New Sarah Palin approach; better results

From the Politico:  New Sarah Palin approach; better results

Everyone has wondered who the Sarah Palin of 2012 would be. The answer is … Sarah Palin.
Palin’s star power faded along with that of the other conservative Mitt Romney alternatives and her media presence has dwindled. But the Republican presidential primaries have ended with an undeniable void on the right — one that the former Alaska governor and 2008 veep pick is trying to once again fill.

Palin has made a string of successful recent endorsements, including an against-the-grain nod to Nebraska Republican Senate hopeful Deb Fischer in a three-way primary where most other conservatives, including tea party leader Sen. Jim DeMint, backed another candidate. Rick Santorum, the last conservative non-Romney standing at the end of the primaries, endorsed there and in today’s Texas primary to no great effect.

She also backed Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who beat longtime Sen. Dick Lugar in the Hoosier State’s May primary.

Palin’s remaining potency will get tested tonight, as Texas voters go to the polls to choose a Senate candidate. Palin’s pick, former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz, is hoping to force a runoff with front-runner David Dewhurst. Cruz’s camp has said publicly that her endorsement is a huge boost.

Palin confused her insurgent fans recently by throwing her weight behind veteran Sen. Orrin Hatch in his primary contest against ex-state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, who is favored by tea party groups — a move that struck some as jumping to the head of a parade, as the incumbent is favored.

This year, Palin has become almost irrelevant in the context of the presidential race she once had a chance to dominate and is seen more than ever as a sideshow by the Republican establishment. But after seeing her celebrity peak last year, Palin has settled into a role as something of a strong Triple-A political ballplayer, picking well on down-ballot races and earning credit as she goes.

If she jumps into the right streams, the ex-veep nominee’s backers will cite her endorsements as fresh evidence of her clout — even if she’s being carried by the tide. Yet her durability among the grass roots of the party, even with the tea party movement diffusing in 2012, is clear.

“There is a vacuum on the right now, and at some point that’s an opportunity for someone, and it won’t be resolved in this summer or this fall,” said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “Sarah Palin has as much a claim to that as anyone right now … I think she has settled into her role as the power behind the thousands [of] thrones, instead of sitting on one.”

So far this cycle, Palin has backed four GOP candidates in their primaries, and two have won (the others are Cruz and Hatch, who face voters starting today). Her support is guaranteed to generate headlines for the favored candidate, as she relies on her lengthy list of supporters to bring in an infusion of low-dollar donations from her grass-roots list.

It’s a far cry from the 33 winning candidates Palin endorsed for House, Senate and governor in 2010, compared with the 20 who lost. The once-flush SarahPAC had just under $1 million at the end of the first filing quarter for 2012.

Because Palin opted not to run for president in 2012, no Mike Huckabee-like figure emerged from this year’s nominating process to fill the role she would have assumed had she tossed her hat into the ring. Newt Gingrich failed in that quest, and Santorum has receded from view since he departed the race. Without a clear face, Palin has stepped in as the standard-bearer for the party’s grass roots.

It’s still a sea change from where Palin was this time a year ago, when she dropped by the Memorial Day motorcycle-fest “Rolling Thunder” with her bus tour, which sucked the oxygen out of the GOP primary media cycle just as Romney was officially declaring his campaign.

Once Romney selects a vice presidential nominee, that person will become chief attack dog. Meanwhile, Palin has found a role, thanks to the primary cycle.

Written off by many in her party and in the media after her vice presidential bid, Palin has re-emerged repeatedly as a talented campaigner who can dominate local press and, at times, play an important role in electing candidates. That was especially true in the 2010 cycle, when she cemented her brand with key endorsements of female candidates she dubbed “Mama Grizzlies,” including Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez, now the governors of South Carolina and New Mexico.

Part surrogate and part celebrity, she continues to pick her candidates by keeping close counsel, consulting with a handful of people she knows in politics who have a sense of the races she chooses.

Having spent years stoking a mystique around her plans and her interests, Palin’s main talents lie in performing, argued one Republican operative who has worked on presidential campaigns.

In Madonna-like fashion, she is the master of “self-invention then self-reinsertion into the political churn,” the operative said. “I wouldn’t underestimate that. I wouldn’t rule out her ability to find a new way to express it or a new vehicle or a new method …. she sort of craves the attention. I don’t completely write off her ability [to re-enter the fray].”

For instance, her recent endorsement of six-term Sen. Hatch in his Utah primary against Liljenquist struck political observers as betting early on the likely winner.
But Al Cardenas, president of the American Conservative Union, whose group is also backing Hatch, defended her.

“From everything I know, Sen. Hatch has been very active in seeking her support, our support and many others,” he said, adding that conservatives are “keeping a close watch on his voting record.”

“I’m not entirely sure what her vision is for the future,” Cardenas added, but said Palin’s staying power has been proven. “I know that in the present, she is one of the most effective surrogates we have.”

