Before Firing, Fox News Paid Sarah Palin $16 a Word, Study Finds

While many would mortgage their homes just to not hear her speak, prior to firing Sarah Palin, Fox News paid the former half-term Alaska Governor $15.85 per word spoken on air, according to a study from the University of Minnesota.

Paid a salary of $1 million per year, the former Fox News contributor recently announced she would be parting ways with the conservative network, giving an interview to far-right bastion Breitbart.com to tell her side of the split.

"I encourage others to step out in faith, jump out of the comfort zone, and broaden our reach as believers in American exceptionalism," Palin said. "That means broadening our audience. I'm taking my own advice here as I free up opportunities to share more broadly the message of the beauty of freedom and the imperative of defending our republic and restoring this most exceptional nation. We can't just preach to the choir; the message of liberty and true hope must be understood by a larger audience."

However, Palin's exit from Fox may not have been as one-sided as she portrays it. Her departure from the network follows numerous signs that her relationship with Fox and its executives was fracturing.

According to a 2011 article in New York Magazine, Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who once believed Palin to be a hot ticket, started privately calling her "stupid." At the Republican National Convention in August, the "mamma grizzly" publicly complained that Fox News was canceling her on-air interviews. And there's a sense that her own party is leaving her behind in the wake of Mitt Romney's 2012 defeat. The stars of other Republican leaders like Louisian Gov. Bobby Jindal continue to ascend, espousing the need to change the party's identity beyond mere heart-tugging theatrics like Palin's superficial jingoism, and virulent Tea Part philosophies.

Palin didn't go on to exactly explain how she plans to "broaden" her influence, but she did deliver a characteristic doomsday screed on the liberal evils befalling our once pure nation.

"We will get Obamacare locked into law," Palin said of what will happen to the U.S. in the next four years. "We will get a debt crisis. We will get more inflation and higher gas prices. We will get tax increases. We will get fewer jobs. We will get more small businesses collapsing under the weight of higher taxes and unfair regulation. We will get more corruption and crony capitalism favoring the Obama administration's friends."

For the proud pit bull with lipstick, whose main political virtue was "going rogue," it seems unlikely Palin will attempt to tone down her message to appeal to a larger audience. Though, in case you were wondering, Mitt Romney bungled the 2012 election for the Republican party, according to Palin. The John McCain/Sarah Palin ticket put up the kind of fight that someone like Romney just cant muster, she said.

"The problem is that some on the right are now skittish because of the lost 2012 election. They shouldn't be. Conservatism didn't lose. A moderate Republican candidate lost after he was perceived to alienate working class Reagan Democrat and Independent voters who didn't turn out for him as much as they did for the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008."

For those keeping track, the Obama/Biden ticket trounced McCain/Palin by almost 10 million popular votes and an Electoral College split of 365-173. Romney lost to Obama by under 5 million votes, and an electoral college edge of 332-206.

Despite her unemployment, Palin remains positive about her future influence in American politics. Asked how she felt about the media portraying her moment in the political arena as over, Palin offered a traditional conservative mad-lib reply:

"I was raised to never retreat and to pick battles wisely, and all in due season," Palin said. "When it comes to defending our republic, we haven't begun to fight!"