Bill Wavering: The Indefatigable Sarah Palin

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At Intellectual Conservative, Bill Wavering makes the observation that tor someone judged by her detractors as not ready for prime time just two short years ago, Sarah Palin has proved that she possesses a profusion of political perspicuity:

Labor Day marks the unofficial beginning of the 2010 general campaign season. While there has been much already published by political pundits regarding the drubbing that liberal Democrats are expected to absorb in November; we should note that one of the most remarkable stories of this recently completed primary season was the endorsement track record of one Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska.

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These successful endorsements are important for three reasons:

* Political endorsements are like a gambler's marker. They may be called in at any time. These successful endorsements will translate into either monetary support, personal support, or both should Sarah Palin ever decide to seek political office once again.

* They have served, and will continue to serve to keep her in the political limelight as the 2010 campaign season continues to ramp up; maintaining her visibility all the way up to the unofficial kickoff of the 2012 presidential campaign season next February.

* They prove that her political instincts are much more highly developed that any liberal political pundit has been willing to give her credit for up until now.

The author defines Gov. Palin's endorsements using different criteria than we do here at TX4P. He counts as "endorsed" any candidate to whom SarahPAC, the governor's political action committee, contributed funds. While it can be argued that PAC donations are, in a way, implicit endorsements of a candidate, we only count those endorsements explicitly made by Sarah Palin.

The reason is that some PAC contributions are made simply to return the favor of a donation made to that PAC. We seriously doubt, for example, that Sarah Palin would strongly endorse Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Yet her PAC gave Graham some money early on to return the favor of a contribution by Sen. Graham as "seed money" to SarahPAC when it was first organized. Another example is the SarahPAC contribution to Sen. Lisa Murkowski. This donation was made mostly to quell rumors being widely circulated at the time that Gov. Palin would run for the U.S. Senate against Murkowski. It was done as a favor to the Senator and to keep the peace in the Alaska GOP. But when Murkowski publicly and rather mean-spiritedly criticized the governor for resigning her office, all bets were off, and Sarah Palin challenged the Senator by proxy, endorsing Joe Miller and convincing Tea Party Express to commit over a half million dollars to Miller's campaign. We witnessed the results of this week ion the stunning upset of Murkowski in the GOP primary.

Although we don't agree with Wavering's way of defining and counting endorsements, we can't aargue with his conclusion. Her track record of successful candidate endorsements has earned Sarah Palin an impressive accumulation political clout, enough so to make her a force to be reckoned with in 2012 should she toss that green newsboy cap into the ring for the race for president.

- JP