The MSM and the leftist pundit class quote from the same playbook. Don’t give Sarah Palin any credit and thus acrosss-the-board credibility. One who is deemed to be a lightweight, an idiot, a buffoon and cannot ever be given credit for being a kingmaker. The former and the latter do not jibe. Thus the turkey story, the shopping stories, Barbara Walters calling Sarah uninformed and slamming her in her ‘fascinating’ special. But truth will out. Bottom line Chambliss was projected to win by 4-5 points a day or two before the vote-a win for Chambliss, but a narrow won. I have never denied this and have never said Chambliss had any chance of losing the run-off. So call this a signal to the base of Sarah’s potential to have a huge impact any election. To go from 5% to 15% in 1 or 2 days when the only intervening event on the GOP side was the one-day barnstorming appearance of Sarah Palin is astonishing. Sure Sarah may not account for all of that 10% but to credit her with at least 1/2 of that, in her ability to rally and mobilize the base, is I don’t think is out of line. To change a political race by 5+% with an one-day appearance on the stump is the mark of a closer, a winner and a game changer. Sarah is on the rise, and that has the MSM and the Dems frightened for 2012.
I like Palin, but you are giving her too much credit here.
I live in GA, and IMHO, Palin’s impact on this race was minimal. Chambliss’ polling lead the day before the elction was based upon similar voting turnout as the main election. We know that didn’t happen. The factors that helped Chambliss were:
1. Martin allowing himself to be tied to Obama.
2. A Democratic base that was not enthused about comming out to vote for Martin.
3. A Republican base that was fired up to prevent the Dems from getting a 60 seat majority and handing total power to the Dems/Obama.
4. A host of Republicans (including Palin) comming into the state to Support Chambliss. IMHO (again), Huckabee’s visit to the state probably did as much or more to help Chambliss as anyone else (because it was coordinated with a major GA talk show, Neil Boortz on WSB, and the Fair Tax coalition, which enjoys more support in GA than any other state by a pretty large margin.)
I like Palin, but there is no way you can attribute the entire bump to here.