In my speculations about breaking the 60-vote Senate majority, I suggested Sarah Palin may offer some stealth support to Republican underdog Scott Brown. If she’s helping, it is so stealthy that nobody has noticed. But even by her absence, Palin is a factor in the Massachusettes Senate race:
You can tell the Democrats are panicking, but all they seem to have in their bag of tricks is the same old attempts to link any Republican to the most unappealing figures that they can come up with. So they tie Brown to Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, and Palin. Byron York reports on how all their handpicked media guy sent to help out the Coakley campaign can do is send out email after email asking why Sarah Palin isn't campaigning for Brown in Massachusetts. Is that the issue that Massachusetts is concerned about - the non-presence of Sarah Palin.
Convetional wisdom from both major-party viewpoints held that dim-witted Caribou Barbie was fading to insignificance after “quitting” her job as Governor of Alaska.
Wrong!
Passage of the Unicorn Care legislation will almost certainly turn on this Massachusetts vote. Of the evil names cited by the pro-unicorn advertising, only one is active in the Republican party and a prospective contender for President in 2012.
Until the draft Cheney movement takes hold…
I have no evidence that Palin’s absence is intentional. (Limbaugh said he strategically refrained from commenting to deprive Dems of ammo.) But to make a statement about not participating is, in fact, actually participating. Maybe Sarah is the kind of dimwit—just like the last righty that spent two terms in the Oval Office—who wins issues because the opposition misunderestimates her capabilities. As her enemies turn their energy away from the issues in Massachusetts, she is helping to kill the death panels.
Addendum: As of this morning, Brown (R) has closed to within 2 points of Coakley (D).