Facebook phenom Sarah Palin's popularity continues to grow

Mike Huckabee may have won the straw poll at this weekend's Values Voters Summit, but Sarah Palin is far ahead of her fellow Republicans on Facebook. Website Common Sense 2020 notes:

With more than 875,000 fans following her political commentary closely on Facebook, Sarah Palin trails only President Barack Obama as the most popular politician on the social networking site. She has gained 60,000 new followers since we reported her soaring popularity exactly four weeks ago today. Amazingly, she is expanding her high-profile posture in political debates armed only with a notebook computer and an Internet connection.

Two very different approaches are being taken by President Obama and Citizen Sarah:

As the audience of the so-called mainstream media slips into statistical insignificance and the circulation of left-leaning printed media plummets, President Obama has pledged to do the Sunday political talk show circuit on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and even Univision.

In stark contrast, talk radio, Fox News, and Sarah Palin have been growing record audiences of fiscal conservatives (independents, libertarians, and republicans) who are concerned about big government growth. Clearly, conservative media outlets are presenting a message that resonates with the once silent majority.

Politico's Andy Barr has also taken notice, calling the former governor a "Facebook phenom":

Relying almost exclusively on social media to get her message out, Palin has managed to carve out her own high-profile place in the national health care debate, on energy policy and on tort reform.

While Palin isn’t the only major political figure to try alternative means of communication to bypass the media, her unique ability to remain in the headlines while avoiding the spotlight suggests she may be the first to pull it off successfully.

Even the pundits are at somewhat of a loss to fully explain the phenomenon:

"I can’t answer what her strategy is, but I can say that it’s working," said GOP strategist Mary Matalin. "A large issue of why this works is that she has been so demonized and made fun of by the mainstream press."

[...]

"She’s trying to cut across the grain because everyone has been saying what a dope she is and she’s going into depth on these issues," said Matalin. "This is a good strategy because it works and because it’s long form. In an ad or any visual form, you could never take the kind of deep dive on a lot of these issues."

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, now a media strategist and not a Palin supporter:

"She represents a gigantic movement in this country that is distrustful of Washington and finds her appealing for all the same reasons that the mainstream media finds her unappealing," Fleischer said. "This is where social networks are most effective. It lets you focus on your core constituents and fan bases, and few politicians can actually claim they have a fan base."

Fleischer and others politicos don't think the 2008 vice presidential candidate can Facebook her way into the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, but Sarah Palin has good reasons for going around the Democrat-Media Complex. Since the day John McCain announced that she would be his running mate, they have dug for dirt on her and have even reported unsubstantiated rumors taken from left-wing blogs as fact. But what really destroyed the relationship for Palin was when they went after her children. Despite the press' hostility toward her from the beginning, she was still willing to play along until they crossed that line. We don't blame her for not trusting them.

More: Just down the road from us a few miles in Washington, TX, PrairiePundit tends to agree that Sarah Palin's media strategy is working just fine for her.

- JP