You Betcha a Palin Endorsement Matters! (Updated)

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Sarah Palin, with her characteristic humility, refused to take credit for her impact on Tuesday's primaries, told Fox News Wednesday:

"Any credit given to me is way overblown." She credited the "message" of the candidates, particularly the women she calls the "mama grizzlies."

"Perhaps an endorsement can shift just a tiny bit of momentum in some cases, and I think that's what we saw. But it certainly wasn't me as an individual," she said.

Of course Gov. Palin wasn't the only factor in the victories chalked up in California, Iowa and South Carolina, but some heavyweight political analysts commented that she is indeed a significant factor.

Democratic strategist Doug Schoen called Tuesday's results "a feather in her cap."

"Palin is a queen or kingmaker within the Republican Party," said former Republican New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato.

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In South Carolina, where the Palin factor was arguably strongest, she went for the outsider -- in a big way. State Rep. Nikki Haley climbed past three other candidates in the polls after Palin backed her at a rally in May and on Tuesday blew away the rest of the field with 49 percent of the vote. Because she did not reach the 50-percent threshold, Haley still has to face Rep. Gresham Barrett, who got 22 percent, in a runoff.

Palin's support in that race was heavy-handed. She stood firm by the candidate after a former campaign consultant claimed last month that he had an affair with the sudden frontrunner, using Facebook and robocalls to assail the consultant as a coward and dismiss the allegations as fabricated. A second affair allegation surfaced and Palin continued to support Haley.

Elsewhere, Palin endorsed candidates running against the outsider Tea Party types -- former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad in the race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Iowa and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in the race for the GOP Senate nomination in California.

Both were winners.

While Branstad was the favorite to win his nomination, Karl Rove, former adviser to George W. Bush and a Fox News contributor, said Palin boosted Fiorina in a race where her opponents, former Rep. Tom Campbell and Tea Party favorite Chuck DeVore, had more conservative or well-known reputations among base voters.

"She helped give conservative credentials to Fiorina," he said.

The DNC stenographers at the Washington Post, who rarely miss an opportunity to try to trivialize Sarah Palin's considerable political influence, published two pieces in an attempt to downplay her impact. One, by columnist Philip Rucker Tuesday well before the polls had even closed, and another by leftist blogger David Weigel the day after the election. Meanwhile a Susan Davis article in the Wall street Journal which purports to measure Gov. Palin's impact in the primaries reads like a Romney campaign press release.

But leave it to ABC's 'Good Morning America' to take the prize for Preposterous Political Primary Posturing:

All three network morning shows touted the good showing by a bevy of Republican women and Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln in yesterday's primaries. NBC's Today and CBS's Early Show both headlined "Ladies Night," while ABC's Good Morning America's take was "Women Rule."

But ABC fill-in anchor Elizabeth Vargas suggested credit should really go to Hillary Clinton, because she "helped by running for president," paving the way for "all these other women about to possibly take office, high office, in those states."

Hillary Clinton endorsed Nikki Haley, appeared with her at a rally in South Carolina, recorded telephone ads for her and defended her against charges made by her sexist political opponents? Who knew? Somehow we also managed to miss the part of the story where Secretary Clinton risked angering elements of her political base by endorsing Carly Fiorina and Terry Branstad.

A post-election analysis by Kathy Kiely in USA Today is more even handed:

Halfway through the primary election season, anti-tax "Tea Party" activists and former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin haven't won every battle they've joined but their record is better than the competition's.

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Darrell West, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution, notes Palin has been "very helpful to candidates in GOP primaries." Still, he says, "what has not been tested is whether that extends to the general election."

On Tuesday, Palin's endorsement helped three GOP candidates: former Iowa governor Terry Branstad, who was renominated for his old job; former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, the party's choice for Senate in California, and state Rep. Nikki Haley, the leading vote-getter in South Carolina's GOP gubernatorial race.

Even left wing TIME magazine acknowledged the power of Sarah Palin endorsements in a story by Jay Newton-Small:

Sarah Palin had a pretty good Super Tuesday. Three of the four candidates she endorsed won, bringing her record in tightly contested races to 8-3 overall this midterm election year.

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Palin has done particularly well picking winners in Senate and gubernatorial races, having endorsed Senate candidate Rand Paul in Kentucky, Texas Governor Rick Perry, Susana Martinez for Governor in New Mexico and on Tuesday Nikki Haley for South Carolina Governor (though Haley still faces a run off). Palin doted particularly on Haley, one of her so-called Mama Grizzlies, not only stumping for her — an effort she's made for only 7 of the 27 candidates she's backing — but also rising to her defense in robocalls when accusations of infidelity arose. "Well, whaddaya know?" Palin wrote on Facebook. "South Carolina's conservative candidate, Nikki Haley, recently zipped to the front of the line in her state's race for governor; and lo and behold, now accusations of an affair surface." (See photos of Sarah Palin.)

Except for her former running mate John McCain and a lucky few who get a personal appearance, most of Palin's picks benefit mainly from some money, a Facebook post and a few tweets. But even that tends to pack a wallop. Palin "certainly has an appeal to grassroots conservatives, which has benefited some candidates and helped put them over the finish line," says Ken Spain, communications director for the National Republican Campaign Committee, which helps elect Republicans to Congress. "Her support does tend to drive grassroots donations to individual candidates."

Update: At Conservatives 4 Palin, Ian Lazaran puts the brakes on Democrat Party Pollsters PPP's spin:

Governor Palin is more popular with Republicans nationwide than Nikki Haley and Carly Fiorina are with Republicans in their own states according to the pollster's own numbers. If Palin has stronger numbers with Republicans nationwide, then she more than likely has stronger numbers than either Fiorina or Haley has with Republicans in California and South Carolina, respectively. So is it really reasonable to argue that an endorsement from someone who is more popular with Republicans than the endorsees didn't help the endorsees with...Republicans?

- JP