Todd Palin, the wife of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and champion snowmobile racer, endorsed Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich today, according to ABC News.

Admit it: You’ve missed Sarah Palin. Once a seemingly ever-present fixture in politics and pop culture, Palin has all but bowed out of the spotlight in recent months. Ever since she wrapped up her “Just Because It’s Fun” whirlwind bus tour, the former governor of Alaska has only popped up on Fox News every so often to offer her take on current news items. But she hasn’t been making news, really, and we miss that.

Deep-fried butter wasn’t the only treat on display over the weekend at the Iowa State Fair. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was also on hand to increase her stores of other people’s thunder, but not everyone was enthralled with the GOP superstar. One fairgoer confronted Todd Palin over his wife’s decision to quit the Alaska governorship, resulting in a viral video exchange that was captured by the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Dollar Store Microphone Department. The paper also caught the extended remix of Jake Tapper‘s heifer-delayed Q&A with Palin.

We missed this when it came out a couple days ago so thank goodness it caught Andrew Sullivan’s eye because it may be the funniest official statement from a company ever. In her big Newsweek interview, Sarah Palin told a story that used Slim Jims to illustrate rising food prices. PolitiFact was then asked to determine if her story was accurate and got a comment from Jim himself!

Ok, not really. But it was from the company and it is hilarious.

A presidential candidate’s spouse occupies a truly bizarre place in the public discourse. While not choosing to run for office and only passively accepting fame, one wrong move could make or break an entire campaign. Over the years, the media has developed a system for vetting these women through the process of adopting this very particular breed of spotlight, but the arrival of serious female presidential contenders seems to have thrown a wrench in the blueprint: how should the media vet potential “First Dudes”?

In a sprawling expose´ for The Daily Caller, filmmaker (and sometime Mediaite guest columnist) John Ziegler airs several years worth of gripes about his relationship with Sarah Palin and her team, among them that Todd Palin approached him in May about a role in a possible 2012 presidential bid.

Ziegler, more than anyone, is responsible for creating the alternate history of the 2008 campaign upon which much of the current Palin brand is based, but he clearly feels burned by Palin, and fears that a Palin run could, in turn, burn the Republicans.

Today, Sarah Palin met a Sarah Palin impersonator while visting the North End of Boston. Unfortunately, Mediaite headquarters is in New York so we weren’t there for the interaction. However, we know enough about Palin that I think we can come up with a fairly accurate guess as to how it all went down…

Sarah Palin took a break from the neverending political firestorm that surrounds her today to address a badly-sourced National Enquirer story linking her husband Todd to a madam/prostitute arrested in Anchorage last March. Calling in to a radio talk show in Alaska this morning, Palin noted that such “b.s.” was especially “painful” because it came from Alaskans and went viral internationally thereafter.

Sarah Palin was, for the third straight year, named one of Barbara Walters’ 10 most fascinating people of the year. The full version of Walters’ interview with Palin, snippets of which were released already, aired on ABC tonight, and they included another question on Palin’s possible presidential aspirations, more shots at the media, and even an appearance from Palin’s husband, Todd.

The back-and-forth between Bristol Palin and Countdown host Keith Olbermann continued Friday morning, as Palin hit a local Alaska radio show to discuss her “Worst Person in the World” win. While the eldest Palin daughter was generally a good sport about the whole thing, hosts Bob & Mark laid it on pretty thick, and secured agreement from Palin that Olbermann is, indeed, a “dick.”

Bristol also displayed a willingness, even an eagerness, to appear on Countdown and let Olbermann take his best shots at her.

Every journalist knows that when a politician tells you to “call my people and set something up,” that’s usually a definite signal not to hold one’s breath. In a shocking exception to that rule, media-phobic Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell made good on such a promise to CNN’s Jim Acosta the very next day.

O’Donnell may yet regret that decision, however, because when Acosta asked her if Sarah Palin is qualified to be President, O’Donnell couldn’t bring herself to respond in the affirmative (cue angry email from Todd Palin). The rest of the interview wasn’t much better. (h/t TPC)

Well this should clear things right up. Alaska’s GOP nominee for Senate, Joe Miller, was on Megyn Kelly today to talk about various aspects of his hotly contested Senate race, including his terse email exchange with Todd Palin in which Palin raged at Millar for not declaring in a Fox News interview that his wife was “qualified” to be President. Holy cow!

