send to a friend | print | comment

Palin’s visit and GOP candidates

Do you remember where you were the day U.S. politics hung a wild, tire-screeching turn, spinning conservatives to a euphoric frenzy and sending liberals into a tailspin of self-immolating doubt?

It’s been almost exactly two years since John McCain announced on Aug. 29, 2008, that mid-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was his pick for vice president.

“Brilliant!” cried Republicans, who feared McCain’s campaign had no juice left.

“Insane!” cried Democrats, who flew off the hinges over an unknown former small-town Alaska mayor with insta-rock star appeal.

McCain called Palin, “The running mate who can best help me shake up Washington,” sounding like he half-believed it.

“She’s got the grit, integrity, good sense and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in Washington today.”

It seems appropriate to relive that moment in history. Two years later, Sarah Palin returns to Pennsylvania Friday, the state John McCain needed to win to have any chance at the White House.

Two years after helping Barack Obama become president, Pennsylvania is back in the swing-state column. This year, Republicans are hotly cobbling together voters eager to prove they’re on the right side of the enthusiasm gap.

What kind of reception does Palin get here?

What, if anything, would she mean to candidates like Tom Corbett or Pat Toomey, the gubernatorial and Senate candidates at the top of the GOP ticket this fall?

It’s an interesting question, even given the solid leads Corbett and Toomey have in the polls over their Democratic opponents. In the spring of 2009, Pennsylvania Republican Party officials tried to enlist moderates like former Gov. Tom Ridge to run for Senate, believing Toomey was too conservative. Corbett’s swing to the right has not been lost on any political observers.

Now GOP officials are courting Tea Party support, signing no-tax pledges in hopes of riding a Constitutionalist wave back to power.

Now comes Palin, scheduled to arrive today in Hershey to speak at in front of the conservative values Pennsylvania Family Institute. She’ll then participate in the Glenn Beck rally in Washington.

Indeed, Mama Grizzly arrives in Pennsylvania at a most interesting time. On Tuesday, Palin went five-for-five with her endorsement of primary candidates across the country.

That includes her support in Alaska of conservative Joe Miller, the Yale-educated attorney who appears to have upset incumbent U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Palin, in an appearance on Fox News Wednesday, was beaming about the results. She compared the victory to the 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team’s upset of the Soviets, calling Miller’s win a “Miracle on Ice.”

Yet for the week’s victory spoils, there remain so many questions about what Palin wants.

And while the mad scramble of August 2008 to assimilate the meaning of Sarah Palin’s presence in national politics has calmed, there’s hardly a campaign or issue or political equation that somehow does not get bounced through the Sarah Palin prism.

She has weighed in on the Islamic cultural center proposed for two blocks from Ground Zero. She has supported Dr. Laura, the conservative radio host who machine-gun uttered the N-word 11 times on the air and then decided to not renew her contact.

Politically, Palin has not ruled out a run in 2012. However, polls last month out of early primary state Iowa found Palin running fourth among four potential Republican candidates.

“What she’s become is a celebrity among Republicans and a turnoff to Democrats,” said Tom Jensen, political analyst at Public Policy Polling.

Jensen said his group conducted an interesting poll in Pennsylvania last month, asking people if they would be more or less likely to vote for a Palin-endorsed candidate.

“Republicans said they would be 47 percent more likely and 18 percent less likely to vote for her endorsed candidate,” he said.

“Democrats said they would be 75 percent less likely and 11 percent more likely to vote for a Palin-endorsed candidate, which shows the huge difference between parties,” he said.

Jensen said that presents an issue going forward: How to utilize Palin’s party-splitting credentials?

“The Republican base in Pennsylvania is already fired up, so if I’m a Republican strategist, I would wonder if her visit would fire up Democrats who might remember why they went out and voted in 2008,” he said.

After two years in the spotlight, Mama Grizzly is still the mother of political polarization.

August 27, 2010 at 8:45 am

--Laura Vecsey

Tags: Sarah Palin

comments

comments [9] | post a comment