Charlie Black, a Republican strategist who advised John McCain and is now informally advising Romney, said, “I think she’s still got a following among conservatives, and I have seen her endorsement be valuable for some of these primaries … she’s still got some political clout.”

But Black bluntly summed up the synergistic nature of Palin’s power: “I tend to think that Gov. Palin will be around and have a following as long as she’s on Fox.”

“She can’t be ignored,” said conservative strategist Keith Appell, who helped to promote the boosterish movie about Palin, “The Undefeated,” last year. “If Obama is reelected, I think her profile will even grow. But even if Romney wins, she will be a very powerful voice for all of these people to whom he has made promises. And she won’t let him forget it.”

Thanks in part to the attention refocused on her hasty vetting and disastrous veep rollout by the movie version of the 2008 campaign retrospective, “Game Change,” Palin has become a cautionary tale for the 2012 cycle about what not to do when picking a vice presidential candidate

Former McCain adviser Steve Schmidt has been vocal about how unprepared Palin was to be president after she was plucked from the Alaska state house to join the 2008 ticket, as has presidential vetter A.B. Culvahouse, although the latter has indicated he thought she could quickly get there. Palin endured a brief spate of headlines as her family denounced the film as unfair to her before it even came out, holding a fiery conference call to prebut a depiction they didn’t yet know the details of (her camp later said she hadn’t seen it once it did). A Palin aide helping trash the film had, while on break from working for her, discussed becoming a confidential adviser to the film-makers.

Faith and Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed argued that Palin did what she was supposed to do in 2008.

“She clearly helped the ticket,” Reed said. “You can argue with Schmidt or whoever that she was unprepared. That’s a debate I’d be happy to have with people, but in terms of what people wanted her to do politically, there’s no question that she did it. … I think that Sarah Palin is not to be underestimated by anybody, inside the Republican Party or outside.”

Lawyer John Coale, a Palin family friend, called the “Game Change” portrayal of Palin “bull****.”
“There was a war on women and it happened to be the woman Sarah Palin over the last two years,” Coale said, referring to the scrutiny — and criticism — the ex-veep contender received by liberals, and by the press. “She never did anything like Eliot Spitzer or the senator from Louisiana or any of that crap. She just was a good governor, [who] knocked it out of the park with her convention speech.”

Palin, who needs the media attention to maintain her impact and her brand, has been stuck in something of a political netherworld, with her ultimate goal unclear. She seems to have no desire to return to elected office, and Romney’s campaign is not clamoring for her help (the role of off-message media attention-seeker has been split in 2012 by Herman Cain and Donald Trump, leaving Romney with his hands more than full).
Cardenas, a Romney supporter currently and in 2008, said he believes Palin will end up on the trail for the nominee at some point.

“I think Mitt’s campaign will be smart enough to appear with her,”said Cardenas, citing Palin’s heavily watched CPAC speech in February as proof of her appeal to the GOP grass roots. “They have to figure out the most effective way to do this, but you don’t leave on the bench, someone with such skill sets to get our base motivated.”

Of late, Palin’s TV appearances have been sporadic on Fox, where she has a contract, at a time when she’s tried branching out on other entities like NBC’s “Today,” where she recently guest-hosted (topics of discussion included pregnant moms appearing nude on magazine covers).

The lamestream media she once denounced covers her with less interest, after a sense of being toyed with for publicity and affect as she waited until the last possible moment to announce — on Mark Levin’s radio show, not Fox — that she wouldn’t run in 2012.

Palin also hasn’t shown much interest in getting her own show, like Huckabee did, which would be a time commitment that would have the effect of tying her down. Her family’s dramas continue to attract coverage in the celebrity magazines after years of the Palins’ claiming what they wanted was less attention (Levi Johnston’s broke! Bristol Palin is starring in a reality show!). But Palin does still like, and need, the media spotlight.

Using her helping hand in local races, and at the House and statewide level, has provided an opening to stay in the media glare.

“When she lands on the right number, everybody says that gambling has changed and she’s suddenly a great strategist, [but] she just happened to hit the right number,” said one Republican operative, who asked not to be identified.

Palin no longer seems to have the king-making abilities she exhibited in the 2010 primaries. But she is entering the latest incarnation of Palin-as-political-player, and mining existing conditions to become a part of the current races.
“I think she’s not a factor in Republican politics, but what she represented at her peak still is,” the operative said. “Deb Fischer is an example of that energy finding its expression in a new and kind of different way.”
However, the operative said, “You can’t ever attribute it to her with anything consistent, strategic or effective in the long run.”

“I think she will without question make a marginal difference for the people she’s endorsing. Without question,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the conservative Susan B. Anthony List, who worked with Palin on the 2010 races.

The current metrics of her success are not yet clear, Dannenfelser explained. “We’ll find out if the Palin calculus provides a huge impact or not,” she said. “I only know that it matters — we interview candidates almost every day in primaries and in general … the candidates themselves care immeasurably and with no rational data to back it up. They care immeasurably about her endorsement.”