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Barack Obama plans to come to Texas to raise funds for his fellow Democrats in the Lone Star State. There’s just one small problem. His party’s gubernatorial candidate complained Tuesday that he believes the beneficiary of the president’s efforts will be his GOP opponent. Furthermore, the former Houston mayor said that he would not join Obama at the event scheduled in the city that he used to run:

White told The Associated Press that he couldn’t block Obama from supporting his campaign to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994. But he also suggested that Obama’s visit opens the door for Republican Gov. Rick Perry to continue running against Washington insiders — an unwelcomed distraction in the Democrats’ best chance to win the governorship in years.

“I believe Rick Perry will try to run against President Obama because he knows that he can’t beat me,” White told the AP during an interview in San Antonio. “He will try to say — unfairly — that somehow voting for him will somehow change the administration in Washington.”

White is hardly the first candidate to ditch an Obama event.

Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, running for an open Senate seat, skipped public Obama appearances. Senate candidate Robin Carnahan flew to Washington to avoid appearing with the president in Missouri. And appearing arm-in-arm with the president cost Florida Gov. Charlie Crist his Republican nomination for a Senate seat, forcing him out of the GOP and onto the ballot as an independent candidate.

The value of an Obama endorsement is perhaps best measured on a Geiger counter, so high is the level of radioactivity it carries. The president backed John Corzine in New Jersey, Creigh Deeds in Virginia, Martha Coakley in Massachusetts and Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, all of whom lost to their Republican opponents. His support for Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas primary wasn’t enough for her to avoid a runoff. An Obama-endorsed candidate finally won one, but Mark Critz managed his victory by campaigning as a pro-life, pro-gun, anti-ObamaCare blue dog Democrat.

In sharp contrast, the value of a Sarah Palin is sky high. Forget Mitt Romney — when it comes to primary elections, the GOP’s first female vice presidential candidate is the real turnaround specialist.

Just two weeks ago Karen Handel was far behind in the GOP primary race for Governor in Georgia, but a late endorsement from Gov. Palin propelled Handel to a first place finish Tuesday night and an August 10 runoff against Nathan Deal. The final pre-primary Mason-Dixon poll taken in The Peach State revealed that 30 percent of Republicans said they were more likely to back Handel because of the former Alaska governor’s endorsement, while just 2 percent indicated that they were less likely to back the Palin pick.

In neighboring South Carolina, it was a nearly identical story. State Rep. Nikki Haley, after getting a nod from the Mama Grizzly In Chief, rocketed past three other candidates into a top place finish with 49 percent of the vote. That was just one point shy of avoiding a runoff against Rep. Gresham Barrett, who got only 22 percent. “Gov. Palin has been fabulous at getting people to understand the power of their voice,” Haley said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “She gave us the push we needed at the time.”

In California, Carly Fiorina was lagging behind moderate Tom Campbell until she received Gov. Palin’s endorsement. The Fiorina campaign sent out a mailer highlighting the Palin endorsement to 900,000 Republican households. A daily tracking poll conducted during that week revealed a 13-point surge in Fiorina’s support literally overnight. The former Hewlitt Packard CEO not only went on to win — she won big with 56 percent of the vote, leaving second place finisher Campbell far behind with just 22 percent. A Fiorina aide measured Gov. Palin’s support as “at least an 8″ on a scale of 10. Internal polls conducted by her campaign show Fiorina took her first lead in the race at the moment the mailer hit California mailboxes.

In her home state of Alaska, Sarah Palin’s enemies claim that she is no longer popular. But Joe Miller, the underdog in the Republican race to unseat Sen. Lisa Murkowski argues to the contrary. The Fairbanks-based attorney says that Gov. Palin’s endorsement has been a major plus for his campaign. “It’s absolutely definite that her endorsement of this campaign has helped us,” Miller told the hosts of the ABC/Washington Post “Top Line” program. “It’s certainly given us national recognition.”

While Democrats are running away from President Obama, Republican candidates are flooding Gov. Palin’s team with requests for endorsements. As former GOP Senator Rick Santorum said to National Review’s Robert Costa in June:

“Palin is the only endorsement anyone wants,” he laughs. “If you ask who the most influential endorsers are, Palin is numbers one, two, and three, with maybe Sen. Jim DeMint at four. Her endorsement is the only one that matters this year. Just look at what she did for Nikki Haley.”

What about Romney, the man Santorum supported in the 2008 presidential campaign? “No offense to Mitt, but he doesn’t carry the weight,” Santorum says. “Mitt can help you with some finance people, maybe in some small way, but his pull is insignificant compared to Palin’s.”

