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In 2008, John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who entranced the GOP elites with her good looks and her plain-spoken, rural folksiness, seemed to be their dream come true.

But you’ve earned an opportunity,’” said Banister, who at 61 has the tan, chiseled good looks and plain-spoken manner of a Western movie sheriff.

The right-wing, plain-spoken politician admitted he was initially delighted Donald Trump won re-election and viewed him as an ally.

In 2023, Alito sat for four hours of interviews for the Wall Street Journal, in a late July feature that dismissed the Alaska revelations as a “hit piece” and instead fluffed the justice as “the Supreme Court’s plain-spoken defender” and an “important justice” with a “distinctive interpretive method that is pragmatic yet rooted in originalism and textualism.”

A plain-spoken farmer and Montana native who famously lost three of his fingers in a childhood meat-grinding accident, his buzz cut and ample belly make him no one’s idea of a slick, poll-tested politician.