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Palin Campaigning for McCain: Test of her Clout?

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Arizona Sen. John McCain remains in a tough primary battle in his home state. He is not the darling of the poweful conservative talk show hosts who can motivate listeners to cast votes, work for a candidate or donate money. Conservatives distrust him. Many independents and moderates don’t trust him any more, either. So who ya gonna call?

Sarah Palin. The reuniting of the McCain-Palin duo — or perhaps in terms of today’s political star power it’s now more accurately called the Palin-McCain duo — was big news in the old and new media yesterday. Palin was at her political campaigning best (even making a joke about Barack Obama and teleprompters which she read from a piece of paper: paper and hands don’t count). Here’s NBC’s video report of the big political event:

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Several things about this development and story:

  • McCain truly can no longer be called a “Maverick,” unless someone is saying that he reminds him of the old car made by Ford.
  • If McCain wins by a decent margin, Palin will be perhaps correctly attributed as a key cause of it.
  • If McCain wins by a decent margin and the new and old media conclusion is that she played a key role she will benefit from the analysis.
  • Republicans will be sure to want to clone this kind of impact if McCain wins by a decent margin — and you can then look for Palin to be quite busy in 2010 as she is the party’s most in demand campaigner.
  • The bigger lingering issue has been whether the GOP can meld traditional GOP voters with the tea party movement. If Palin brings in tea party members to vote for candidates who have her blessing, it will be a significant development for the Republicans — and Democrats will ignore it at their peril. As BOTH parties have now learned: one victory in a political battle does not in a political war make.

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