Video: Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin brought her anti-Washington message to this year's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. She also urged conservatives to support the GOP's eventual nominee. (Feb. 11)
‘She’s just all over the place’
Then came last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual rally for the movement. Palin had turned it down for years. This time, though, she not only agreed to speak but also appeared to be taking it especially seriously.
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In a rare nod to protocol for a woman best known for going rogue, she flew in early to prepare, according to conference organizers. She practiced her speech. She met privately with conference leaders, who had picked her to close the event, a position held in years past by radio talker Rush Limbaugh and Rep. Allen B. West (R-Fla.)
“It will be very interesting to see what the reaction is to her speech,” conference chairman Al Cardenas said last week as he rode an escalator down to the hotel exhibition area, where red-lanyard-wearing attendees milled around booths for FreedomWorks, Let Freedom Ring, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Freedom Alliance.
Here was Ken Hoagland, chairman of the political action committee Restore America’s Voice, which had signed Mike Huckabee and Herman Cain to do TV spots against President Obama’s health-care plan. He had not reached out to Palin.
“Palin,” he mused when asked about her value in such ads. “I’d love to talk to her. I’d probably sign her up on the right issue — like, I wouldn’t put her on TV for foreign policy. On energy? Oh, yes.”
Here was GOP fundraiser Bruce Eberle: “If you want someone to sign a fundraising letter, it would be hard to beat Sarah Palin and Herman Cain,” he said.
Here, signing autographs, was Herman Cain, the former businessman and GOP primary candidate who dropped out amid allegations of sexual harassment and now appeared to be Palin’s competition on the tea party figurehead circuit.
His former campaign manager, Mark Block, stood nearby. “Sarah who?” he joked.
Behind a spray of red and blue streamers, Leanne Livingston, 21, sat at the Tea Party Patriots booth, head in hand. She lamented the choices that her onetime heroine had made.
“With her TV show, she’s just all over the place,” Livingston said. “I feel she could have done something else other than a reality show. If you really break down who can move our party to great heights, she can’t.”
‘She’s sort of cashing in’
It is difficult to truly gauge Palin’s influence. Some believe she helped swing the South Carolina primary for Gingrich while others say Gingrich did that himself. In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 23 percent of registered Republicans and GOP-leaning independents nationwide said that an endorsement by Palin would make them more likely to back a particular candidate. Another 15 percent said it would make them less likely to do so.
Palin has roughly 3 million followers on Facebook. Her last Federal Election Commission filing showed SarahPAC, her fundraising arm, with a little more than $1 million in cash.
A less formal measure was the booth at CPAC where volunteers were giving away posters of Ronald Reagan and Palin.
“Did y’all want a Reagan or Palin or both?” an attendant asked a couple.
“Um, just a Reagan,” said the man.
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