{"id":10439,"date":"2010-04-29T23:06:16","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T04:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=10439"},"modified":"2010-04-29T23:06:16","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T04:06:16","slug":"palin-rider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=10439","title":{"rendered":"Palin Rider"},"content":{"rendered":"

The GOP’s rockstar diva puts her support behind the “hockey dad.”\u00a0 Will her last minute endorsement score or just put Tom Emmer in the penalty box?<\/p>\n

On the eve of the Minnesota GOP’s two-man dialogue for governor being pared down to a monologue, 2008 Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin has injected herself into the contest with the political equivalent of a powerplay goal<\/a> for her self-described “hockey dad” candidate of choice, Tom Emmer:<\/p>\n

A family man who wants to leave his kids a better future, a \u201chockey dad\u201d who once played for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks, a patriotic commonsense conservative who wishes to serve for the right reasons \u2013 that\u2019s Tom Emmer, and I ask you to join me in supporting him for governor of Minnesota.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John “Policy Guy” La Plante asks the 60% question of the evening – is Palin’s endorsement worth having?<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

So Sarah Palin has endorsed Tom Emmer. Is this good news for Team Emmer? I’m not convinced.<\/p>\n

Why? Because, I suspect, most Palin fans are likely sympathetic to Tom Emmer anyway. But a Republican candidate must appeal to more than Republican voters to win in the general election.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For a good chunk of independents and Democrats open to voting for a Republican candidate, an endorsement by Sarah Palin is the kiss of death. They’re the mirror image of Republicans who disdain a candidate who<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

gets endorsed by the Star-Tribune <\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Much like Emmer’s somewhat questionable choice of Annette Meeks as his runningmate earlier this week, the backing\u00a0of Sarah Palin makes terrific sense in\u00a0the context of a\u00a0political universe that’s set to expire in an endorsement supernova sometime Friday afternoon or evening.\u00a0 As the adage goes that\u00a0there’s no bad press\u00a0as long as they spell your name right, so goes\u00a0the same logic for the\u00a0choices\u00a0that have defined Tom Emmer’s final week before the gubernatorial endorsement.\u00a0 While picking a highly partisan activist\u00a0to share the ticket\u00a0and garnering the endorsement of a polarizing but\u00a0beloved conservative politician\u00a0are potential risks come November, they’ve ensured that for better or worse, everyone<\/em> is talking about Tom Emmer less than 24 hours from\u00a0what could be the\u00a0pinacle or nadir of his political\u00a0career.<\/p>\n

But La Plante’s analysis is also spot-on.\u00a0 Palin remains as much of a potential liability in the general as she is an asset in the endorsement.\u00a0 And Emmer’s camp must be prepared, should he raise his arms in victory on Friday, to find his win credited to Palin’s involvement by the media in a pre-emptive strike to paint\u00a0the Delano rep\u00a0into the far-right corner of the electorate.\u00a0 Such an outcome likely sounds fine to many on Team Emmer given that the alternative is a long fall and summer on the political bench.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GOP’s rockstar diva puts her support behind the “hockey dad.”\u00a0 Will her last minute endorsement score or just put Tom Emmer in the penalty box? On the eve of the Minnesota GOP’s two-man dialogue for governor being pared down to a monologue, 2008 Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin has injected herself into the contest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,16,105,2,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","category-conservatism","category-first-ringer","category-minnesota-politics","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10443,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10439\/revisions\/10443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}