The Brotherly Love Train

Our new PIW (President in Waiting), Barack Obama, is planning a visit to the City of Brotherly Love next week to address the state of the economy at a session of the National Governors Association. Obama Plans to Meet With Governors. At this point, it looks like 40 governors plan to attend the meeting, hosted by Pennsylvania's own Gov. Ed Rendell, along with Republican Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas.

Of course, to hear Sarah Palin tell it, you might have thought the meeting in Philly was arranged for a meet and greet between her and the PIW. Palin sets trip to Philadelphia next week to meet Obama:

Palin spokesman Bill McAllister said she'll make the Georgia campaign swing on her way to Philadelphia to meet with her old political foe, president-elect Barack Obama.

Obama is meeting with governors from both parties to talk about the ailing economy. It's not confirmed how many governors will attend the event, which the National Governors Association helped to put together, or if Palin will personally speak to Obama, whom she accused during the campaign of "palling around with terrorists."

"I don't know if she has a one-on-one with (Obama)," McAllister said. "It may be, given that they were both involved in the national campaign."

It may be that they have a tete-a-tete -- or it may not. I realize that the election has gone down the memory hole for many, but as Geoffrey Dunn, Georgia on Her Mind....But Sarah Palin Has Trouble Lurking Around the Corner, reminds:

No sooner had she committed to hunkering down in Alaska to "get back to work," the Last Frontier's rogue governor, Sarah Palin, is headed back to the campaign trail again, first to Georgia, where she will stump for the Great White Hope of the GOP, Saxby Chambliss, in a last ditch effort to stave off a filibuster-proof U.S. Senate. Then she's off to Pennsylvania, where her press flunkies are claiming she's meeting with President-elect Barack Obama, but it's hardly a one-on-one; Palin will be in Philadelphia amongst a horde of other governors from both parties gathered by the National Governors Association.

That of course would be the same Barack Obama whose character Palin ruthlessly assassinated throughout the presidential campaign and at whom she directed inflammatory rhetoric to the point that chants of violence were directed against him. The same Obama whom Palin called a socialist and a pal of terrorists and who-knows-what other lies from the kitchen sink she and her hack Republican speechwriters fabricated along the way. The same Obama who Palin said "is not a man who sees America as you and I do."

The very same Obama who will now have to pull Palin's ass (along with the rest of her faith-based faithful) out from the economic cataclysm wrought by the evangelical George Bush and his faith-based plunderers in Washington, all of whom should be doing hard time for the crimes they've committed against the American people in the name of God and Country.

Yes, the very same Barack Obama. Or, as her long-forgotten running mate put it, "That one."

Palin will be in Georgia spewing out the same lies and preying on the same fears, only with the added caveat that Chambliss represents the last best hope against a Communist Congress and a Communist Administration. We're talking a Comintern, folks. You can bet that Palin will be snarling those notorious fangs of hers as she cavorts through the red clay hills and into the backwoods of Augusta and Savannah--and that Hannity and O'Reilly will be watching the raw footage well into the wee hours. With their doors locked.

After her little detour through Georgia, where she'll be reprising her Nobama routine to assist the run-off campaign of Saxby Chambliss, she head to the City of Brotherly Love where she hopes to meet with her nemesis and make nice. From there, she no doubts hopes to parlay the meeting (however it's structured) into more media attention.

And, in the end, that's what it's all about. It's all Sarah, all the time. Politco reports, Sarah Palin: A digital superstar:

Palin has been the subject of intense online fascination since her introduction as the Republican nominee on Aug. 29. In September, the Anchorage Daily News reported a 928 percent spike in traffic, according to Nielsen Online. Her mid-October “Saturday Night Live” appearance drove the show’s highest rating in 14 years, and her Oct. 2 debate with Joe Biden was the most watched vice presidential debate ever — drawing more viewers than any of the three presidential debates between McCain and Obama.

The scope of the GOP ticket’s loss — and the role her critics assigned to her in that defeat — hasn't cooled interest in Palin. She ranked as the No. 2 top news search at Ask.com this week and No. 2 (after Obama) among newsmakers on the AOL 2008 year-end hottest searches list, and she occupied two slots on Politico’s list of the site's 10 most searched terms. Palin also ranked fourth among Yahoo searches, behind “Black Friday,” a Czech model and a contestant on the hit television show “Dancing with the Stars.” She was the only politician on the Yahoo top 20 list.

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“It’s astounding that someone who should have faded into the background after the election is not only making headlines but being searched for in record numbers online,” said O’Reilly. “People still have a fixation with her, for whatever the reason.”

Palin's continuous presence in the news has played a role in the unabated levels of search activity. First she was buffeted by anonymous criticism from the McCain camp after the ticket's defeat, then she cut a high profile at the National Governors Association meeting one week later. In between, she sat for an interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News and delivered the show's largest audience of the year.

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“As long as she’s still in the mainstream media, it will continue to fuel her presence online. She’s sort of fanning the flames just by showing up,” said Phil Noble, president of PoliticsOnline and a pioneering consultant in online politics. “The other issue is that at some point people become permanent celebrities. She may have just reached that status.”

Permanent celebrity status? Could it be so? Of course, Politico doesn't note the fact that much of the attention is derived from those seeking to mock and make fun of her as those who idolize her. On the other hand, one of my on/off-line buddies agrees and tells me that I'm going to lose this one, saying "the problem is, [I'm] not paying enough attention to the Star mags in the office bathroom or the talk radio crazies. SP has the kind of Q score with some people that -- now that she has found the open door, so to speak -- will keep her up-front for years."

I must admit, things are looking mighty dim for me in the "Sarah-Be-Gone" wager department, but I'm not giving up yet. For our fickle fans and media, March is a lifetime away (or so I keep telling myself).