Fallout From Sarah Palin’s Kentucky Senate Endorsement of Rand Paul
Posted on | February 8, 2010 | 78 Comments
For several weeks, I’ve been in communication with Lisa Graas, a Kentucky conservative who operated the PalinTwibe feed on Twitter, with nearly 4,000 followers. Lisa is a Sarah Palin supporter who also supports Bill Johnson in Kentucky’s GOP Senate primary, and was extremely disappointed by Palin’s endorsement of Rand Paul in that primary. Now Lisa has announced she’s pulling out of PalinTwibe:
I have decided to ask Adam Loving, Twibes creator, to allow Karen Allen to refound the Palin Twibe. He has graciously agreed to make sure it happens. Karen will also take over the Palin Twibe blog and associated Twitter account and I will be training her how to manage the feeds and the Twibe itself.
It is not my intention to undermine Sarah Palin in an unfair manner as others have done when they have withdrawn support, though I will not be silent regarding my differences of opinion with her. Be warned. Like Sarah Palin, I won’t pull any punches.
Read rest of that. Having blogged about the bitterness of the Kentucky Senate primary, I was surprised that Palin made an endorsement in that race. She defended the endorsement in her interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” :
WALLACE: You recently stirred up some controversy as you often do, even when you endorsed Rand Paul as the Senate, he’s running in the Senate primary in Kentucky the GOP Senate primary. And Bill Kristol, your long-time supporter was upset with you because one of the things he pointed out, Paul wants to close Guantanamo. He wants to send the detainees back to Afghanistan. He wants to repeal the Patriot Act. He wants to do away with any federal role in either gay marriage or drug laws, leave it to the states. Why would you support a guy like that?
PALIN: Because he’s a federalist and he wants the states to have more say and as we respect the 10th Amendment in our Constitution, he wants the states to have more say in a lot of these issues. But nobody is ever going to find a perfect candidate. There are things that I don’t agree with Rand Paul, and yet his domestic policies for the most part, I do agree with. He wants limited government. He wants the Feds to start taking their hands off states issues and I respect that and I’m proud to support him. Again, never finding a perfect candidate, no doubt he disagrees with me on a whole lot of issues. But proud to support him and others whom I can believe in.
In a Ron Paul Forum thread about this, someone posted a video in which Palin says Ron Paul is “cool. He’s a good guy”:
It seems that Palin has a libertarian streak that some of her supporters hadn’t reckoned with, and takes her “maverick” brand seriously. Meanwhile, Lisa Graas noted this interesting poll on the Kentucky Senate primary:
Trey Grayson 27%
Bill Johnson 23%
Rand Paul 21%
Undecided 29%
Clearly, the GOP establishment candidate Grayson has failed to gain support from a majority of Republican voters in Kentucky. The primary isn’t until May, so this story will play out for a while.

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