SarahPAC Donates to Portman, Graham, Hatch

From Jonathan Allen's Notepad at CQ Politics:

"Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's SarahPAC has donated money to the campaigns of Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah, as well as to Republican Ohio Senate candidate Rob Portman, according to a Friday filing with the Federal Election Commission."

"The exact amounts of the contributions were not reported, but Palin had to list the names of candidates she had financially supported to make SarahPAC a bona fide political action committee."

It had already been widely reported that SarahPAC contributed to Senators John McCain and Lisa Murkowski. Former Governor Palin's PAC recently had to reduce its donations to each those campaigns from $5,000 each to $4,800 each in order to qualify as a "multi-candidate" political action committee, but the technicality has now been satisfied:

"According to the report SarahPAC filed on Friday, she crossed the five-candidate threshold on Aug. 12 with a donation to Portman. SarahPAC gave to Graham and Hatch on July 14."

Portman is a fairly solid conservative, but SarahPAC's contributions to the campaigns of Graham and Hatch are certain to raise some conservative eyebrows. We can think of a couple of plausible explanations for those donations.

Word on Scuttlebutt Street is that both Graham and Hatch had donated to SarahPAC when it was first rolled out, so the political favors have now been returned. It is also a fact of political life that Sarah Palin cannot realistically hope to capture the Republican presidential nomination -- if she wants it -- without the support of such insiders as Graham and Hatch. It's simply a case of paying the political piper.

While some conservatives are sure to be disappointed by the donations to two pols they consider to be Vichy Republicans, the relative few who will be genuinely outraged probably weren't that firmly entrenched in the Palin camp to begin with. On the other side of the coin, the donations will quite likely sit well with moderates and independents, two demographic groups which Sarah Palin knows she must improve her standing with in order to win a general election.

- JP