Well, if nothing else they’re proof that Todd Palin is not a silent partner in whatever Sarah Palin‘s ambitions happen to be. However, this particular email exchange between Todd Palin and Alaskan Senate candidate Joe Miller appears to suggest that even if Palin never runs for President she definitely wants people to think she is capable of being President.

The website Palingates has posted an amateur video, by an Alaska skateboard/espresso mogul named “Hawk,” of a bizarre encounter at Alaska’s Valdez airport. According to the site, the video shows Sara Palin husband Todd “bullying” a Valdez citizen. In reality, the incident isn’t so one-sided, and will likely act as a sort of Palin Rorschach test, confirming whatever the viewer already feels about Palin. Taken together with this video from a few weeks ago, however, a pattern of passive-aggressive behavior toward the Palins’ fellow Alaskans emerges.

Sarah Palin posted her latest Facebook missive yesterday, and it was a doozy. It was packed with numerous talking points, and statistics, and the sort of impressive language one does not necessarily associate with Sarah Palin.We’ve noted before that if Palin has people working for her in an advisory capacity she is mum about it. All of which begs the question: who is writing Sarah Palin’s Facebook notes?

Suffice to say this is not the sort of thing you might expect to read in the op-ed pages of, say, the New York Times. Yesterday, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, the local paper of Wasilla Alaska (and one-time employer of Sarah Palin), published an op-ed on (what else!) Sarah Palin’s new neighbor Joe McGinniss and the new fence he had inspired.

Joe McGinniss, the Sarah Palin biographer who found a convenient vacation spot in Wasilla, Alaska right next to the state’s former first family has come out to defend himself from allegations of taking his journalistic responsibilities a little too far. While he is still working on his book on the Palins, McGinniss notes that he “couldn’t care less” about the Palin children and is “very offended by the implication… that he would be peering in on the children.”

“Scathing” political journalist Joe McGinniss has apparently rented the house next door to Sarah Palin’s in Wasilla, Alaska in order to research his new book and has been taking the view from over the fence. This morning Palin “welcomed” him via her Facebook page. Actually, she says: “Hi, neighbor! May I call you “Joe”?

The Times spoke to Palin’s father Chuck Heath, who in describing his own travel activities — he apparently appears on behalf of conservative candidates around the country — had this to say about influencing his daughter: “She doesn’t make the decisions.” Really? Who does?

When Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann joined Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough in discussing their best-selling and oft blogged about book, Halperin mentioned that the authors are in discussions with HBO about making a film version. Their dreamcast? Meryl Streep playing Hillary Clinton and Will Smith playing Barack Obama. Mediaite’s ideal cast is after the jump!

Nicole Wallace, the McCain adviser who came under a great deal of fire in Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue and then and leveled some of her own in the aftermath, has some nice things to say about Todd Palin, as well as some alarming admissions about his wife Sarah.

Well, that was a snooze fest. After weeks of anticipation about what Sarah Palin might reveal on Oprah Winfrey, or what Oprah might take Palin to account for — death panels come to mind — the answer in the end was: very little. What we got instead was what felt like a long infomercial for Palin’s memoir Going Rogue.

News about Sarah Palin‘s much-anticipated memoir is slowly trickling out. The AP has apparently got its hands on an early copy and can confirm some of the rumors: it was not smooth sailing between Palin and McCain’s campaign staff; Palin still harbors some ill-will towards Katie Couric. But there’s also a new one.

The eagle has landed! Translation: the Sarah Palin, Oprah Winfrey interview is a wrap. The much-anticipated interview was taped yesterday in Chicago; later in the evening Palin posted an update to her Facebook page, and Oprah spoke about it via video. Both after the jump.

Sarah Palin has done only a handful of interviews since she and McCain lost the election last November. Moreover, it’s been a while since she’s been put directly on the hot seat (read: Katie Couric) so there’s certainly plenty to talk about! In an effort to help Oprah prepare for her interview we’ve compiled a top ten list of of outrageous questions about Sarah Palin that will need to be addressed.