Hillary Chabot: Sarah Palin circles around ol’ Mitt Romney

Can Mitt close the new media gap between him and our Sarah?
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According to The Boston Herald's Hillary Chabot, Mitt Romney aims to try to emerge from the large shadow cast over him by "pop culture and new media megastar" Sarah Palin. The former Massachusetts governor hopes to "recapture the limelight" with a guest appearance on the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno Tuesday night. But there is a difference of opinion among observers about the effectiveness of such a strategy:

Romney supporters said his first “Tonight Show” guest spot since his failed 2008 presidential bid was not inspired by the All-Sarah-All-the-Time coverage of his chief rival for the GOP nomination.

Palin has saturated the air waves — bludgeoning halibut on her Alaska reality show on TLC, cheering on daughter Bristol from a front-row seat on the ABC hit “Dancing with the Stars,” dishing politics on Fox News and flogging her second book on a coast-to-coast tour.

Spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney has nothing to promote, and simply thought the Leno sit-down would be “fun.”

Others say a laid-back chat with Bay State native Leno will give the straight-arrow Romney a chance to let down his blow-dried hair in front of millions of late-night couch potatoes.

“He’s trying to make sure people don’t forget him,” said John Feehery, a Republican consultant based in Washington D.C. “He’s trying to humanize himself and appear sympathetic.”

GOP consultant and pollster Steve Lombardo advised Romney to avoid an all-out star war with a star of Palin’s magnitude.

“I think it would be a mistake for Romney to try to out-celebrity Sarah Palin. I don’t think anyone can do that right now,” Lombardo said. “He’ll probably never have the celebrity status or connect with the core Republican party like she does.”

[More]

Chabot says Romney has also been trying to close the social media gap between him and the 2008 vice presidential candidate. But he has a long way to go. Sarah Palin, she notes, has more than three times the number of Twitter followers and Facebook friends that Romney does. Blogging clinical law professor William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection tells Chabot that may be an insurmountable goal for Romney, opining “I don’t think anybody can catch her in terms of social media. She really has pioneered use of Facebook as primary means of communication with the public.”

- JP

What are the two most powerful words on the web?

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Philadelphia Magazine blogger Larry Mendte, in a Philly Post opinion piece, says the two most powerful words on the internet are Sarah Palin:

As Marshall McLuhan once said, “The media is the message.” And that is never truer than in the phenomena called Palin.

She has found power without the baggage of politics. She can post on her Facebook page to a million-and-a-half loyal followers and change the health-care debate to the point that the President of the United States has to answer her “death panel” claim to a joint session of Congress. She can meet thousands of adoring Americans on a record-setting book tour and not once speak with a pesky reporter. She can walk into the studio that Fox built for her in her home to talk with her friends at Fox News and never have to do one hard hitting interview with the likes of Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson.

It is interesting to note here that the Power of Palin affects almost everyone who crosses her path.

[...]

In the end, Palin, the Queen of all media, gets the same attention and polarizing reaction as Vice Presidential candidate Palin. And again, none of it is based in the person of Palin, but the persona of Palin.

Which is why I’m convinced she’s not running for anything ever again.

Though Mendte and some others are so convinced, theirs is a minority opinion. A much larger crowd is just as convinced that she will run again just as sure as night follows day. The only point of contention among them is when she will run, and which public office she will pursue first. Many see her making a run for the presidency in 2012, just two short years away. Some, including John Ziegler, believe the former governor will challenge Alaska's junior Senator Mark Begich (D) in 2014 and then run for president in 2016. Some others think she will indeed take on Begich, but that she will serve a full Senate term and make a White House run in 2020.

But all of the political fortune tellers' crystal balls are cloudy where Sarah Palin's future plans are concerned. When even her own father says it's a mystery to him, how can anyone else say that their reading of the tea leaves doesn't come with the caveat of a very large margin of error?

We don't disagree, however, with the author on his assessment of the force of The Power of Palin, a power that her unwitting detractors have helped her to amass:

And the greatest irony to all of this is that those initial attacks after her convention speech helped to create the powerful persona of Palin.

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Sarah Palin has become rich and more powerful than ever because of it. And now she cannot be ignored. Even those in the media who loathe her understand her draw, and they talk about her whenever they can. David Letterman and Chris Matthew, two of her well known critics, both have practically begged for her to appear on their shows. Sarah Palin declined — because the biggest celebrity in America doesn’t need either of them.

Stupid? I think not. Sarah Barracuda saw an opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. When she quit as governor, she kept the perks of power sans responsibility. She gets to work a little less and make a lot more.

Sarah Palin is brilliant.

- JP

Dan Riehl: Is Palin Media Strategy Reagan 2.0?

The Riehl Man points out that Sarah Palin will take criticism from some pundits who will say that she is foolishly waging a war with the media. In fact, we have already heard this argument being expressed. Dan says that the CW is that you don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel. But he asks if the conventional wisdom still applies, then answers his own question:

Reagan didn't fight with the media. The usual descriptor for what he did is, he went over the media's head directly to the American people. Is Sarah Palin really doing anything different, except for having Facebook, blogs and a great many other New Media resources today to which Reagan didn't have access? Just imagine how even more effective his communication strategy would have been if he had?

Because of media advances made in the last several years, Sarah Palin doesn't have to go over the media's head. She can go right through them. It appears to me that's precisely what she intends to do. Don't be surprised if it works, even as the media and some old-line politicos point how what a bad idea it is. If those folks had truly good ideas, most of the country wouldn't be so upset with them right now. But that's just another thing old media and large portions of the political class seem to be missing.

We have noticed that people who buy ink by the barrel are laying off employees, losing subscribers, and having a tougher time selling ads to fill up their pages. We agree with the Riehl World View on this one. Sarah Palin is going through the media like Patton's Third Army went through France.

Counterpoint: Don Surber disagrees.

- JP