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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has endorsed Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is facing a Tea Party challenge from former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist (R). "I want him to win. I join Sean Hannity and Mark Levin and other conservatives who would like to see Mr. Balanced Budget return to Washington," Palin said on Fox News on Tuesday night. "He wants to apply that common-sense economic principle of balanced-budget fiscal responsibility, and I want to see him reelected." Palin is the latest big-name conservative to signal she has no problem with the six-term senator. Hatch has a big advantage...

GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz had raised the hopes of grass-roots conservative activists outside the Beltway for months with strong indications that he would mount a David vs. Goliath challenge to the four-decade incumbent Hatch: The Chaffetz calculus is not simple. On one hand, Hatch is widely seen as vulnerable to a conservative challenger and Chaffetz is well-known and liked among Utah’s tea party base. However, Chaffetz was a leading spokesman for House conservatives during the recent debt ceiling debate and sponsor of the Cut, Cap and Balance proposal, which advocated slashing government spending and requiring Congress to pass a balanced...

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I just read a very bizarre blog post about entrenched incumbent Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch by Fox News anchor Greta van Susteren and then watched an equally distressing interview van Susteren conducted last night with Sarah Palin regarding Hatch. First, the title of van Susteren’s blog post: “Is someone trying to manipulate the UTAH Tea Party vote unfairly away from Senator Orrin Hatch?” Van Susteren absurdly suggests that dark, sinister, unnamed, and uninformed forces in Utah with outside backing are somehow trying to take away Hatch’s seat through nefarious means. She’s clearly talking about D.C.-based fiscal conservative groups like FreedomWorks...

After a stretch in which an endorsement from Sarah Palin was considered a rarity, the former Alaska governor has become something of an endorsement machine as of late. In the past week alone, she has endorsed four candidates, ranging from a tea party contender for Senate in her home state of Alaska to the GOP establishment favorite for Iowa governor. Palin has backed both clear winners and decided long-shots; she's weighed in on behalf of "mama grizzlies," but an extra X chromosome doesn't necessarily mean an automatic endorsement (see Hutchison, Kay Bailey). Some candidates (such as former Redskins tight end...

I have lost THREE real life friends now in trying to defend Sarah Palin. On one hand I tend to think the people who call her stupid are not the kind of people I even want as friends anyhow. However, I wonder if im being too harsh and going too far. I know our country was divided on President Bush. But the division and the hatred for Sarah Palin has been able to top anything. Before Palin, I had a much more positive outlook on people (especially women, mothers, ect) and life in general. Now I find myself seeing people...

I don't know what it is going to take to clean the elitists and the sexists out of our party. But I have a pretty good litmus test. Sarah Palin. Odds are if you see a Republican trashing her or keeping their distance from her, they are really bad news. We need to make sure every candidate in any upcoming primary is on the right side of this. Those who dislike Sarah Palin tend to either support abortion, hate evangelicals or they have a problem with a female President. There are very few in betweens. We have to clean the...