Scope of campaign to destroy Sarah Palin expands (Updated)

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The campaign to destroy Sarah Palin is nearly two years old and has been largely unsuccessful. This despite the fact that a great deal of time, effort and an unknown amount of money have been poured into it. It was begun by Democrats using their familiar allies in the national media and at leftist nutroots blogs. The battles were first fought on the blogs, but when the national media joined in, we witnessed a major escalation. Large numbers of "reporters" were dispatched to Alaska for dumpster diving duty to try to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin.

Soon the Democrats found some allies who called themselves Republicans to grow their axis of attack. Soon smear jobs and attacks on Gov. Palin were coming from the likes of Kathleen Parker, David Frum and Peggy Noonan. But the scope of the war on Sarah Palin also changed, quickly expanding to include her husband and children as targets of opportunity. Additional targets were designated among Sarah Palin's staff and friends.

Gov. Palin has been endorsing candidates since early in the year. Her endorsement for Rand Paul was announced on February 1. Paul was of no interest to the anti-Palin forces, however, until he won the Republican primary in Kentucky for the U.S. Senate last week. That was enough for his target to be illuminated on the attackers' radar screens. Paul made the mistake of agreeing to appear on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, a venue where he had received fair treatment in a prior appearance. But that was before he won his primary race and became a likely U.S. Senator in waiting in red Republican Kentucky. Now a threat to Democrats, Paul was setting himself up for a fall by appearing on the most blatantly Dem-biased electronic outlet next to liberal Alan Colmes' radio talk show. Maddow wasted little time launching the offensive to define Paul as a raaaacist. That was Dr. Paul's payback for seeking and accepting the endorsement of Sarah Palin. You see, only days before, Sarah Palin had called out Maddow by name, and there's no way that Maddow was going to let Sarah Palin go unpunished. So the ambush was planned and the trap set.

Now another Palin endorsee is under attack. Nikki Haley was never much of a threat to anyone until the candidate for governor in South Carolina received an endorsement from Sarah Palin and sprinted from fourth place into the lead in the GOP primary. All of a sudden "Republican" blogger and former Sanford aide Will Folks is claiming that he had an affair with Haley several years ago. But Haley is a happily married Christian woman with a beautiful family, all the members of which have now been designated as casualties of political warfare. Just chalk it up to "collateral damage" and political dirty tricks.

We seriously doubt his claims. All it takes is one look at Folks and one look at Haley, and it's clear that she's way above his league. And we're not the only ones to whom it is patently obvious:

"Last week I was tipped off to the panic in the South Carolina House and Senate Republican Caucuses. The leadership had a private meeting to see what could be done to take out Nikki Haley. She spent her years in the legislature fighting the good old boys, even within her own party."

"She demanded transparency and won. They don’t like her."

"Well, with Rasmussen now having her significantly in the lead, we see what the good old boys are doing — skipping all the oppo research and going straight to the sleaze."

Hmmm. A conservative woman fights corruption in her own state party organization and soon is the target of the most vile sort of personal attacks. Sound familiar?

It's also very curious that Folks, who was not married when the "affair" allegedly took place, would mention it at this point in time. The poll numbers showing Haley's surge were just released Friday, and here's Folks making his "confession" on the following Monday. He says he wanted to get the story out himself before it was leaked in the mainstream media. Yeah, riiiight.

So here we have, within the frame of one week's time, two candidates for important political offices that attract national attention, both of whom were endorsed by Sarah Palin and both being successful to a large degree. Now both have been viciously attacked, one charged as being a raaaacist and the other being branded an adulteress. Coincidence? Don't think so. It is apparently okay to be endorsed by Sarah Palin, but don't win with that endorsement or even dare to show the promise of being a winner. You will be marked for destruction.

Updates...

Jim Geraghty:

I went to The State, the largest newspaper in South Carolina, and didn’t find any sense that they were working on a story on this topic, but did find this: “Folks shrugs off accusations that he is paid to publish certain stories.” Boy, that enhances his credibility, huh?

Ben Domenech:

Folks still has plenty of bad blood with the Sanfords — Jenny never liked him — and it wouldn’t surprise me if this is part of his motivation for making this claim, or if he were doing the bidding of one of Haley’s opponents. Either would make more sense... Columbia’s alternative paper reports that rumors originally surfaced over a year ago. That would square with what I’m told — it’d be around the time Folks got pushed off Haley’s payroll after some minor consultant work...

India Unfinished:

Don’t you believe it.

That simple.

We’ve seen this movie before. Sarah Palin is not the mother of her own child, Sarah Palin is divorcing, Sarah is moving out of family home in Alaska, etc., etc.

Let’s not even start about the mudslinging that went on during both the primary and the general election in 2008. Hillary, McCain, Palin, and a whole lot of others. All the while, the real fiasco, the truth of the affair of John Edwards, nobody knew anything about that!

Politics can be dirty anywhere, the US is no exception. Especially where a less known, tough-talking, principled, ideas-driven person is concerned – one as different as Nikki Haley, or Sarah Palin, – the scoundrels come out of the woodwork when least expected.

- JP