Sarah Palin's Likability Falters as More Exposés Surface
Political figure Sarah Palin's popularity in the polls takes a dip as more exposé books, including a new one from daughter Bristol's ex-boyfriend, continue to surface.
Palin enjoyed higher support among Republicans this summer than many of the GOP candidates contending for the presidency, although she is not an official 2012 contender. But now Palin's stock is starting to slip as multiple exposés portraying a seedy side of the Tea Party favorite are hitting the shelves.
In late August, Palin’s 16 percent positive intensity rating – a candidate's percentage of supporters minus the percentage of dissenters – surpassed that of fellow female Republican Michele Bachmann by three percentage points and beat GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney by five points, according to Gallup polls.
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The former Alaska governor is now tied with Bachmann at a 10 percent positive rating. Romney's rating, still at 16 percent, surpasses Palin's by six points.
However, Palin's recognition rating soars to 97 percent (the highest of all the GOP candidates) as she garners heightened attention in the media due to the multiple tell-all books discussing her life.
The two latest of these are a book written by her daughter's former fiancé, Levi Johnston, and a book from author Joe McGinniss.
In Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs, Johnston charges that the former vice presidential candidate wanted to adopt his son Tripp to "avoid a scandal." He also wrote that Palin's daughter got pregnant to spite her mother.
Johnston became engaged to Bristol Palin in 2008 when the two became pregnant out of wedlock. Sarah Palin announced the news of the pregnancy and the engagement days after John McCain picked her as his vice presidential candidate. The couple later split in 2009 and rumors began to fly about the parenting practices of the newly-separated couple.
Johnston's sister, Mercedes, accused Bristol Palin of restricting Johnston's access to their son. Sarah Palin then claimed in her book America by Heart: Reflections on Faith, Family and Flag that Johnston was riding her family's coattails to gain fame. The Palins reportedly also said that Johnston was absent during Tripp's birth.
Johnston's book, which bloggers say he penned out of revenge, retaliates against accusations from both daughter and mother.
Another new exposé, McGinniss' The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, is also in the works. McGinniss, a veteran writer and one-time neighbor to the Palins, writes that Sarah Palin had abused drugs and had a one-night stand with athlete Glen Rice as a sports journalist.
Palin's husband, Todd, has come to her defense, calling McGinniss a stalker and said of the accusations, "His book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo, and smears.”
Amid the scathing statements, Palin has received some unexpected help squashing the book's hype from the people she typically calls the "lame-stream media."
New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin bashed the book as "dated, petty and easily available to anyone with Internet access."
Los Angeles Times reviewer David Ulin said much of the book's revelations were mundane.
Palin and her team have been largely silent about the exposés.
However, her team denounced past tell-all book Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin by former staffer Frank Bailey, saying he is currently under investigation for actions taken while Palin was governor and has an axe to grind.
Both The Rogue and Deer in the Headlights have not yet been released to the public.
