Just when you were sure Sarah Palin wouldn’t run for president, conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon comes out with proof that she might still be mulling the 2012 race — “The Undefeated” — his “two-hour-long, sweeping epic” extolling Palin’s governorship and her rise to political stardom. It’s a film which might even add a little spice to the Republican field when it premiers in Iowa next month.
After premiering the film for the Todd and Sarah Palin last Wednesday, Bannon told RealClearPolitics: “This film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976: Reagan vs. the establishment … Let’s have a good old-fashioned brouhaha.”
And it promises to offer just that. The film features interviews with everyone but the Palins, including on-camera interviews and commentaries from 10 Alaskans who played different roles in her political rise, as well as conservative supporters Mark Levin, Andrew Breitbart and Tammy Bruce. But there’s also a lot of footage for Palin-haters. The opening sequence features clips of prominent celebrities who’ve attacked the former governor. Rosie O’Donnell, Matt Damon, Bill Maher, David Letterman and Howard Stern all have cameos, as does comedian Louis C.K., who apparently goes off on a really ugly anti-Palin rant.
Bannon — who funded the whole film himself for about $1 million — even plans to release two versions of the film, one mild, PG-13 version targeted to a general audience, and another containing the more obscene anti-Palin material, for which there’s certainly no shortage. News of this film, in fact, comes right as a very different tell-all,’Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin,’ by former staffer Frank Bailey, hits bookshelves.
