Sarah Palin's Endorsements Getting Downplayed

It's amazing to me that if anyone else had as successful of a record in picking winners in elections as Governor Palin has, the entire media and political establishment would never question that person's impact on a race. I can only imagine if, back in March when Mitt Romney endorsed Nikki Haley, her numbers had shot up as she took over the lead, the praise that would be heaped upon the the former Governor of Massachusetts.

If you haven't noticed, Governor Palin's endorsements are getting downplayed in the media and from pundits and politico's on both the left and "right" side of the aisle. I say "right" but I really mean the establishment. The most downplayed victory in her column is definitely the California Senate race where she picked Carly Fiorina. I think there are many reasons people who have no interest in praising Governor Palin are downplaying this particular race. For one, it was a very high-profile, widely covered campaign. For two, it's in California, a blue state if there ever was one, and to the narrative creating establishment, that victory translates differently than it would somewhere down south. It's all about perceptions...

The truth of the matter is that Sarah Palin's endorsement of Carly Fiorina had a huge outcome on that race. HUGE! Some hack in the Northeast has no clue what effect Governor Palin's endorsement had in California. But guess what? I'm sitting in California as I pound this blog post out, so I think I have better insight than 'Pundit's-4-Mitt' might have.

It just so happens that I was supporting Chuck DeVore up to the day Governor Palin announced she was supporting Fiorina. I wrote about it here. I had decided then, that I was going to agree to disagree with the governor and continue my support of DeVore. Until he reacted like spoiled child for not getting his way, and proceeded to start calling people names. At that point I took a second look at Carly and decided the "child" had also been lying to me about his opponents record. To be perfectly honest though, the fact that Governor Palin endorsed Carly immediately gave her credibility in my eyes. I've studied Governor Palin on the issues, I know how principled she is, and I know she would never steer me in the wrong direction... That said, I happily voted for Carly Fiorina in my neighbor's garage last Tuesday, and I would do it again.

I talked with a lot of Conservatives from my neck of the woods about the election after Governor Palin endorsed Fiorina. Some did not change their support for DeVore, some did. But everybody I talked to that had been supporting Tom Campbell shifted to Fiorina after Palin stepped in. Campbell had a lot of people fooled, but Governor Palin's endorsement certainly got everyone's attention and that led to a more in depth examination of the race and all the candidates for the voters. In this state of low attention spans, that is nothing short of amazing. In case you haven't noticed, politics are not Californians strong point.

So much for my own personal experiences ... Let's look at the numbers.

From Chuck DeVore's own website from a poll dated on April 22nd, 2010:

Republican race for U.S. Senate in California, in which Chuck DeVore and Carly Fiorina are shown to be in a statistical tie. The poll, with a margin of error of +/-3.7%, showed Tom Campbell with 31%, Carly Fiorina with 17%, and Chuck DeVore with 14%.

I didn't see any new poll numbers posted after that for a long time. I remember complaining about it at the time. Anyway, SurveyUSA posted this on May 24th, 2010 (keep in mind that Govern Palin endorsed Carly on May 6th)

In the Republican primary for US Senator, support for former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is up sharply in the past 2 weeks, from 24% on 05/10/10 to 46% today 05/24/10. Fiorina's support has more than doubled among women, seniors, Hispanics, the less educated, and in the Inland Empire. During these 2 weeks, Former Congressman Tom Campbell's support dropped 12 points, from 35% on 05/10/10 to 23% today 05/24/10.

So when a writer based out of the Northeast says "But political observers doubt that Palin was all that instrumental in Fiorina’s California Senate primary victory," never mind the all too common unnamed sources, that person doesn't know what they are talking about. The numbers in the SurveyUSA poll do not match their theory. I'd love to spend an entire post ripping that whole article to shreds considering the writer uses a certain PPP poll to come to some other conclusion, but I've only got so much time tonight. It's just another hack job, hit-piece in my opinion, designed to kill the morale of Palin supporters, and create misconceptions... Blah blah blah.. When will these people understand that we don't care what they think and that their words hold no weight with us?

In other endorsement outcome related distortions... Today, I kept hearing GOP pundits try to play down Governor Palin's endorsement of Nikki Haley to the extent they could get away with it, and play up Mitt Romney's support. As I previously stated, Mitt endorsed Haley back in March and his support had nowhere near the effect that Governor Palin's did. Nikki Haley still had a low name recognition throughout the months following Romney's nod. Speaking of which, where was Mitt when the 'Good ole Boys' club started to viciously attack Nikki Haley in one of the lowest acts of political hatchery I have ever witnessed? I didn't hear, see, nor read any statement of support from him even though it was clear that these "men" claiming to have had affairs with Nikki, where obviously political operatives. Governor Palin on the other hand, released a statement the very first morning the attacks started. Which calmed the voting public, and helped the Haley Campaign to continue their efforts to seek the nomination.

In all the articles and interviews I've seen downplaying Governor Palin's positive effect on the elections, the person doing the downplaying never mentions an election that happened not too long ago in New Mexico. Susana Martinez won the New Mexico GOP gubernatorial primary race on June 1st. Governor Palin had endorsed Susana on May 15th at which time her and her opponent, Allen Weh were virtually tied in the polls. Martinez ended up getting 51% of the vote, while Weh only received only 27%. Attention pundits, that was AFTER Governor Palin endorsed her. For your information, my mother just so happens to live in New Mexico and she can vouch that Governor Palin made the difference in that race. I have talked to her about it on more than one occasion.

What I'm taking away from this negative downplaying is that all of the power establishments see that Governor Palin has an effect on this nation, a role in the debate, and sway with the voters, and they don't like it. That's too bad because candidates form around the nation are asking for, and receiving endorsements from Governor Palin. If this woman had no sway or had "too many negatives" why on earth would candidates be tripping over themselves to get an endorsement? It doesn't make sense on any rational level but these are Governor Palin's detractor's after all. Since when have they ever been rational?

UPDATE: In no way am I trying to diminish the job any of these candidates and their staffs did. Obviously they all ran very good campaigns and at the end of the day, the victory is due to their own performance. I wish them all the luck in the world winning in November.