Addio, Becki Donatelli

WaPo's Chris Cillizza, in his political column The Fix, reveals that Becki Donatelli's consulting firm, Campaign Solutions, and Alaska governor Sarah Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, have parted company.

The way Chris tells it, the separation was a voluntary decision made by Campaign Solutions. That's the face-saving explanation, anyway. Some Washington insiders aren't so sure that it's the accurate one. Regardless of who said "goodbye" first, the parting of ways follows a series of strategic and philosophic differences between Donatelli's firm and the governor's people in Alaska.

Interestingly, word of this comes on the same day that the official legal defense fund for Gov. Plain was announced. The fund, named the Alaska Fund Trust, was formed by Alaskans and will be run by Alaskans, not Beltway types. The breakup with Campaign Solutions could be a move to also bring SarahPAC more under the control of people closer to the governor, i.e., Alaskans and those in the nation's capitol whose loyalty to Gov. Palin is longstanding.

Disagreements between Palin staffers in Alaska and Campaign Solutions advisors have resulted in some embarrassing situations for the governor, most all of which involved invitations for her to attend several political events when actually she was unable to leave the state. The impression given was that her Washington people were telling event promoters that she would appear, although her staff in Alaska had never confirmed that she would be free to show up for the events.

Hopefully, that should all be in the past, and we will see well-coordinated teamwork between Alaska and Washington D.C. that works in the Governor's best interests. The shedding of old McCain campaign baggage should lighten the load.

- JP