Sarah Palin campaigning with Republican congressional candidate Vaughn Ward in Boise, Idaho, last Friday. Chris Butler/The Idaho Statesman, Via Associated Press
By TIMOTHY EGAN May 26, 2010, 9:00 pm
In the midst of one of the most precipitous political crashes in the Mountain West, Sarah Palin made a mad dash into Boise on Friday, urging the election of a man who had plagiarized his campaign speech from Barack Obama, had been rebuked by the military for misusing the Marine uniform and had called the American territory of Puerto Rico a separate country.
And why not? Vaughn Ward, the Republican congressional candidate from Idaho, has the dubious character trifecta of the Palin brand: bone-headed, defiant and willfully ignorant. When told that Puerto Rico was not a country, he said, “I don’t care what you call it.”
On Tuesday, this Palin protégé was routed in a huge upset, despite a big early lead in the polls, a 6-to-1 fundraising edge and that Friday fly-in by the former half-term governor, who has Idaho roots.
A week ago, Palin backed a candidate for Senate in Washington state, Clint Didier, a former professional football player who also owns a farm and has railed against excessive government spending.
But at the same time Palin was calling Didier “a commonsense constitutional conservative [who] will help put our country on the right track,” it was revealed that he took at least $140,000 in federal farm subsidies. If having his hand out seems inconsistent with his bumper-sticker politics, it follows a familiar pattern of the Palin brand. In Idaho, Ward, the Palin candidate, also blasted government intervention in the private sector, even though his wife, the family breadwinner, earns her living through a mess kept alive by Federal bailouts — Fannie Mae.
In California, Palin has endorsed Carly Fiorina for Senate. Who cares? Well, Palin should. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin pledged to “stop multi-million dollar payouts and golden parachutes” to C.E.O.s who run their companies into the ground.
After having steered Hewlett-Packard into a ditch, with the stock plunging 50 percent and 20,000 real Americans forced into layoffs, Fiorina walked away with about $45 million.
Between surreal appearances from Wasilla as the caged pundit of Fox News and quick, splashy landings in the lower 48 states, Palin has shown she still has the attention span of a hummingbird on a nectar jag. She does not do basic homework. Never has. The result is a string of endorsements for people whose lives are living contradictions of their stated philosophies.
Palin could have served out a single term as Alaska governor, leaving a public service legacy while boning up on the issues. As depicted in the book “Game Change,” what Palin wanted more than anything was to be loved in Alaska.
Todd and Sarah Palin “continued to be far more preoccupied by her status in Alaska than just about anything else,” write the book’s authors, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. “Any issue related to the state put them on high alert, and incited some of their worst propensities toward parsimoniousness with the truth.”
But in deciding to get rich quick, the demi-governor has ditched whatever grounding she may have had in what Bush aides dismissed as the “reality-based community,” and lost her way in the Last Frontier State. Her brand is toast there, as well.
A valedictory, of sorts, was sounded on Palin by Walter Hickel, the former governor and dean of Alaska Republicans, who died this month. Though he backed Palin for governor in 2006, by 2009 he was disgusted with her, particularly how she went running after the ephemera of celebrity.
“She fell in love with the national spotlight and lost her ethical compass,” Hickel said in one of his final interviews.
Of late, whenever a candidate with the Palin blessing blows up, she blames it on the “lamestream media,” not personal responsibility. It’s a curious claim, coming from a person who said she studied journalism in college, but is appalled by real journalism.
The attacks on her man in Idaho, Palin told a half-empty arena in Boise on Friday, were “a violation of our press freedom.” In fact, it was the press — led by the venerable Idaho Statesman newspaper — simply doing the thankless job of trying to keep politicians honest. The real piling on came from Idaho conservative bloggers, who were unrelenting in pointing out how the Palin candidate lifted his campaign speech almost word-for-word from Obama’s stirring 2004 Democratic convention address.
Sarah Palin with South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, left, during a campaign rally Friday, May 14, 2010, in Columbia, S.C. Associated Press
Similarly, in the randy state of South Carolina, it was not the despised traditional media that published allegations that Palin’s pick for governor, Nikki Haley, had an affair with a former co-worker at the governor’s office. Haley has denied the claim, which seems mired in the murk of the Palmetto State’s baroque politics of sex.
But the point is that it was a conservative blogger and self-described Haley backer, Will Folks, who made the charge, not some old fuddy-duddy, fact-obsessed lamestream media outfit.