- JP

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The liberal blogger the Washington Post recently hired to cover Republicans and conservatives is out of there. David Weigel, who spent much of his allotted bandwidth bashing Sarah Palin, has resigned:

Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel resigned today after a host of offensive e-mails surfaced revealing his disdain for much of the right – the beat he was charged with covering. Fishbowl DC, which published a number of those emails yesterday, confirmed the resignation with the Post just after noon.

Yesterday I reported on leaked emails from Weigel to a listserve of liberal journalists bashing conservatives and conservatism – you know, the people Weigel is supposed to be covering. As bad as those email were, a plethora of messages from Weigel published in the Daily Caller take the conservative-bashing to a whole new level.

The new emails also demonstrated that yesterday’s quasi-apology from Weigel was really not as sincere as he claimed. He said that he made some of his most offensive remarks at the end of a bad day. But these new emails show that there was really nothing unique about them, and that offensive remarks about conservatives really were nothing new or uncommon.

Just one of many examples of Weigel going all deranged on Gov. Palin can be found in a May 25 post on his now former WaPo blog Right Now, In it, Weigel called Sarah Palin “unprofessional,” “immature,” “paranoid,” and “despicable” for expressing her feelings on Facebook about having leftist hack Joe McGinness move all the way from Massachusetts to just 15 feet away from her family’s house on Lake Lucille in Alaska to write a book which no one disagrees will be little more than a hit piece on her.

But it wasn’t Weigel’s blog posts which led to his downfall so much as his tweets and emails. According to The Daily Caller, those emails were self-incriminating:

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh famously said he hoped President Obama would “fail” in January, 2009. Almost a year later, when Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital with chest pains, Washington Post reporter David Weigel had a wish of his own. “I hope he fails,” Weigel cracked to fellow liberal reporters on the “Journolist” email list-serv.

More from the resignation from NewsBuster Lachlan Markay here. This makes Weigel, whose WaPo tenure lasted only about three months, a “quitter,” does it not?

Update: From RedState’s Erick Erickson:

“It is no surprise to me that Ben Smith is on Journolist too. I wonder if the push back by lefty oriented journalists over Sarah Palin complaining about that stalker moving in next door was coordinated on Journolist. Probably.”

- JP

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According to a new poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports, Nikki Haley is no longer a long shot in the GOP primary race for South Carolina governor. Haley, who was mired in fourth place in the field in a March Rasmussen Reports survey, has jumped out to a double-digit lead. The State reports:

The poll of more than 900 voters was conducted Monday, immediately following last Friday’s dual campaign events with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former first lady Jenny Sanford. The automated telephone poll reported a margin of error of 3 percent.

According to Rasmussen Reports, 30 percent of the likely Republican primary voters surveyed favored Haley, eleven points better than state Attorney General Henry McMaster in second place with 19 percent. U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett was third at 17 percent, and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer had 12 percent. 18 percent of SC GOP primary voters remain undecided.

Scott Rasmussen says whether the Lexington state representative’s lead holds over the next three weeks or not, the endorsement and appearance by Sarah Palin Friday in front of the SC statehouse had a positive impact on Haley’s campaign:

Haley, who trails the other three Republicans in fundraising and has long been viewed as the underdog, already had the support of popular former South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sanford. But on Friday she was endorsed by Palin at a widely-publicized statehouse rally. Primary turnout is always unpredictable, but the high-profile endorsement is undoubtedly good for Haley’s name recognition, especially among a conservative electorate with a strong Tea Party tinge.

Haley, in fact, now has a slightly larger lead among conservative GOP voters than she has among Republican voters in general. Women voters are nearly twice as likely as male voters to still be undecided, and several political analysts say the “rock star sisterhood” of Palin and Sanford could be a big boost for Haley’s bid to be the state’s first woman governor.

It remains to be seen whether the Palin endorsement produces a lasting change in the race or if it simply provides Haley with a short-term bounce.

It won’t take long to find out. SC Republicans will go to the polls June 8 to choose their nominee.

Update: Other candidates who received a nod from Gov. Palin are also doing well. In California, Carly Fiorina has pulled ahead of Tom Campbell in the latest PPIC poll. A new Rasmussen Reports survey shows Rand Paul with a 25-point lead over Democrat Jack Conway in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race, and another Rasmussen poll released this week shows Texas Governor Rick Perry has pushed his advantage over Bill White into double digits, up nine points from the moree modest four-point lead the governor enjoyed just last month.

