal yet that, despite falling approval ratings, she is considering a presidential bid.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palin-tour-signals-a-presidential-run-2290417.html

“For the last 12 months, people have been grumbling about the slow start of the race, but holy cow, it kicked into high gear quick,” added Cullen, who plans on attending Romney’s announcement.

Still, Palin’s visit — a possible sign she’s joining the intensifying race — has local tongues wagging.

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Palin hasn’t revealed her 2012 plans, and details of her bus tour, which launches tomorrow in Washington, D.C., have been kept mostly under wraps. Romney is leading most polls, including a new one by New Hampshire’s WMUR-TV, which had him getting 32 percent of the vote and Palin just four percent.

“Gov. Romney believes Sarah Palin is a formidable political figure, and he has a great deal of respect for her,” said Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “We think she shouldn’t be underestimated.”

New Hampshire Democratic Party spokeswoman Holly Shulman said counter-events are being planned in an attempt to steal some of the media glow from the pair.

“Despite her fund-raising prowess, Sarah Palin won’t have an easy time in the Granite State,” Shulman said. “Her extreme conservative positions on any given issue just don’t match up with where the New Hampshire electorate is.”

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/2011_0528nh_gop_energized_over_visits_from_romney_palin/srvc=home&position=2

Mitt Romney is the other person in the toon at top...

STRATHAM, N.H. — Formally offering himself as a candidate for the presidency for a second time, Mitt Romney sought Thursday to look past the primary challenges of the next 12 months, portraying the choice for voters as one between himself and President Obama.

In a 25-minute speech at the windswept Bittersweet Farm in New Hampshire, Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, made no mention of his potential Republican rivals, focusing instead on what he called Mr. Obama’s failed economic policies. He blamed the president for high unemployment, rising gasoline prices, falling home values and a soaring national debt.

“Barack Obama has failed America,” Mr. Romney declared. “In the campaign to come, the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense, and I intend to make it — because I have lived it.”

By Republican tradition, it should be Mr. Romney’s turn as the nominee. The party has a long history of picking a politician who has paid his dues on the campaign trail — losing, learning lessons and then running again. Mr. Romney’s speech on Thursday sounded like one he might eventually give at the party’s national convention next year.

With 17 months to go, Mr. Romney has emerged as the front-runner for the nomination after reassembling a powerful fund-raising apparatus and an extensive campaign operation.

But Mr. Romney’s potential Republican challengers have no intention of letting him anoint himself the party’s nominee. That fact that was made starkly clear on Thursday by sharp-edged comments from Sarah Palin and Rudolph W. Giuliani — both of whom are still mulling presidential runs — even as Mr. Romney was making his candidacy official.

Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, criticized Mr. Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan as her One Nation bus tour headed toward the coastal town of Portsmouth, N.H., for a clambake on Thursday evening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/us/politics/03romney.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

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Much of the interview consisted of fluffy stuff, but every so often van Susteren diverted into asking about policy issues. Palin responded with her trademark style of making broad assertions with only a shaky command of the facts. We’ll go through the key statements in the order in which she said them, which allows us to begin and end with some absolute whoppers.

Palin managed to get almost everything wrong in this comment. She clearly was not listening too closely to President Obama’s speech on the Middle East, because otherwise she would have realized that he was not talking about spending more taxpayer dollars.

Obama proposed to forgive up to $1 billion of Egypt’s $3.6 billion debt (money that was spent buying American farm products). The forgiveness, which would take several years, would take the form of a “debt swap,” in which the money saved will be invested in designated programs in Egypt. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/sarah-palin-collects-a-bushel-of-pinocchios-on-her-bus-tour/2011/06/02/AGkNAbHH_blog.html?hpid=z2

Comedian Tina Fey's famous impersonation of Sarah Palin left many thinking the 2008 vice-presidential candidate really said "I can see Russia from my house".

Now even Fox News, which employs Mrs Palin, has been fooled by the lookalike Fey, accidentally displaying her picture during a story about the former Alaska governor.

The story on America's News Headquarters was promoting an interview with Mrs Palin, in which she said she was "50-50" about running for president next year.

The Fox News segment, posted on YouTube, mistakenly displayed a photograph of Fey standing at a lectern, taken from one of her 2008 Saturday Night Live sketches.