I saw this last week; the Washington Post has put up a Palin Endorsements Tracker to track, well, former Governor Sarah Palin’s endorsements. So far, of the 42 that they list: 20 primary wins, 10 primary losses, 6 still to be determined (this includes Miller up in AK, as the primary isn’t officially concluded up there yet), and 6 no-primary. That works out to two-to-one successful primary picks, which is apparently not too shabby.
Looking at the map itself: it’s pretty eclectic. Categorizing the choices is surprisingly hard, and may be actually the result of a deliberate strategy by Palin. Maybe she’s running, maybe she’s not; maybe she’s Tea Party, maybe she’s establishment; maybe she’ll throw her support behind female candidates, maybe that’s not really a concern for her, balanced against the need for conservative candidates. If I were a Democratic strategist, this would be worrying me. Hard to plan against a strategy where the pattern isn’t obvious*.
Moe Lane