- JP

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On his blog Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, law professor William A. Jacobson shoots down another smear job on Sarah Palin from the left:

Yale Graduate School student Eric… Robinson’s hit piece on Sarah Palin… leads me to believe Robinson has succumbed to the New Haven funny water, either that, or he is spending too much time with Bruce Ackerman over at the law school.

Robinson writes that Palin has shown contempt for the memory of fallen soldiers by wearing a black metal bracelet (see photo) with the name of her son living son Track on it… but a simple internet search demonstrates that that is not the exclusive use of black wrist bands.

[...]

Palin’s wearing a black metal bracelet with her son’s name on it would seem to be consistent with honoring his deployment.

[...]

It gets better. The company which manufactured the bracelet Palin wears has bragged about it on its website, and guess what, they made one for Joe Biden too (to honor his son’s service) and Biden’s office called the company to thank it…

So Joe must hate fallen soldiers too!

Oh, but it gets even better, thanks to some good research by Tommy Report at C4P. The Deployed HeroBracelet worn by Gov. Palin is not black at all, but is actually bronze in color.

How many times have deranged leftists let their pettiness and blood lust to destroy Sarah Palin make them end up looking like the nasty fools they are? Now that’s a project that could keep a researcher busy for a long, long time… 

- JP

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After predicting Thursday that an endorsement by Sarah Palin was in the works, Rand Paul’s campaign manager claimed Monday in a press release that it’s a done deal:

National political icon and conservative leader Sarah Palin has endorsed Dr. Rand Paul in his bid for United States Senate from Kentucky. The Paul campaign has received a generous donation from Governor Palin’s PAC.

Sarah Palin has clearly seen that Rand Paul supports smaller, constitutional government and is taking the fight to the career politicians and will shake up the tax and spend crowd in Washington D.C.

“Governor Palin is providing tremendous leadership as the Tea Party movement and constitutional conservatives strive to take our country back,” Rand said.

“Sarah Palin is a giant in American politics. I am proud to receive her support.”

Politico’s Ben Smith notes that the claimed endorsement strengthens the alliance between the Tea Party movement, Ron Paul libertarians and Gov. Palin’s conservative grass roots, but adds a cautionary note:

Paul is claiming the endorsement, but worth noting that we haven’t had a statement from Palin yet.

As of this Noon CST posting, we haven’t seen anything on the governor’s Twitter or Facebook Notes pages.

If true, this alliance could go a long way toward quashing all the chatter from the left and their trained media circus about the Tea Party movement “falling apart” — which, of course, it was never in any danger of doing.

On the downside, Gov. Palin risks losing the support of many Kentuckians who were backing true conservative Bill Johnson, a long shot in the Senate race. Among them is Lisa Graas, a colleague and dear friend of ours who has worked tirelessly for Gov. Palin.

h/t: BluegrassBulletin.com

First Update: The Grayson camp voices its skepticism of the endorsement:

But the campaign manager for Paul’s primary rival, GOP Secretary of State Trey Grayson, pointed out that Palin had not issued a statement of support for Paul or commented directly on the reported campaign donation, leaving open the possibility that she had stopped short of offering a formal endorsement.

Nate Hodson called the Paul campaign’s announcement “a release by a campaign that has demonstrated previously the ability to report things that are not true or half-truths.” Asked if the Grayson camp believed Paul was fabricating support for its candidate, Hodson replied: “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Second Update: Says Dave Weigel at The Washington Independent:

TWI’s Rachel Hartman, digging into FEC filings, has not seen a Paul donation yet from SarahPAC — records only go through December 31, 2009.

- JP

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Jennifer Harper,  in Wednesday morning’s “Inside the Beltway” column in the Washington Times:

There’s a media pile-on afoot. Led primarily by the New York Times, a variety of news organizations are attacking the National Tea Party Convention, scheduled to begin Feb. 4 in Nashville, Tenn., with Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker. The Times claims the event is a “profiteering” enterprise, suggesting that the convention violates the grass-roots nature of the “tea party” movement. “Fractiousness,” territorial disputes and suspiscions have cast a shadow over the effort, the paper says. 

Yet the event is sold out. There’s a waiting list, even among those seeking entrance to Mrs. Palin’s speech alone. Eight sponsors include Judicial Watch, the Eagle Forum and the National Taxpayers Union. The convention center is ready, the surf and turf waiting.

“It is going to be a great event. We have a lot of people who are coming who are very excited about the event, and I think they are going to leave inspired and with some great new tools to take back to their groups,” organizer Judson Phillips tells Inside the Beltway.

He adds that few journalists “have bothered” to get his side of the story, which has been ramped up in the last 48 hours by the Los Angeles Times, Politico, CBS News, MSNBC, the Atlantic, Media Matters for America and other sources.

