Palin Really, Really Scares The Left, Doesn’t She

by William Teach | July 15, 2009 6:14 pm

And, too be honest, some of the Palin haters on the Right, too. But, let’s deal with the Left for the moment, shall we? Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight shows that the Palin hatred (this story isn’t quite in the PDS region) will drive them to use any rational to demean Palin[1]

Sarah Palin’s political action committee — SarahPAC — raised $733,000 in the first half of the year[2] and is set to push past $1 million[3] in the wake of the recent attention she’s gotten herself. On the one hand, this isn’t that impressive. Mitt Romney, for instance, has raised twice as much[4]. Kay Bailey Huthcison, Palin’s sometime rival who is now running[5] for governor in Texas, raised nine times as much. For somebody with a political celebrity dwarfed only by Barack Obama’s, that’s just not all that much cashflow.

But, Palin isn’t actually running for Federal office, hasn’t announced she is running for Federal office, and obviously isn’t running for Governor of Alaska. Furthermore, SarahPAC[6] is not about raising cash for a federal run[7].

To give Nate his due, though

What is impressive about Palin’s fundraising haul, however, is who it came from: the grassroots. Based on her FEC disclosures, I identified 406 donations worth $200 or more, which are worth a combined total of $289,932. That’s nothing, really: Home Shopping Club can bring in that much in 15 minutes selling vacuums. That leaves, however, $443,608, or 60 percent of SarahPac’s total, which came from small donors. That is a very high percentage — higher than for any of the ’08 presidential candidates but for Ron Paul — as you can see from this chart where I’ve colored Palin’s total in Misogynist Pink.

What that means is Palin is reaching out to, and reaching, the core of the Conservatives, those who will give $5 here, $20 there, $50 on the flip sides, the small donors that drove Dubya’s two elections. Those small donors are who we are. We may have the cash to drop, but, we will nickle and dime the politicians we are rooting for, to make sure they stay on track.

Endnotes:
  1. demean Palin: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/palin-all-tail-no-head.html
  2. raised $733,000 in the first half of the year: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24866.html
  3. set to push past $1 million: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/14/palin-becomes-moveon-target-as-sarahpac-cash-haul-surges/
  4. twice as much: http://race42008.com/2009/07/14/palins-pac-pulls-in-733000-romneys-pac-racks-in-1360000/
  5. now running: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/will-kay-bailey-hutchison-play-texas.html
  6. SarahPAC: http://www.sarahpac.com/
  7. not about raising cash for a federal run: http://www.sarahpac.com/faq/

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/top-news/palin-really-really-scares-the-left-doesnt-she/