Bender: Sarah Palin will not endose Norton at KNUS event

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In Colorado, as we reported yesterday, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck recently said he thought it would be "rude" for Sarah Palin to visit his state Saturday to speak on the day of the Colorado GOP's nominating convention. Here's what Buck said:

"People have worked for months to get out the caucus vote and to work towards this assembly ... Sarah Palin can come any day of the week after that and they can have their day in the sun."

But what Buck rather conveniently failed to point out is that the Palin appearance at Magness Arena in Denver, an event organized by talk radio station KNUS back in November, will actually come hours after the state GOP assembly wraps up in Loveland. So if the KNUS event isn't stepping on the toes of the the Republican Assembly event, what is Buck's real beef with Gov. Palin?

The sad truth is that Buck apparently doesn't care about Sarah Palin raining on the Republican Assembly's parade Saturday (which she won't, as the two events don't overlap). What burns Buck's butt is that he's afraid the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate will rain on his parade -- or more accurately on his coronation, as Buck is sure to overwhelmingly dominate the event, capture the Assembly's nomination and get his name on the August primary ballot. Rumors have been circulating that Gov. Palin will endorse Norton at the Saturday night event. But KNUS' Nia Bender says that Sarah Palin will not do that.

Norton's campaign released a statement Monday saying that Buck was criticizing "one of the heroes of the conservative cause":

The statement, released by spokeswoman Cinamon Watson, likened the GOP assembly to a back-room deal. "Buck is proving to be the ultimate good ol' boy — trying to keep the 'back room' all to himself. As far as we're concerned, Sarah Palin is welcome in Colorado any time, any place," Watson said.

That last sentence may be much more than just campaign rhetoric. In a PPP survey (PDF) of likely Republican primary voters, Sarah Palin tops the field of likely GOP 2012 presidential candidates:

If the Republican candidates for President in 2012 were Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney who would you vote for?

Gingrich ………………………………………………….. 16%
Huckabee……………………………………………….... 18%
Palin………………………………………………………... 29%
Paul ………………………………………………………..... 9%
Romney …………………………………………………... 25%

Finally, from the Colorado Pols blog:

As much as the Norton campaign has suffered from its peccadilloes and in-party fighting..., a Palin endorsement is a positive shift in the right direction. Let us take, for example, the GOP primary race in which polls are presently opening; Rand Paul's trendline can be directly correlated to being endorsed by the Wasilla Wonder, and that race is most likely going to be Paul over Greyson as a result. Apologies to James Dobson, but no one can match Palin's endorsement in the activist crowd of the GOP.

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If one of Norton's problems has been solidifying the party around her as conservative enough for the activist Right, the impact of the undisputed Queen of the Tea Party's nod cannot be overstated enough. In essence, the DeMint endorsement that all of us saw as so deleterious to the Norton campaign would be matched, if not nullified, by a Palin endorsement.

For the Buck people, this one is going to be tough to stomach; Buck's "rude" comment has already raised ire on the righty blogs, and he has no trump card if Palin decides to go through with the endorsement. He has seemed to relish the momentary (in my opinion) high ground, but no one can deny the indelible mark this will place on his campaign, especially if his tone starts moving from the mellifluous to the mercurial. Given the precedent shown by other GOP primaries, Palin's picks seemed poised for success, and for a campaign that many of us here at Pols saw as floundering at best, this is the beginning of a counteroffensive.

- JP