It’s a classic — and convenient — media frenzy.

“A lot of individuals want to get involved in the political process, in the organization of the tea party movement. And now we find that the news media is seizing on this, and extrapolating that the tea party is in trouble or divided,” John O’Hara tells The Beltway.

He is the author of the new book “A New American Tea Party,” and contends that tea party believers, while representing a spectrum of ideas, are united by the same motivation: the well-being of the nation.

“The press has tried to marginalize the tea party movement from the beginning. They recognize it as a potent political force, and they want to do it in. A little less than a year ago, these same journalists were dismissing the tea party as a ‘fringe’ phenomenon, not even worth their time,” Mr. O’Hara says.

“Now they smell blood,” he adds.

If only it were just the lamestream media piling on…

- JP

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Sarah Palin’s decision not to attend CPAC this year, wrote Chris Cillizza on the Washington Post blog The Fix,  is “a decision, according to those familiar with her thinking, due at least in part to the fact that the John Birch Society is one of the sponsors.” Ryan Mauro, director of intelligence at the Asymmetrical Warfare and Intelligence Center, in a Pajamas Media op-ed last month, about the JBS and its association with CPAC:

The jokes will practically write themselves as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) takes place — co-sponsored by the John Birch Society. Every liberal commentator needs to send a thank-you note to CPAC’s organizers for that monumentally stupid decision.

By having the John Birch Society sponsor it, CPAC can guarantee that 90% of the coverage regarding the conference will relate to JBS’ oh-my-god-look-a-conspiracy attitude rather than the heavy-hitters and rising stars of conservatism and libertarianism that speak there. Instead of focusing on politics, reporters will ask attendees for their response to the JBS controversy and will ask organizers whether they are in such financial distress that they had to embrace a fringe group for support.

Mauro says some conspiracy theories the organization promotes today are not unlike those  advanced by JBS founder Robert Welch in the 1950s, only some of the names and guilty parties have changed. Instead of Dwight D. Eisenhower being “a dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy,” now it’s Dick Cheney who is a master manipulator for the “globalist” conspiracy, as evidenced by the former vice president’s membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.

The author concludes by trying to understand what could have possibly caused CPAC to take on the Birch Society as a sponsor:

The most concerning element of this development is the question of how much influence JBS will have over CPAC, an event whose importance in the conservative movement can’t be understated. Is this simply a reflection of the dissatisfaction of conservatives, willing to find just somebody to uphold small government? Is this a reflection of libertarians just looking for somebody to oppose overseas wars and the war on drugs, and push more radical policies than most conservatives are willing to consider?

CPAC has made a major PR mistake in forming this alliance with JBS. It won’t be long until the media puts all those taking part on the defensive, forcing the organizers to spend precious time explaining this move. From now on, when I hear the acronym “CPAC,” I won’t think “Conservative Political Action Conference.” I’ll think “Consciously Providing Ammo to Critics.”

As for Sarah Palin, the last thing in the world she wants to do right now is feed her critics more ammunition. It is incomprehensible to us why some in the conservative commentariat can’t seem to wrap their minds around that fact.

- JP

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Excerpts from another fine Doctor Zero op-ed at Hot Air’s Green Room:

“Not all of the Tea Party’s enemies are on the Left. Some of them are nominally conservative elitists like David Brooks…”

[...]

“The Tea Party convention made a bold choice in selecting Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker for their convention. It was also very considerate of them – since the same people hate Palin and the Tea Parties, for the same reasons, their enemies can reduce their carbon footprint by carpooling to Nashville.”

“It has been suggested that Palin might not have been the most strategic choice for a keynote speaker, since she’s not running for any office in 2010. I think she’s perfect, because the Tea Party is looking for a representative, not a leader. They want a champion they can send into the field, carrying their banner. Some have criticized the Tea Parties as populist in nature, but populism is defined by pandering, rather than persuasion… and a movement that asks the author of America’s best-selling political book to escort it into the American spotlight is definitely interested in persuasion.”

To the good Doctor’s commentary we would add that not all of the Tea Party enemies on the Right are Brooks-style elitists. There are some otherwise reliable conservatives who are questioning the motives and motivations of some in the Tea Party movement. Many of those are also taking shots at Sarah Palin because she refuses to be an enabler of CPAC, which we suggest should change its name to MittPAC for truth-in-packaging purposes.

