Posted on 07/12/2013 7:06:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sarah Palin underexposed?
It’s hard to imagine. But in Alaska, where she is considering a Senate run, she might be. The former governor “has no profile in Alaska. She’s not active,” says a Republican consultant familiar with Alaska politics. “She’s doing her own thing personally. She’s not giving speeches and doing Republican-women events and fundraisers and helping people. She’s just very much under the radar.”
That kind of invisibility may have prompted her potential opponent, Democrat Mark Begich, to snarkily remark to Politico yesterday, “I don’t know if she’s a resident. She’s been away from Alaska a lot.”
According to political insiders in the Last Frontier, the former governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee faces numerous hurdles should she decide to jump into the race. Two prominent Republicans have already announced they’re running, and Begich is a popular incumbent.
In Alaska, Palin just doesn’t enjoy the same popularity she once did. A February Public Policy Polling poll showed Palin at 59 percent disapproval and a mere 34 percent approval rate among Alaska voters. That same poll found that Begich would beat Palin by 16 points in a heads-up race. Republican internal polls this spring found similar favorable/unfavorable numbers among Republican voters in the state. Some polls, however, paint a rosier picture for Palin: Alaska GOP pollster Marc Hellenthal found that she had a 65 percent favorable rating in a recent poll of state GOP-primary voters. But even Hellenthal’s poll found that Palin would have a huge hurdle to overcome in the general election: Among Alaska voters overall, her unfavorable rating is 53 percent.
“Right now, Begich is looking very, very good,” Hellenthal says. “If you and I were betting, we’d be betting on Begich.”
Nor is it clear Palin could generate much support on the national front. When contacted, the Club for Growth had no comment on a potential Palin senate bid, and Crossroads had nothing to say either. Of the conservative groups I called, only Senate Conservatives Fund executive director Matt Hoskins was openly enthusiastic about a Palin run, e-mailing, “Sarah Palin would make a great senator. She’s not afraid to take on liberals and she’s willing to buck the establishment in her own party. If she runs, we will support her. No question.”
One issue driving Palin to seriously consider the race may be her now-cold relations with Joe Miller, Begich’s Republican opponent in 2010, whom she endorsed. “The Palin-Miller relationship is no more,” says a GOP consultant familiar with Alaska. “She was very helpful to him in the primary. Once he won the primary, he thought he was a senator and he kind of said ‘thanks, but no thanks’” to her involvement in the general election.
“There’s been a little bit of a split there,” the consultant adds. “She’s not interested in doing the Joe Miller thing again.”
Miller isn’t buying it: “I suspect that is just wishful thinking on behalf of some establishment consultant, and has no basis in reality,” he says, adding that he has long worked with Palin. “I don’t believe that she would say such a thing. What is clear to me is that anyone who would presume to speak for Sarah Palin doesn’t know Sarah Palin.”
Running could cost Palin. She has recently returned to Fox News as a contributor, a lucrative and prominent perch which she would almost certainly lose if she announced a Senate bid. If she was running her own race, she probably wouldn’t be able to maintain her role as a kingmaker in the GOP party by making endorsements and traveling around the country, as she did in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. And if she loses, she could become less influential: Losing to Begich in a one-on-one match-up in her home state is different than losing as a running mate in a national election, and would be a second straight political loss.
She also would become a rallying point for the other side. When news that she was considering a bid leaked, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina celebrated what a Palin run could do for Democrats, saying on Twitter, “Candidate @sarapalin [sic]? Could anything be better for natl Dems?” and “If @SarahPalinUSA runs for senate, id take the over on who she raises more money for, Dems or Repubs.”
All of this means that Palin might be more interested in considering a 2016 presidential bid than trying to become one of a hundred senators. On the other hand, she may not even want to remain a Republican: She suggested just a couple of weeks ago in an interview with Fox News that she might leave the GOP and help form a new party.
