Joel wonders whom former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will endorse. It’s a great question, but I think the deeper question is whether and how much she has matured as a political figure since her last round of endorsements.
Think back to 2010, and the Senate race in Delaware. As much as conservatives — including myself — hated the thought of having moderate Rep. Mike Castle represent the GOP for that open seat, Christine O’Donnell proved such an embarrassment to the conservative movement and to conservatives in general that I don’t think I’m alone in wishing she hadn’t won her primary. And forget about Republicans gaining a Senate seat. I’m all for rolling the dice on a more conservative candidate. But O’Donnell was so bad that a Castle loss in the general election might have been preferable — or even a Castle victory and immediate party-switch.
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That latter rumor — about Castle plotting secretly to win with Republican money and switch parties — was one of the many paranoid and completely unsubstantiated rumors that O’Donnell helped spread during her campaign. She also went out of her way to make sure that as many people as possible heard untrue and very personally damaging rumors about Castle’s sexuality and fidelity to his wife.
And Sarah Palin endorsed her.
It isn’t as though she hadn’t been warned. Perhaps not by the biggest-name conservatives in the movement, but by real conservatives — fiscal and social — like The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack, and Mark Hemingway, who at the time was writing for us.
After observing the paranoia and kookery that O’Donnell and her campaign manager Matt Moran brought into our office — I was a witness to it as well — Hemingway wrote:
It’s entirely possible that Palin acted on bad advice from aides she has subsequently let go. At the time, the anti-establishment mood among conservatives was strong enough that a lot of people did and said regrettable things, believing it would help the cause. Also, an endorsement for a distant state’s Senate seat is not the same as a presidential endorsement. And finally, there are no Christine O’Donnells in the current presidential field, as disappointing as some people may find it.
Still, Palin commands enough admiration in some conservative circles that she bears a heavy burden of responsibility to choose wisely, or not to choose at all.
