I suppose I’m going to have to cave in and start blogging more about the midterm campaigns. If I don’t, I’m just not going to have much of anything to write about. So here’s the latest on “Hurricane Sarah,” who apparently is creating quite a reputation for leaving chaos in her wake wherever she goes. For example:
Late last Friday afternoon, Palin’s political aide, Andy Davis, contacted officials with a competitive House campaign. The former governor would be available Tuesday, Davis said. As with Grassley, the reaction of the House campaign was to have Palin do a fundraiser. “What [the candidate] needs more than anything else is money,” said a GOP source familiar with the situation.
No-go, replied Davis, indicating that not only did she not want to raise money, but she also didn’t want to do a rally. The preference was for something “low-key,” so Davis suggested visiting a factory or going door to door. But in doing so, the candidate would have to limit the exposure of the event. They could bring only one “trusted local reporter” along, Davis said, according to a source familiar with the exchange.
Without much media attention, such a grass-roots event would have done next to nothing for the candidate, said the source close to the situation. But the campaign — a lean operation, like those of most House candidates — scrambled to put together another plan that would accommodate Palin. They sent it to Davis on Saturday.
The campaign didn’t get word until Monday morning, the day before the event was to take place, that Palin’s schedule had changed. She couldn’t come. Palin offered no reason for the no-show. After the experience, the campaign, filled with conservatives who thought well of Palin, began referring to her as “Princess Sarah,” said the source close to the situation.
That’s from Jonathan Martin, who reports that Palin is “kind and courteous” when she actually shows up, but is demanding and erratic when it comes to deciding when, where, and how she’ll show up in the first place. Martin’s conclusion from all this is that it’s a bad sign for a potential presidential run, since she’s pissing off important people and demonstrating an inability to do logistics that no presidential campaign can afford. Maybe so. But Sarah always writes her own rules, and maybe the lesson of 2012 is going to be that logistics don’t matter anymore. Maybe star power is everything.
