Andrew Malcolm: Now, it's Sarah Palin's turn to target Democrats

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After having been in the Democrats' cross hairs for the better part of 18 months, now it's Sarah Palin's turn to target them, though they're squealing about the return of the favor like stuck pigs. But Democrats have always been better at dishing trash talk out than taking it.

Saturday in Searchlight, Nevada, Sarah Palin will headline a second major Tea Party event (her keynote speech to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville earlier this year was the first for the former GOP vice presidential candidate). The target of opportunity will be Senate majority leader Harry Reid and a Democrat Party which is sinking like the sun in the evening desert sky. Searchlight is his home town, but he won't be there. In his absence will be thousands of disaffected voters bent on ending four years of Democrat control of both houses of Congress.

LA Times blogmeister Andrew Malcolm says that although Gov. Palin will not please most Tea Party folks today by campaigning in Arizona for her former Republican ticket mate John McCain, her appearance at Saturday's Showdown in Searchlight may make up for it -- and then some:

Palin will seek to bolster McCain's conservative credentials at a Tucson rally today, a Phoenix fundraiser tonight at the same hotel where they conceded to the Democrat ticket in 2008, and another rally in Phoenix Saturday.

McCain's opponent, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, paints himself as the true conservative and seeks to dismiss Palin's popular participation as "the very human impulse of gratitude" for plucking her from Alaska's relative political obscurity and dragging her down to a decisive national defeat. Which she's now turned into a bestseller, a newly-confirmed TV documentary series on the Learning Channel, a couple of million dollars and an active SARAHPAC.

Longer term, Palin is doing what any possible presidential candidate should do 32 months out: Hand out her precious personal campaign time and PAC money to potential allies for her own race should she decide to launch one about this time next year.

That's her much vaunted Common sense way.

Though Tea Partiers and McCain supporters may not see eye to eye on many issues, one thing they can most certainly agree upon is that Saturday in Searchlight is not too early to get Harry Reid's retirement party started.

- JP