Pandering for Palin: SarahPAC Makes First Sales Pitch

My late father, a curmudgeonly Montana cowboy, used to say about snow: "It's always muddied and dirty around your house; out there on the horizon, it's pure and white."

So it would seem for Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions.

While personal and political controversies are muddying up her political agenda in Alaska, the distant horizon of national politics looms ever so pristine--and inviting. Just this week, the Alaska legislature essentially nixed Palin's 2009 legislative priorities, while her national political action committee, SarahPAC, made its first national email pitch yesterday, touting Palin's accomplishments in the Last Frontier.

And it came with a surprise announcement: "Governor Palin will soon be traveling the country and working to support leaders who share [Palin's] vision."

That might come as news to Alaskan voters, who expect Palin to be focusing on statewide issues as she prepares to run for re-election as governor next year. But according to Palin's spokesperson Meg Stapleton, the governor is on her way to Indiana next month and to the hometown of William Seward (and also, coincidentally, of Stapleton), Auburn, New York, in June.

As anyone who's recently watched Palin's uninspired performance in Alaska will tell you, the campaign trail in the Lower 48 was far more exciting for Palin than dealing with cantankerous legislators and the Last Frontier's political gadflies. And after 2008's Cinderella moment, no one expected Palin to stay down on the farm for long.

Someone, of course, is going to have to pay for the Governor's traveling, since she can no longer do it on the state's dime, and that someone would be...

[W]e can't do it without you. Will you join Governor Palin's team and make a contribution so SarahPAC - the official Sarah Palin PAC - can support the Governor's efforts to reform government and help elect leaders who share our conservative values?

Notice the reference to the "official Sarah Palin PAC"--that's because at least two other unauthorized Palin PACs have already started collecting money, too. One, of course, is the notorious right-wing TeamSarah, while the other, 2012 Draft Sarah Committee, made a pitch for dough this week out of Connecticut. (Palins' Facebook page contains only a direct link to SarahPAC, not the others.)

But SarahPAC has also been caught up in some controversy that's gone mostly unreported this week. It's treasurer, Tim Crawford, of Arlington, Virginia, and a longtime conservative operative, was unceremoniously forced out of his position last week as the Republican National Committee's finance director, apparently because of his overt ties to SarahPAC. Moreover, SarahPAC is being coordinated by the conservative Donatelli Group, aka Campaign Solutions, also of Arlington, which raised money for the McCain-Palin ticket in the 2008 race, and to which McCain has been connected since his 2000 presidential bid.

A much more soiled legacy of Campaign Solutions was its role in the "swift boating" of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential contest. It also played a significant role in the behind-the-scenes campaign to secure confirmation of Sam Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Campaign Solutions is run by Becki Donatelli, wife of Frank Donatelli, a well-known conservative uber-lobbyist who currently serves as Deputy Chairman of the Republican National Committee and whose previous clients include Exxon-Mobile. He also served as adviser to several Republican bigwigs, including Reagan, Dole, and Bush Sr. Perhaps most significantly, Donatelli assisted James Baker in the 2000 Florida recount on behalf of the Bush-Cheney team.

This is mainstream Republican muscle. We're talking real dye-in-the-wool "Washington insiders." And Palin is clearly jockeying for position in 2012.

If anyone is wondering what issue Palin intends to run on, you can bet your bottom dollar it's going to be "conservative values." That was the phrase that polled biggest for Palin among Republicans (it certainly wasn't her expertise on the domestic economy or foreign policy), but when it comes to the cultural wars, Palin is the Annie Oakley of the evangelical right. Think bright red meat.

As Washington, D.C., partisans continue to fight and bicker over "politics as usual," Governor Sarah Palin is working every day to reform government in Alaska and fight for the conservative values we all cherish.

The SarahPAC email triumphed Palin's recent photo-op jaunt to the Alaskan bush with Franklin Graham, on which she delivered supplies to Alaskan natives and championed the activities of faith-based organizations like Graham's Samaritan's Purse.

As you can see, Governor Palin is working each day in Alaska. Her bold actions have helped thousands across the state and is the example of strong, conservative leadership needed throughout the country.

That might come as a surprise to Alaska's native populations, whose pleas for assistance went virtually unheeded by Palin until Graham's faith-based crew showed up for the cameras. (A harsh critique of Palin's policies toward Native Alaskans appeared in the superb Alaskan web site The Mudflats).

But Palin is clearly looking beyond the confines of Alaskan politics towards something bigger in the future:

Thank you for being a part of our team. Governor Palin believes our brightest days are ahead and she is honored to have you by her side.

Comments

[Syrin]

Article II, Section 20, of the Alaska Constitution does not identify
the grounds for impeachment. Instead, Alaska Legislature is to decide
the grounds. Palin committed malfeasance in the performance of her
official duties and continues by intentionally violating a statute, or intentionally
encouraging others to do so, as it would be for the justices of the Alaska Supreme
Court, Palin the executive should be impeached!!

