Apparently, she still has that Rockstar cachet:
Palin Is Still Packing Them In…This Time In Georgia On Behalf Of Saxby ChamblissTomorrow is the runoff for the Georgia Senate seat. While lots of Republican names have shown up, Palin is still the favorite of the base, she drew about 2,000 people to one of her rallies.
Several Republicans have campaigned for Chambliss, including one-time presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. McCain campaigned in the state last month, but only Palin was tapped for election eve and four Georgia stops, reflecting her star status. Tommy Byler, 22, of Savannah marveled at the size of the crowd Palin drew compared to other top-tier Republicans who have campaigned for Chambliss.”I went to see Mitt Romney a week ago, and I think there were only about 100 people there,” said Byler, who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with Palin’s face and the words “Sarah Palin Is My Homegirl.”
All the polls have Chambliss up over his Democratic challenger. A Republican victory tomorrow will end any hopes the Democrats may have of getting 60 Senate seats.
And it sure looks like Chambliss will have Sarah Palin to Thank for it. Despite the leftoid’s best attempts, she still resonates overwhelmingly with the conservatives in the country. She’s an average mom who just wanted to have some input on the school board, and through determination and hard work suddenly found herself Governor of her state and, in true Cinderella fashion, the vice-presidential candidate for her party.
And can still draw and work a crowd. Cool.
And speaking of unfinished races, there’s the Yin for Palin’s Yang:
With US Senator Norm Coleman’s lead in the Minnesota recount actually growing as the effort comes to a close (he’s now up by 340 votes), some are beginning to believe Democratic challenger Al Franken will have no choice but to concede the race.
But in a truly disturbing development, our friend Stuart Smalley has indicated he’ll take his battle to the US Senate itself, where Democrats could simply hand him the seat. With Franken’s bogus “uncounted ballots” theory to make his case, Harry Reid & Company could have an excuse to simply ignore election results favoring Coleman.
Though much of the coverage of this anti-democratic scenario was buried over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and still further by terror attacks in Bombay, it is no less alarming.
Already, Franken has tried and failed to have rejected absentee ballots added to vote totals. And according to John Fund in a recent Wall Street Journal piece, his campaign is using the template that saw Christine Gregoire steal Washington state’s gubernatorial race four years ago:
Games can be played with such last-minute ballots. In Washington State, one voter submitted an affidavit that a Parkinson’s disease patient who could neither speak nor write was nonetheless “mentally strong” and had completed a ballot signed by her husband. But it is illegal for anyone to sign a ballot on behalf of someone else; they can only witness it. And in Minnesota, even Secretary of State Ritchie criticized the Franken campaign last week for falsely claiming that an elderly woman in Bemidji had her absentee ballot rejected because she had suffered a stroke and her new signature didn’t match the one on her registration form. In fact, no ballots were rejected due to signature mismatches, according to the local county auditor.
Democrats with experience from the Washington recount are now advising Mr. Franken. Paul Berendt, a former chair of the Washington Democratic Party, was in Minneapolis this month. “What I bring to this effort,” he told Oregon Public Radio from the Minneapolis recount office, “is that I understand every single step of this recount process and the things that you need to look for in order to make sure that every vote is counted.”
If the strategy of adding previously rejected ballots to the Minnesota Senate recount is successful, a final outcome could be months away. In 1975, the U.S. Senate refused to accept New Hampshire’s certification that Republican Louis Wyman had won by two votes. The seat was vacant for seven months, with the Senate debate spanning 100 hours and six unsuccessful attempts to break a filibuster and vote on who should be seated. The impasse ended only when a special election was agreed to, which was won by Democrat John Durkin.
Some, including a few conservative bloggers, are underestimating just how determined Franken and the Dems are to ensure he “wins” the seat. Franken carries symbolic significance to liberals, so a loss in Minnesota is a repudiation of both his career as an alleged liberal funnyman and the idea that Democrats “swept” November’s election.
Think about it this way: do you really think the “progressive” left is going to tolerate watching Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and other past Franken targets gloating over Stuart’s loss?
That’s why they know this election must be stolen by any means necessary: it’s about the ongoing culture wars as much as partisan politics.
Finally, consider Franken’s character: he’s no angel, with a background rich in both shadiness and eccentric behavior. He gave up his well-paying Air America Radio gig for this, do you really think he will accept a loss? For the first time in his life, Al might have to get a real job.
They pulled it off in Washington state in 2004, so why would anyone believe Democrats won’t steal a seat for Stuart in 2008?
Neither of these states is over yet — and Minnesota isn’t over by a longshot.
But I’m looking forward to the Youtube temper tantrum by Franken when he loses.
~~JD~~
