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By Rick Anderson
Mon., Jun. 21 2010 @ 9:48AM
In this brave new cyberworld, failed candidate and gubernatorial quitter Sarah Palin believes she has the power to tweet and Facebook fellow conserves into office. They seem to believe she does, too. Spokane Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers was buoyed when FB'd by the Alaskan political dropout, as was Eastern Washington farmer Clint Didier in his senate race against Dino Rossi. Now Snohomish dairyman John Koster thinks he has a winning chance against incumbent Rep. Rick Larsen in the 2nd District because the woman Vanity Fair magazine calls "the human repository of America's most cherished wrong ideas," is in his camp. The fleeting Twitter mention of his opponent was enough for Larsen to immediately fire off a bring-on-Sarah-Palin press release:
In order to help her national ambitions, Palin has asked her most radical supporters to "target" Democrats across America. She even uses crosshairs in her literature, upping the rhetoric and literally taking aim.
"She can target me and put Northwest Washington in her crosshairs, but it won't stop me from fighting for what I believe is right," Larsen said.
He would've been better off sticking to issues or at least stopping there. But Larsen added that the endorsement would mean Koster was "opening his campaign war chest to a potential landslide of out-of-state contributions." That left him wide open for Koster's return fire:
Larsen did not mention that 65% of his campaign war chest ($736,671 as of March 31) has come from political action committees (including $1000 from BP), nearly all of whom list addresses from out of state. In comparison, Koster raised $168,717 (as of March 31) with 97% coming from individual donors from Washington State.
"It appears to me that Rick Larsen is suffering from a case of Washington D.C. beltway hypocrisy and arrogance," said Larry Stickney, Koster's campaign manager.
Larsen's stumble ended up giving more credibility to Palin's endorsement than warranted. It also feeds what Clint Didier said about his Palindorsement: "People want someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with them and take on Washington, D.C. - a citizen statesman, not a polished politician - just like Sarah and the grassroots are doing."
What does this say about politics and Democrats when they're losing ground to someone who yesterday tweeted: "Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man's efforts have been futile." God bless us all.
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