Will Sarah Palin Endorse in the Colorado primary?

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Speculation is running high among the chattering class about which candidate, if any, Sarah Palin will endorse in the Colorado GOP primary race for the U.S. Senate. The two leading candidates in the primary are Jane Norton and Ken Buck.

Norton served as Colorado's Lieutenant Governor during Gov. Bill Owens' second term. Owens had previously appointed her Executive Director of Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment. She was a regional director in the US Department of Health and Human Services during the Reagan and Bush41 administrations. Norton also served the remainder of an unexpired term in the Colorado House of Representatives.

Buck is the District Attorney in Weld County, which is located in eastern Colorado and is comprised of the Greeley Metropolitan Statistical Area. Best known for his tough stance on illegal immigration, Buck narrowly defeated Norton in a March straw poll at the party caucuses. Running as the self-proclaimed "Tea Party candidate," Buck has been endorsed by conservative Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina.

According to Denver's 5280 Blog:

Coverage of a fundraising breakfast for antiabortion candidates by The Wall Street Journal and Politico has led to speculation that Sarah Palin will endorse Jane Norton in the Colorado race for U.S. Senate. Palin told the roughly 500 attendees at the Susan B. Anthony List political action gathering in Washington that the year “will be remembered for when commonsense, conservative women get things done for our country.” She put in a few plugs, including for former Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton.

Erick Erickson hopes that the rumors that Gov. Palin will endorse Norton are just rumors:

"What I don’t get, and do hope the news is wrong, is why Jane Norton would push for Governor Palin to endorse her this Friday or Saturday. Doing so would put Governor Palin in the awkward position of ignoring Colorado’s Republican grassroots activists [CORA], the bulk of whom will be convening for the Republican Assembly this weekend. After the Fiorina endorsement caused a wave of muttering among grassroots activists, this would not be a good thing."

"Ken Buck has the grassroots in his corner. It’s readily apparent across the state. Consequently, Jane Norton is going to bypass the Republican Assembly this weekend and try to collect signatures to get on the ballot. But make no mistake about it, to change the narrative about Norton bypassing the grassroots, she is vying to get a Palin endorsement late this week."

Erick believes that Governor Palin is not aware of all the ins and outs of the political machinations going on in Colorado. The Republican Assembly, a gathering Norton will not be attending, takes place this weekend. Erick fears that the Norton campaign is setting Sarah Palin up "for a very awkward moment" which would steal the Assembly's thunder and "put the spotlight on Jane Norton" instead. By focusing national media attention on Norton at the expense of the Colorado GOP grassroots, Erick thinks that Gov. Palin would further anger the grassroots, some of whom are still seething over the Carly Fiorina endorsement.

Erick needs to give the governor credit for being politically astute enough to know what is going on behind the scenes in Colorado. And he should realize by now that Sarah Palin doesn't march to anyone's drummer but her own. Though Gov. Palin is committed to herding "a whole stampede of pink elephants" toward Washington this year, we would like to believe that she would not endorse a candidate strictly on the basis of gender. We tend to think that when the conservative candidates with the best chances of prevailing both in the primaries and the general election are women, she will endose them, but when the opposite is the case, she will endorse good conservative men as well.

The safe choice in Colorado would be to make no endorsement at all until after the Republican Assembly convenes over the weekend. But Sarah Palin isn't known for always taking the safe road to where she wants to go.

Update: Stacy Drake kindly furnished with the link to this article in the comments:

Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck said Monday that it's "rude" for the former Alaska governor to headline a Denver speech on Saturday, hours after the state GOP gathers for a statewide assembly in Loveland, about 50 miles from Denver.

We're trying to wrap our minds around how in the world Buck can figure that Gov. Palin giving a speech at an event that was planned at least weeks ago and scheduled to begin hours after the Assembly event ends could possibly be considered "rude." Um, Erick, Buck has only himself to thank for this one. Now the possibility of him getting an endorsement from Gov. Palin seems about as remote as the chance that she will offer Katherine Parker a job as her PR person.

Oh, well...

- JP