Some of the criticism has been directed at the National Tea Party Convention and its organizers, Tea Party Nation. Sarah Palin is the keynote speaker, but Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn and a number of others will also speak. Tickets for the event don’t come cheaply at about $560, but this is a three-day event with breakout sessions, panel discussions and the like. It was not designed for the average mom and pop Tea Party goer, but rather for those who organize Tea Party events at the local, county and state levels. Local Tea Party groups can pass the hat or have some fund-raising events of the own to send delegates to the convention.

Still, we were among those who complained that most Sarah Palin supporters would not be able to afford to attend. The organizers responded by offering a somewhat lower-priced ticked for the banquet only. While still not cheap at about $360, that makes the banquet not that much different from a $350-a-plate county GOP fundraiser, except that Sarah Palin is the kind superstar attraction you don’t usually get at the county GOP dinner.

Some on the Right have suggested that the convention is simply a ploy for TPN staff to enrich themselves. Take a look at the sponsors page on the convention website and decide for yourself if The Eagle Forum, Smart Girl Politics and the other sponsors would allow their names to be used to support a scam. We don’t think so. “

We find it to be a loathsome turn of events when some people attack the Tea Party movement for no reason other than the fact that Sarah Palin has decided not to attend CPAC. Look at all that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement have done for the cause of conservatism, and then ask yourself what CPAC has done for the cause lately, except to take a lot of the “conservative” out of it.

- JP

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Jennifer Rubin has authored a lengthy essay for Commentary magazine on why Sarah Palin “more so than any other major political figure in recent memory (with the possible exception of Patrick J. Buchanan), she rubs Jews the wrong way”:

“What is it about Palin that so grates on American Jews? It is more than that she is a conservative and that the vast majority of Jews are not, although this cannot be ignored…” 

“It follows, then, that Palin’s vocal and unabashed conservatism on social and economic issues does not sit well with most American Jews. But… there is something more fundamental at play.” 

“On one level, part of the explanation lies in misunderstanding and media-induced panic. As Continetti documents in his telling book,* the media frenzy that surrounded Palin upon her surprise selection by McCain at the end of August 2008 led to distortions and outright falsehoods that had particular toxicity in the Jewish community. The most inflammatory of these was her alleged support for Patrick J. Buchanan…” 

“The press ran with the story, despite its falsity, that Palin was a Buchananite. She had, in fact, supported the wonkish and pro-Israel Steve Forbes for president in 2000… Nevertheless, the image took hold and was used to good effect by Obama’s team to frighten Jews…” 

“The notion was planted that Palin herself was, by association, anti-Israel, and Jews remained convinced of that, despite her unflinching support for the Jewish state, the presence in her gubernatorial office of an Israeli flag, and her eagerness to attend a rally protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the UN in the fall of 2008 (which was canceled at the behest of Obama supporters, no doubt to deprive Palin of that platform)…”

“Certainly, Palin’s status as an unabashed conservative and as exemplar of the Religious Right would have been sufficient to alienate the majority of American Jews. Yet if that were all, and that is plenty, Palin still would not provoke the degree of hostility with which most Jews regard her. Something else bothers them more. That something else is Palin herself…” 

Ms. Rubin’s full article is available only for paid subscribers at Commentary, although an abstract is posted on the magazine’s website. But there is more of the essay at Villagers with Torches.

Sarah Palin may actually be more popular in Israel than she is among Jewish Americans. If so, we may be witness to history repeating itself:

“For most of the 1980’s, Ronald Wilson Reagan dominated the American political landscape as no man had since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The attitude of most Jews, however, was that Reagan’s presence in the White House was a not altogether pleasant fact of life, something about which they could do nothing and for which they bore little responsibility…” 

“In 1984 Reagan was reelected in a landslide of historic proportions, but his share of the Jewish vote actually decreased by nearly eight points from 1980. When he left office in January 1989, it was with a higher approval rating than any president before him, but Jews – a majority of whom evidently consider a president?s fealty to liberalism more important than his support of Israel – gave him lower marks than any other voting bloc save African Americans.”

- JP

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Democrat Party media shill Andrea Mitchell, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, continued her long-running attacks on conservatives in general and Sarah Palin in particular. RedHampshire.com reports:

This morning, Mitchell was asked about Sarah Palin and the conservative movement. Her Response?

“I have not seen this type of anger since my first campaign . . . 1968. . . with George Wallace. . . This anger that is not fact-based – just angry.”

Mitchell is getting even more deranged with each passing day. Her race-baiting of conservatives and baseless ad hominem attacks on Sarah Palin are growing tiresome. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed could take lessons on leftist partisanship and character assassination from this hysterical leftist who masquerades as a journalist.

- JP

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