We learned from Greg Sargent’s blog The Plum Line that Democrat strategists have plans to increasingly elevate Gov. Sarah Palin as a leader in much the same way they have done with Rush Limbaugh in recent weeks.

Sargeant reveals that James Carville, who mapped out the Limbaugh strategy, told him that Dems will be increasingly elevating Palin, because she’s “an identifiable person who has a hook,” unlike GOP Congressional leaders such as Rep. Eric Cantor and Sen. Mitch McConnell.

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The watermelons (green outside, pink inside) on the left continue to FAIL to get a handle on the Law of Unintended Consequences.

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During the Tuesday night press conference, Politico’s Mike Allen and the president had this exchange:

Allen: Are you reconsidering your plan to cut the interest-rate deduction for mortgages and for charities? And do you regret having proposed that in the first place?

President Obama: No, I think it’s — I think it’s the right thing to do.

Where we’ve got to make some difficult choices — here’s what we did with respect to tax policy. What we said was that over the last decade, the average worker, the average family have seen their wages and incomes flat. Even at times where supposedly we were in the middle of an economic boom, as a practical matter their incomes didn’t go up. And so (what/well ?) we said — let’s give them a tax cut. Let’s give them some relief, some help — 95 percent of American families.

Now, for the top 5 percent, they’re the ones who typically saw huge gains in their income. I — I fall in that category. And what we’ve said is, for those folks, let’s not renew the Bush tax cuts. So let’s go back to the rates that existed back in — during the Clinton era, when wealthy people were still wealthy and doing just fine. And let’s look at the level at which people can itemize their deductions.

And what we’ve said is let’s go back to the rate that existed under Ronald Reagan.

People are still going to be able to make charitable contributions. It just means if you give $100 and you’re in this tax bracket, at a certain point, instead of being able to write off 36 (percent) or 39 percent, you’re writing off 28 percent. Now, if it’s really a charitable contribution, I’m assuming that that shouldn’t be the determining factor as to whether you’re giving that hundred dollars to the homeless shelter down the street.

And so this provision would effect about 1 percent of the American people. They would still get deductions. It’s just that they wouldn’t be able to write off 39 percent. In that sense, what it would do is it would equalize. When I give $100, I get the same amount of deduction as when some — a bus driver who’s making $50,000 a year or $40,000 a year gives that same hundred dollars. Right now, he gets 28 percent — he gets to write off 28 percent, I get to write off 39 percent. I don’t think that’s fair.

So I think this was a good idea. I think it is a realistic way for us to raise some revenue from people who benefit ted enormously over the last several years. It’s not going to cripple them.

They’ll still be well-to-do. And, you know, ultimately if we’re going to tackle the serious problems that we’ve got, then in some cases those who are more fortunate are going to have to pay a little bit more.

Allen: It’s not the well-to-do people; it’s the charities. Given what you’ve just said…

President Obama: Yeah.

Allen: …are you confident that charities are wrong when they contend that this would discourage giving?

President Obama: Yes. I am. I mean, if you look at the evidence — there’s very little evidence that this has a significant impact on charitable giving.

I’ll tell you what has a significant impact on charitable giving is a financial crisis and an economy that’s contracting. And so the most important thing that I can do for charitable giving is to fix the economy, to get banks lending again, to get businesses opening their doors again, to get people back to work again. Then I think charities will do just fine.

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Lone Star Times reports that U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s website has posted a copy of a Texarkana Gazette editorial mocking Gov. Rick Perry for having received Sarah Palin’s endorsement:

Palin has a certain cachet among conservatives. … But Lord, have mercy, she is an outsider with an opinion about Texas politics and government. And she sounds like the Yankee she is, if we use the definition that Yankees come from north of the Red River.

If Perry relies too heavily on Palin, he may find himself with a lot of time to watch Russians from her front porch come January 2011.

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Pete Hanby of CNN reports that some former McCain-Palin staffers are upset with their former vice presidential candidate for her recent remark, in a speech to the Alaska GOP Lincoln Dinner:

“So I’m looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra, and the McCain campaign, love ‘em, you know, they’re a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray.”

Even though the governor said that she meant no disrespect to the the McCain campaign, some of the staffers were irked enough to talk about it – anonymously, of course.

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The Telegrah reports:

Mirek Topolanek, who is running the EU presidency despite the collapse of his government in the Czech Republic on Tuesday, highlighted European splits over the fiscal stimulus plans promoted by President Obama…

Mr Topolanek warned the European Parliament that the Obama administration’s stimulus package and financial bail-out “will undermine the stability of the global financial market”.

“All of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the way to hell,” he told Euro-MPs in Strasbourg.

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Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) knows more than a little about sound fiscal policy. He was elected in 2005 to chair the Senate Budget Committee, and he has been a proponent of spending restraint and lower taxes. No small wonder that he chose not to accept the cabinet post of Commerce Secretary recently offered to him by President Obama, whose thinking on fiscal matters is the antithesis of Gregg’s.

Appearing Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program with John King, Gregg said that the Obama Administration’s massive budget proposal will bankrupt the country:

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“Poll Finds Obama Would Trounce Palin” reads the headline on AOL News. “2012 Election: Sarah Palin Crushed by Barack Obama” screams the head on Associated Content. In a hypothetical contest, the poll ”found” that President Obama would defeat Alaska’s governor 55 percent to 35 percent.

There are a few problems with the poll, however…

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Governor Sarah Palin announced today that she is proposing legislation which will allow Alaska to accept only a little more than half of the federal stimulus funds for which her state is eligible. Palin gave several examples that underlined her reasoning for wanting to reject the funds. In total, if the bill were passed, $515 million (55%) of the nearly $1 billion would be rejected by the state.

Stating that she was wary of federal “strings,” attached to the stimulus funding, the governor asked:

“Will we chart our own course, or will Washington (D.C.) engineer it for us?”

Expressing her commitment to the principles of federalism and the division of powers envisioned by the founders, Gov. Palin quoted Thomas Jefferson:

“When all government domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided on one government on another, and will become as oppressive as the government from which we separated.

Rejected by Palin’s bill will be millions that the governor says will force Alaska to increase the size of government, spend more taxpayer dollars or pass new legislation which Alaskans might not want.

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