Sarah Palin Endorses Donald Trump

In Iowa, the darling of the tea party gave her support to the populist mogul favorite of the Republican primary.

“Mama Grizzly” is back! Absent these last few years from the American political radars, the former Republican governor from Alaska, Sarah Palin, made a remarkable return Tuesday evening by backing Donald Trump. “Are you ready for the leader to make America great again? I’m here to support the next president of the United States — Donald Trump,” stated the ex-darling of the tea party at an appearance with the billionaire in Ames, Iowa, where the primaries will begin on Feb. 1. Sarah Palin rallying for the favorite in the Republican nomination polls is only half the surprise, given that they both have a lot in common. As reality TV stars, they share the same anti-establishment rhetoric and the same contempt for the politicians of Washington. They also warrant the same criticisms: incompetence and a tendency for shocking statements. To the fans of the real estate tycoon, Sarah Palin was her usual self, proclaiming that only Donald Trump was capable of [being able to] “kick ISIS’ ass” and “bust up that establishment.” “He is beholden to no one but we the people,” the former governor – who was chosen, despite everyone’s surprise, to be John McCain’s vice president in the presidential race of 2008 – stated.

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Shortly after the defeat of the Republican “ticket” against Barack Obama, Sarah Palin resigned in the middle of her term as governor to become a political commentator on Fox News, and the face of several reality TV shows devoted to Alaska and other wild areas of the United States. With her sudden popularity, Sarah Palin became the face of the far right. During the successive waves of the tea party’s extreme/far-right movement in 2010, and again in 2012, she toured the country to support many candidates for Congress, including Ted Cruz, who is now the senator of Texas and Donald Trump’s main opposition in the race for the White House.

Since then, the political star and the former finalist of the Miss Alaska 1984 contest has weakened. And about 10 days ahead of the primaries, the impact of her rallying remains dubious. The last time Gallup included Sarah Palin in a political survey, in July 2013, only 35 percent of opinions were favorable among the general population, but 61 percent among Republican voters. Today, many analysts estimate the former governor has a certain vibe with the extreme-right and the evangelicals; the two fringes of the electorate that Donald Trump is having a hard time convincing.

With a major lead in the national polls, the real estate tycoon is elbow to elbow in Iowa with Ted Cruz, an extreme-right figure who won’t stop attacking Donald Trump’s more moderate views, especially on social issues. In this situation, Sarah Palin’s support is “a big deal,” Anna Navarro, a Republican analyst for CNN, claimed. “The attack on the Donald Trump that Ted Cruz has been honing on is that he’s got New York values. If anybody that does not represent New York values in the Republican Party, it’s certainly Sarah Palin. She is the ‘Mama Grizzly,’ she is all about Alaska, outdoors, pro-life, pro-guns, I think this is very good for Sarah Palin whose star had been diminishing and who is now going to be all over the press, and I think this is very good for Donald Trump.” While the mobilization of the voters is a key factor to winning the Iowa caucus, the billionaire could benefit from the networks still available to Sarah Palin in this central, rural state. “Over the years Palin has actually cultivated a number of relationships in Iowa,” said Craig Robinson of the New York Times and former political director of the Republican Party in Iowa. “There are the Tea Party activists who still think she’s great and a breath of fresh air, but she also did a good job of courting Republican donors in the state.” Mobilizing the “undecideds” could tip the scales in Donald Trump’s favor.

In a sign this support worries Ted Cruz’s camp, a campaign spokesperson for the Texan senator expressed his irritation on Tuesday morning as the rumors circulated about an imminent rallying for Sarah Palin. “It’d be a blow to Sarah Palin,” he claimed, focusing on the “progressive” opinions that Donald Trump defended in the past. Against the backlash from those remarks, Ted Cruz tried to set the record straight on Twitter: “I love @SarahPalinUSA. Without her support, I wouldn’t be in the Senate. Regardless of what she does in 2016, I will always be a big fan.”

Amateurism

A former sports journalist, known as “Sarah Barracuda” when she played high school basketball, Sarah Palin comes out of the shadows once again. In 2008, her unexpected presence on the “ticket” led to the defeat of the Republican Party. According to a study carried out in 2010 by researchers from Stanford University, the repetitive blunders, the amateurism and the extreme-right stances of the Alaska governor cost John McCain 1.6 percent of the votes, which is more than 2 million voters who went for Barack Obama. This time, the scenario is different. Even if Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, it seems less probable he’d choose Sarah Palin as his running mate. And since the real estate tycoon himself subscribes to insults and shocking statements, one can hardly see who Sarah Palin could chase away.