Forbes: How Sarah Palin's followers are rebranding for the future

Palinistas say that they understand the choice Palin made... but the truth is that some are inconsolable.
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Here is an excerpt from a lengthy article on the mamma grizzly movement in the wake of Gov. Palin announcement that she's not running for president, by Forbes contributor Frieda Klotz:

On October 5 this year, Sarah Palin announced that she wouldn’t run for president. It was just after Karen Allen’s birthday. “That was a bummer,” Allen tells me over the phone. The 41-year-old mother of four is the national coordinator of Organize4Palin, which partners with American Grizzlies United. She wasn’t the the only one to be upset at the news. Tens of thousands of conservative women had rallied behind the former Alaskan governor and many of them were devastated. Organize4Palin was in the middle of revamping its website in preparation for her candidacy. Her decision left all of them with a dilemma: what’s the point of being a Palinista if Sarah Palin is no longer in politics?

The mamma grizzly phenomenon is one of the wonders — or horrors, depending on which side of the aisle you sit — of recent political history. It sprouted in 2008 shortly after John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate. Her feisty, flamboyant persona had a dramatic effect on conservatives and in particular on women. Karen Allen explains.

“Everybody sees themselves in her in some way. She’s willing to stand up against the corruption and take the heat and keep on going and not be defeated – that’s why they chose the name ‘Undefeated’ for the movie – no matter what comes up against her she stands.”

For Tami Nantz, the media’s portrayal of the Alaskan governor was the beginning. “I was motivated because of the onslaught of media attacks against her,” she tells me over the phone. “I just started thinking, ‘Okay, all I’m finding is all of the wonderful things that she’s done for Alaska. What in the world makes them hate her so much?’”

Nantz started a blog called Moms4SarahPalin. All of a sudden there were other groups, and a slew of terms like Palinistas and mamma grizzlies entered the dictionary. It seemed to signify the growth of a novel female power on the right. “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy,” wrote Michael Graham in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages. ”Forget ‘angry white men.’”

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- JP