Shaun Booth: Is Sarah Palin still needed by the GOP?

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Colleague Shaun Booth at PoliticalLore.com, where your humble TX4P editor is also a contributor (mostly to the site's blog), asks if Sarah Palin is still needed by the Republican Party. It's food for thought and deserves due consideration.

Shaun argues that although Gov. Palin will be campaigning for Sen. John McCain and Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, those two don't appear to need her help. From our vantage point on the Brazos, however, we can affirm the in the Texas Governor’s race, the quotes from Rick Perry about how much he is looking forward to Sarah Palin's arrival in the Lone Star state to make appearances with him are more than just campaign rhetoric. Though leading in the polls, Gov. Perry is up against a well-financed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on his left and Debra Medina on his right. The latter challenger surprised the other two candidates by turning in a winning performance in their debate at the University of North Texas in Denton a week ago.

A Rasmussen poll taken January 17 showed Perry leading Hutchison by 10 points, but a battle of negative campaign ads between the two could cause that lead to evaporate or at least narrow significantly.

But there will be plenty of races beyond these three, and Palin has no shortage of requests from candidates, both announced and not yet announced, to lend a hand on the stump in their states and Congressional districts. We're far from unbiased on this blog, but we believe that the Republican Party needs Sarah Palin much more than she needs it at this point in time. As Shaun points out:

A brilliantly orchestrated chain of events has kept her front and center in American politics; starting with her resigning from the office of governor, then her cross country book tour and now actually joining Fox News before taking to the campaign trail to stump for sure fire winners.

Sarah Palin is well positioned, thanks to her best-selling book and her new job with FOX News. And her events calendar is being filled with a rapidly growing number of announcements of speaking engagements. She's only 45, remember, and she doesn't have to run for the White House in 2012. She can afford to wait until 2016 or even 2020, when she will be 56. She may even surprise everyone in 2014 and challenge Democrat Mark Begich for the U.S. Senate seat he currently occupies. We have learned to expect the unexpected from Gov. Palin.

The GOP can use Sarah Palin's help beyond the campaign trail as well. In recent polling, the Tea Partiers are out-performing both major political parties. The GOP can't just take for granted that these voters will automatically vote Republican because the Democrats appear to be the current focus of their anger. These disaffected voters are equally unhappy with those Republicans who have failed to act like Republicans, as many of them demonstrated in the elections of 2006 and 2008. The GOP needs Sarah Palin as the voice of its conscience, as she tirelessly reminds Republicans that they should be adhering to the planks in the party's platform.

As Shaun observes in his post:

Sarah Palin is aligning herself with the groundswell of grassroots support that is poised to pick up a significant number of seats in November.

If she can successfully take credit for the victories and spin the Tea Party movement as a thing of her own creation, she would have a full head of steam going into the January 2011, the month most Republican Presidential candidates will likely announce.

Our only departure from his opinion would be over the relatively minor point that we don't believe that Sarah Palin needs to spin the TP movement as her own creation. She only needs to accept all their invitations to speak at Tea Party events and let the grassroots decide if they want her to lead their movement.

If they respond affirmatively, she can lead those who will have chosen her to vote Republican if -- and only if -- those Republicans who are incumbents can demonstrate that they are listening and understand the message the Tea Partiers are sending. These GOPers will have to prove that they will never again stray from the path mapped out by Ronald Reagan. Many of them will have to be better stewards of the people's trust and treasure than they have been in the past if they hope to remain in office.

- JP