Sarah Palin Owns The Night

What an incredible time Sarah Palin is having.

Lets see, Sarah was a huge hit on late night TV, the candidate she endorsed, Texas Governor Rick Perry, won the Republican primary in a landslide, and her chief rival for the 2012 presidential nomination told the world that yeah, she was indeed made of presidential timber!

Does it get any better than this?

First the fun stuff. Sarah was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night. This is her second appearance on the show in just a few months. Readers will recall Sarah made a surprise stop to give William Shatner a good natured hard time. Sarah rocked the house that night giving Shatner a taste of his own medicine in a very funny bit.

Anyhow, this was a more substantive visit. Not a lot of new ground was touched on, but Jay has become a very good interviewer and certainly made the segments fun and entertaining. For her part, Sarah was just on. Sharp, vibrant, and funny.

Sarah was part of the opening of the show, making a bit of fun of herself with the "old school cue cards."





Once introduced for her segments, wearing a smart jacket, blue jeans, and her patented high heels, Sarah walked out as the band played "Everyday People." As always, she was wearing a big smile and brought out her positive message.

She managed to make some great points and of course talked about the need for common sense government. After the commercial break, Sarah tried something a little different, a bit of stand up. She was quite good. I’m not sure Jay has anything to worry about, but it was obvious she was having fun and the audience loved it. Check it out:







As expected Leno, with Sarah on, won the night, ratings wise, again beating out David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel. It just so happened Mitt Romney was Letterman’s guest opposite Sarah. Some had dubbed this the "Nielsen Primary" trying to play it all up. I rather feel sorry for Governor Romney whose staff who got him booked on Letterman. What were they thinking?

From TV by the Numbers’ website:

Leno (With Palin) Beats Letterman Badly Again On Night Two

The second night of Jay Leno’s Tonight Show v 2.0 dominated late night again with a 4.6 household rating/12 share in early household metered markets data from 11:30p-12:30a to Letterman’s The Late Show 3.1 rating/ 8 share. ABC’s Nightline had a 3.0 rating / 7 share and Jimmy Kimmel Live trailed with a 1.7 rating / 5 share.

Adults 18-49 data:

* "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1.6 rating in adults 18-49) led the time period over CBS’s "Late Show with David Letterman" (1.0) and ABC’s "Nightline (0.9) in fast national "live plus same day" ratings from Nielsen Media Research. The "Tonight" margin over "Late Show" in fast-national adult 18-49 rating is 60 percent.

This of course was just one of the big things that happened last night though. Fittingly, yesterday was Texas Independence Day, celebrating freedom from Mexico, and her birth as a Nation. As if to put an exclamation point on this, Texas held it’s primaries yesterday.

This was a real match up. You had the popular incumbent Governor, Rick Perry, who is the longest serving Governor in Texas History. Perry was Lt. Governor and assumed the position of Governor when George W. Bush was elected President. Perry is a solid conservative and has done a great job for Texas.

He was challenged by Washington insider, and Senior U.S. Senator, Kay Baily Hutchison, a RINO, as well as Ron Paul clone Debra Medina, who was never a serious contender.

This made for an interesting race indeed. On Rick Perry’s side, you had business people, law enforcement, Tea Party groups, and well, everyday people. He also had Sarah Palin.

Hutchison had the entire Republican establishment and the state’s major newspapers behind her. Yes, she actually touted that endorsement! And by Republican establishment, I mean both Presidents named Bush, Dick Cheney, and so on.

If there was ever a showdown between Conservatives and Washington elites, this was it. In Texas, this was seen as our continued independence vs losing our state sovereignty.

Perry won in a landslide.

This is just one more thing Sarah has on her resume that Barack Obama does not, candidates she endorses win elections!

But wait, there’s more!

While this didn’t happen last night, Mitt Romney appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and when asked, exclaimed that yes, Sarah Palin was qualified to be President.

Now granted, this isn’t huge news. I mean of course Sarah Palin is qualified to be President, but coming from the establishment and media favorite, Mitt Romney, it was delicious, and as Josh Painter points out, it made the folks heads explode over at the Barack Obama Network! That’s always fun to watch. Read more about that here.