GOP Candidates to Palin: Stay Away
Now that Sarah Palin has announced that she will quit the governorship of Alaska in a few weeks, some Republican candidates are hoping that she’s really quitting everything:
Republicans facing tough elections in 2010 don’t want Sarah Palin campaigning with them.
Though the soon-to-be-former Alaska governor is seen as popular with the conservative grass roots, several Republicans said she’d help them by staying home in Wasilla.
Several of these Republicans hail from districts or states carried in 2008 by President Obama, a frequent target of Palin’s criticism. Republicans must keep these districts and win others where Obama is popular if they are to gain seats next year.
GOP Rep. Lee Terry (Neb.), who squeaked out a victory despite his district’s overwhelming turnout for Obama, said he’d rather have House colleagues campaign for him than Palin.
“There’s others that I would have come in and campaign and most of them would be my colleagues in the House,” Terry said.
Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican from Northern Virginia, which is increasingly becoming Democratic territory, offered caution when asked whether he’d welcome a Palin fundraiser.
“I don’t generally need people from outside my district to do a fundraiser,” Wolf said.
Several other lawmakers indicated a wariness about accepting help from Palin, but did not want to criticize the GOP’s vice presidential candidate from last year. They said Palin could hurt them by firing up Democrats.
An unnamed GOP lawmaker representing a district that Obama carried in 2008 told The Hill that if Palin came into his district, his opponent would “probably be doing a dance of joy.”
And by the way, despite what The Hill says, Frank Wolf has been representing my home district (VA-10) in Congress since before I was born and is hardly the most vulnerable GOP Congressman.
Still, I think people like Wolf and Terry who need moderates and independents if they want to be re-elected are right to be concerned about the effect that Sarah Palin’s wingnuttery and general ignorance will have on their districts. I just don’t think their protestations will matter to Palin, whose motto since she entered the national spotlight has clearly been Country Me First.
If she can’t be stopped, I happen to like John’s idea:
Why not bring the entire freak show- Rush could emcee, Santorum and George Allen could do their greatest hits, Sanford and Ensign could come and talk about family values, then Sarah could bat clean-up and tell 70% of the district that they aren’t real Americans and like the wrong mustard.
With friends like those, who needs political enemies?
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