It’s early in the campaign season, but these car wrecks on the Palin highway are piling up. As for the Palin brand, it seems to represent no consistent philosophy, no guiding principles, no remedial vetting. It stands for one thing — Palin — and in that sense, she does have a legacy, though it can only be measured in dollars.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is endorsing GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, calling her "a transformational leader for California.'' (AP Photo/Richard Drew) (Richard Drew)
Ken McLaughlin Posted: 05/25/2010 12:00:00 AM PDT Updated: 05/25/2010 09:22:15 AM PDT
When Carly Fiorina launched her campaign for U.S. Senate late last year, she wanted little to do with Sarah Palin. "I've never met her," Fiorina replied when asked about the former Alaska governor's leadership skills. "Next question."
And Meg Whitman, the front-running GOP candidate for California governor, probably wasn't planning to ask Dick Cheney or Newt Gingrich to endorse her when she launched her ubiquitous ad campaign last fall.
But as the races for governor and senator go down to the wire before the June 8 primary, big name Republicans are jumping into the fray with endorsements — 11th-hour nods that may offer big boosts now but carry serious risks in the fall, when the primary winners face the general electorate in a solidly blue state.
Palin endorsed Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, on May 6. Former Vice President Cheney endorsed Whitman 10 days later. And former House Speaker Gingrich endorses the eBay billionaire in an op-ed piece in the Mercury News today, calling her "a transformational leader for California."
What a difference a few months make.
Back in the fall, conventional wisdom held that Fiorina was a shoo-in for the Republican nomination and that a close association with Palin would damage Fiorina's standing among independents and Democrats, since the John McCain-Palin presidential ticket lost in California by a record 24 points. Whitman, meanwhile, was riding 50-points high in the polls against her lone rival, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.
Now Fiorina is locked in a three-way battle against former Congressman Tom Campbell and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. And Whitman's lead against Poizner — who several weeks ago began a fierce ad campaign targeting her — is now in the single digits, according to the most recent public poll.
With Fiorina's internal polling showing Palin's popularity rating among GOP primary voters at about 80 percent, touting the endorsement was not a difficult call.
Both GOP gubernatorial campaigns said Monday that they would welcome Palin's backing. "She's a national Republican leader," said Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei. Jarrod Agen, Poizner's spokesman, agreed and said the campaign has already reached out to Palin "through mutual friends."
But Democratic activists view the endorsements as red meat.
"I don't think Palin, Gingrich or Cheney would have any chance of being elected statewide in California, even if they were running for dogcatcher," said Chris Lehane of Level the Playing Field 2010, an independent expenditure group working to defeat Whitman.
The campaign of Attorney General Jerry Brown, the presumed Democratic candidate for governor, also took some delight in the Cheney and Gingrich nods.
"She is now endorsed by two of the biggest hypocrites in America," said Brown spokesman Sterling Clifford.
The Whitman and Fiorina campaigns, however, characterize Palin, Cheney and Gingrich as GOP stalwarts who will enhance the candidates' conservative creds.
Fiorina last week sent a mailer to Republican voters across the state featuring her picture side by side with Palin's, along with a full-page letter from Palin singing Fiorina's praises as a "Commonsense Conservative."
The risk, assuming Fiorina manages to snag the nomination, is that the Palin stamp of approval will hand Barbara Boxer ammunition to portray Fiorina as a far-right Republican outside the political mainstream, as Boxer has done to past GOP opponents.
After insisting early in her campaign that she would downplay social issues and focus on the economy, Fiorina in recent weeks has also played up endorsements from anti-abortion groups and the National Rifle Association.
"She is running further to the right than she would probably like to," said former Republican political consultant Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which handicaps races. But, he said, that may be the price of securing the nomination.
In Whitman's case, he said, the Cheney and Gingrich endorsements are "going to make it much more difficult to put together a coalition for the November election."
Dan Schnur, a former GOP strategist who now directs the University of Southern California's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, said it's difficult to gauge the potential effect of the Palin endorsement to Fiorina in a general election. But it's noteworthy, he said, that the two have not campaigned together.
Kam Kuwata, a Democratic strategist in Los Angeles, said that while Gingrich and even Cheney are largely "forgotten" political figures, "Sarah Palin arouses emotion," both positive and negative. So, Kuwata said, she will do the most good for a Republican in the spring — and the most damage in the fall.
Hoover Institution fellow Bill Whalen, a speech writer for former GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, agreed.
He said "Democrat candidates have the same challenge when they're endorsed by Jesse Jackson," the longtime civil rights advocate. In the primary, Whalen said, the endorsement can motivate the base, "but in the general it becomes problematic."
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