[xango xango]

The Republican Party is just an extension of the divisive agenda the Governor used in Alaska to climb to the top. The FBI needs the Republican party to encourage an audit of this Governor before she continues to rob people in broad daylight building up her legal defense fund for all of the Gates she is building. The Republicans that support her don't even see what a hypocrit she is, she has winked and played the victim all the way to the top. She is an embarassment to Alaska and this highway robbery must be stopped or curtailed until there is an investigation.

[Virginia Plain]

Sarah6PAC.

You betcha!

[Reg Guard]

Sarah Palin has not a clue about what governing means. Her version of small government is so small it doesn't exist!

http://palingates.blogspot.com/2009/03/sarah-palins-small-government.html

[pxgabriel]

I read yesterday that whe was going to fight for personal freedom, I wonder if that includes choice?

[Ohsnap]

Tina Fey is going to have a long and successful career.

[mollymac]

It's hard to say how putrifying this woman is. I've seen Wasilla; many times. You should lay eyes on it! Bohunkville- they shoot trees and set fire to old cars for fun and enjoyment. Yeah, take her to the white house-she can set up her trailer right inside the gates.

[Alaska2]

Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Just this morning I was concerned that people might read the SarahPac baloney and not know Palin's a fraud. I'm still looking for a single example of reform she's accomplished. Ruedrich is still chair of the Alaska Republican party, for heavens sake, and her own conduct on multiple occasions doesn't pass muster as ethical in my book. Her track record as mayor, then governor isn't one of fiscal responsibility. As for personal freedom, how does inserting yourself in the midst of someone else's very personal decisions about their reproductive health (while knowing none of the pertinent facts about the matter) promote personal freedom? You can't promote personal freedom and still think the government should have a say as to what goes on in other people's bedrooms and between them and their doctors. How I long for the good old days when being a conservative meant you were frugal and you wanted the government to stay out of your personal life.

[laurentyvan]

Sarah Palin will be easily controllable by the Republican status quo. Of course they would welcome her!

But time will show that in the complexity of the financial, military, health care, global warming and jobs crisis moment we find ourselves in, she would be a bit of swirling flotsam in a whirlpool of potentially disastrous historical and global confluences.

Sarah would not have been the leader the world would have responded to. She is reasonably bright but not capable of the vision or the intelligence required for the job. She is... plebian, common. So am I, which is why I don't aspire to higher office.

Sarah isn't evil, she has conservative ideologies (failed and extraordinarily narrow, imo) and she has risen to her level of incompetence as Gov of Alaska. From here she can only go down...

Don't expect the Republicans to be in disarray forever however, probably 2011 sees a more rational, as yet un-named, Republican Light (after 2010 elections hurt them) taking over and it won't be Sarah. Marginalized, highly-conservative elements of the republican party will have fallen away. The alternative means decades of irrelevance for the Reps- I can't believe they will let it come to that.

[carljr]

This is what we all said about Bush back in 1998. Let's all remember how that one turned out.

[lis60]

Sorry, I don't agree with you on certain things. I do not think she is bright at all. And I do think she is evil. She has stepped on people her entire life-read her history...­And the Republican party has a LONG LONG way to go before they appeal to the masses....­..

[K8KZ]

She is not smart enough to be evil. Everything she does is only for her own personal gain and she cares not about who she runs over. If she had a clue, she would realize the laughing stock she has become and that her followers are so in love with her they can not see it either. I just read a post on TS of how "jealous" one follower is of all of those who live in Indiana because this is the second time she has been there?? And they accuse the left of following Obama like he is the second coming. She and her followers have no self awareness at all and they scare me!!!

[Virginia Plain]

SARAHPAC

SARAH6PAC

SARAH666PAC

Take your pick.

Palin/Jindal 2012

Oh, God!

[Cat401]

Hope she will run. SNL ratings will go up.

[hortonhearsawho2]

man runs into brick wall, shares the visions of sarah...

[Virginia Plain]

Pure class!

Best laugh I've had in ages>

[deosil]

How CAN Palin run on CONSERVATIVE VALUES??? The Briskett-Levi marriage has been scrapped. Not surprising, IF she were going to marry Levi she would have done so BEFORE the birth. It´s a bastard birth, and it told ME that there would never be a wedding between those two.
I am not understanding this. I certainly dont care, but conservatives MUST care, NO????????? Ok, I dont get it.

[satchellisimo]

I think that's a fair question. The answer may be disconcerting. There is no such thing as "conservative values." The phrase is used to disguise a vapid nostalgia for days when things were simpler. Its kind of a recurring revisionism because it can apply to every era. The really disconcerting part is that today it is a euphemism for many people who use it (many, not all) for fears based on racism, sexism and ignorance. Conservatives, at least thinking ones, will need to refine the concept if they want to get any political mileage out of it.

[SCmommy]

Oh, puke.

[xmontreal]

Why is it that the most self-proclaimed "conservative values" States have the highest divorce, murder, and teen age pregnancy rates in the country??