WaPo's Chris Cillizza, in his political column The Fix, reveals that Becki Donatelli's consulting firm, Campaign Solutions, and Alaska governor Sarah Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, have parted company.
The way Chris tells it, the separation was a voluntary decision made by Campaign Solutions. That's the face-saving explanation, anyway. Some Washington insiders aren't so sure that it's the accurate one. Regardless of who said "goodbye" first, the parting of ways follows a series of strategic and philosophic differences between Donatelli's firm and the governor's people in Alaska.
Interestingly, word of this comes on the same day that the official legal defense fund for Gov. Plain was announced. The fund, named the Alaska Fund Trust, was formed by Alaskans and will be run by Alaskans, not Beltway types. The breakup with Campaign Solutions could be a move to also bring SarahPAC more under the control of people closer to the governor, i.e., Alaskans and those in the nation's capitol whose loyalty to Gov. Palin is longstanding.
Disagreements between Palin staffers in Alaska and Campaign Solutions advisors have resulted in some embarrassing situations for the governor, most all of which involved invitations for her to attend several political events when actually she was unable to leave the state. The impression given was that her Washington people were telling event promoters that she would appear, although her staff in Alaska had never confirmed that she would be free to show up for the events.
Hopefully, that should all be in the past, and we will see well-coordinated teamwork between Alaska and Washington D.C. that works in the Governor's best interests. The shedding of old McCain campaign baggage should lighten the load.
- JP
"The shedding of old McCain campaign baggage should lighten the load."
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the truth!
Great post! Your analysis helps make some sense about what has been happening behind the scenes. Seems like some at SarahPac were pushing Sarah to join up with the Beltway crowd asap.
ReplyDeleteFascinating stuff. I'm sure it will ultimately be of great benefit to the Guv and to those of us who support her.
ReplyDeleteI suspect SarahPAC will be run more effiecently, be more responsive, and above all, be more aggressive about fundraising.
ReplyDeleteBy the end of June SarahPAC needs to take in serious money (think millions.) You know for a fact that all of Palin's enemies are going to be analyzing the first FEC report with a microscope. They'll break it down by donations per state, average donation per person, total number of donors, both over $200 which have to be individually accounted for by name, address, and day of each donation, and under $200 which can be just reported as a total with the number of donors.
The MSM will set unrealisticly high expectations, and spin any lesser amount as an indication of low level support, or lack of confidence among Palin supporters.
Romeny has already raised over $500,000 since the beginning of the year, and will probably hit the $1 million mark or more by the end of June, Palin has to do much better than $1 million, and probably much better than $3 million before she will be taken seriously.
Donating to SarahPAC is the best thing that the ordinary supporter can do at this time. But, in order to raise serious money, SarahPAC has to be far more aggressive in sending out mass email solicitations on a regular basis, contract with other conservative groups to have them send out mass emails to their email database. Human Events has twice sent out SarahPAC announcements, but that was in early February, and none since.
If SarahPAC turns in a eye popping, jaw dropping amount it will go a long way to silencing many of her critics as none of them would want to alienate a major source of cash for future campaigns. It may also convince some of the lesser players like Pawlenty, Sanford, Huntsman, and now Potaki from even considering a run in the primaries. Who knows, if SarahPAC can raise enough money it may even make Romney and Huckabee think twice about challenging her.