Regarding her endorsements...
Its a major leap in logic and reasoning to assume correlation equals causation. You have a correlation - (Palin Picked some winners). But, you can’t say she is the cause(of their election wins).
And - I think its kind of a slap in the face to the TEA Grass that did tons and tons of groundwork in that election cycle.
It seems to be a contradiction - a grass roots movement that is craving an omnipotent, top down, “kingmaker,” style of leadership.
ak267 didn’t say it was the ONLY reason or sole cause for said candidates winning (much like Romney, Gingrich, DeMint, etc.,), but from my experiences on the ground her influence was NOTICEABLE. I can personally vouch for this in my distruct in Georgia and from my relatives in Florida (Allen West), South Carolina (Nikki Haley and Tim Scott) and New Mexico (Susana Martinez).
Even though my candidate in Georgia didn’t win (Ray McKinney, district 12). Once Palin endorsed we noticed a rather LARGE jump in donations and volunteers. Many of the volunteers stated that is was Palin’s endorsement which sealed the deal to get involved.
My brother worked for the Haley staff and the results of Palin’s help was between night and day. Haley was fourth in the GOP primary and was going nowhere. Palin came in and Haley took off like wildfire. We asked local Tea Party groups about Palin’s endorsement and to them it sealed the deal on which GOP candidate to work with. Many were also enthused about Palin when she was at the 2010 Tea Party convention and became one of their storngest advocates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFctC16YRuI
Palin wasn’t the only reason and yes it was TEAM effort, but from report after report, her stumping, fund raising and politicing was a major force multiplier. Some endorsements were more notable than others.