The half-term Alaska governor tells fanboy Sean Hannity she’s “considering” challenging Sen. Mark Begich. If only
It’s rare that progressives and Tea Partyers agree on anything, but the news that Sarah Palin is “considering” running against Alaska Sen. Mark Begich in 2014 has all of us reciting the same prayer: Oh dear God please make this happen!
“I’ve considered it because people have requested me considering it,” she told Fox’s Sean Hannity Tuesday. “But I’m still waiting to see what the lineup will be and hoping that … there will be some new blood, new energy, not just kind of picking from the same old politicians in the state.”
The last time Palin found new blood in Alaska, you’ll recall, she backed the disastrous far-right Tea Party upstart Joe Miller against incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2010, and Miller won the primary – only to lose the general after Murkowski ran a historic write-in campaign, and Miller ran a historically bad one.
A poll commissioned by the Tea Party Leadership Fund, which is hoping for a Palin run, found she is essentially tied atop the GOP primary field with the current front-runner, Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, edging him narrowly 32-30, with 24 percent for Miller, who’s running again. Miller loses to Treadwell overwhelmingly in a head to head matchup.
However, Begich would seem to have less to fear from a Palin run. In February Public Policy Polling found that the Democratic incumbent has a healthy lead over Palin in a hypothetical matchup, 54 to 38 percent; he’s only leading Treadwell by 8 percent. Still, Palin, clearly the weaker candidate, enjoys entertaining the notion that she’ll challenge Treadwell.
Palin remains a national Tea Party darling, but she is damaged goods in her home state. When John McCain tapped her as his running mate in 2008, she had an 80 percent approval rating in Alaska; by early 2013 it was down to 34 percent. “I have a sense that today she would have a very hard time getting elected here,” Margaret Stock, a University of Alaska Anchorage political science professor, told the New York Times last year.
More: Run Sarah run! - Salon.com
I will pray to my Atheist God that Sarah will run. America needs her. Sarah's wisdom helps to lighten our daily struggle.