On balance, Palin, who generated plenty of attention by publicly flirting with a 2012 presidential bid, seems unlikely to mount a Senate run. Instead, look for her to continue to discuss the idea — and ultimately endorse someone who isn’t Joe Miller.
— Katrina Trinko is an NRO reporter.
She’s under the radr - that’s why they can’t stop writing about her! LOL
I think AK would do to Palin what CA did to Nixon in 1962: they want to show her who is boss and just how “open-minded” the Alaskans are.
I’ll be on board when she starts to criticize McCain’s conduct since his re-election.....
My guess is that flying off to Arizona for five years to write books and appear on television, only to return on the eve of a primary saying “I want to be your Senator” will not go down well with the folks in Alaska.
I agree. I think when you elect someone Governor you will be disappointed if they don’t serve out their term. I know I would be upset if Gov Deal of GA just suddenly resigned. Its a problem that is going to follow Palin.
Of course if you're one of those people for whom all polls that show results you don't like are "worthless" this is pointless but people on here really have no concept of what the average person out there thinks about Palin (by average person I don't mean "your friends and family that love Sarah too."
Having a 53% unfavorability rating IN HER HOME STATE is pretty terrible. I assure you it's far worse in the country at wide, but since out in the real world nobody takes her seriously as a Presidential candidate they don't poll on it. It may all be caused by an evil media conspiracy, etc. but the reality is its out there and extraordinarily difficult to surmount.
Winters in Alaska are worse than summers in Az.
I will tell you what she could have done (assuming it was legal): set up The Sarah Palin Defense Fund and ask for donations. She would have raised a million dollars in a few days of that I have no doubt.
Sarah DID tried to set up a Defense Fund a d guess who opposed it and successfully got it tied up in court? The same law firm that represented Obama!
I made this same comment a couple of days ago and had many Freepers tell me that it would help her to run for Senate so she could explain why she quit the job. I still don’t know why, but I do still love her. It’s the people who are on the fence I worry about.
P.S. You will be called a troll for even uttering your opinion on this. I know I was even though I have posted here for years and love Sarah.
So educate people, don’t berate them.
I really like Sarah, but I suspect at street level folks in Alaska are hurt and somewhat offended by this.
This is why I love FR. I did not know that she tried to set up such a fund.
It’s been 4 years since and many here and elsewhere have over and over again explain the situation in Alaska but still many conservatives easily buy into the liberal mantra and lies and berate Sarah without doing any research. It’s frustrating that any so call conservative claim they despise the media but then buys into the attacks on Sarah
Yes, I have been around very much long enough to know her stated reason for resigning. So what happens when she runs for Senate and the same folks harass her again? Will she again quit?
Broken courts allowed the legal harassment in the first place. So the answer when a politician (including a popular one) is being run through the harassment mill is to just resign and give those harassing you exactly what they want? Sounds suspiciously like negotiating with terrorists.
Wishful thinking from the GOP-E and Begich's Rat camp.
The only people who call her a quitter are the all the people on the welfare system, the hordes getting on disability, the greenies, and all the other democrats who despise Palin.
If Palin decides to run, she will make Mark look like the fool he is for all his Obama support with Alaskans. Way more conservatives than liberals up here anyway.
I remember when the Yukon washed away the old Indian Village up here when she was Gov. Palin didn't show up with a film crew for her nx election like Phony Tony Knowles did, she walked around on her own; talking to everybody. Palin threw an old coat over her good clothes, jumped on a 4 wheeler and rode out a mud bog trail to see the Indians out the new village on her own. Palin connects with the Alaskan People like no other, she isn't a crooked political, she's a friend.
A “troll” that has been here a year longer than you...
Have fun with that.
By the way, grow up. All humans are or have been evil. Definition of evil can be huge or small. But pure evil that King Obama is is one hell more evil than the few problems Romney had. A person has to have the intelligence to make determinations in this impure world. Obamacare would have been a thing of the past. As Romney has said health care is the States responsibility and not the Federal Government.
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