It wasn't named 'SarahPac' for nothing -- Palin running for money, not President - UPDATED

The Washington Post's Dan Eggen has written "The Influence Industry: The fine lines between a Palin vacation and Palin tour:"

When most families go on a summer vacation, they don’t have a political-action committee to pay the bills.

Not so for Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor, who has joined her husband, children and parents in a widely publicized bus tour of East Coast historic sites this week.

The trip appears to be part vacation, part political rally and part reality show. Fuel, lodging and other expenses are being paid for by SarahPAC, Palin’s political committee, which is also soliciting donations online in connection with the journey. ...

... The arrangement is perfectly legal, campaign-finance experts say. SarahPAC is set up as an unconnected PAC, meaning that the usual restrictions on candidate committees don’t apply. Regular candidate committees, for example, are barred from converting campaign money to personal use.

As a result, unless Palin decides to formally explore a possible presidential run, she is free to spend the money raised by SarahPAC for “any lawful purpose” under federal law, experts said. That means it doesn’t matter whether the trip is a holiday, a political event or something in between. (emphasis added)

“Not only can she use SarahPAC for a family vacation, she could use it for her home mortgage payments or anything else she wants,” said Paul S. Ryan, associate legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, an advocacy group focused on election laws. (emphasis added) ...

Palin's ability to convert PAC donations to personal use is an incentive for her to avoid being considered a candidate for the presidency. Even though use of the PAC's funds for personal use may be legal, doing so creates an appearance of impropriety.

Sarah Palin's supporters are fond of saying, "She's just like us," or "She's one of us," but how are their vacations paid for?

Eggen's article has more information than what has been excerpted, above; for example, the IRS may consider the PAC's expenditures for personal use to be part of Palin's personal income. If so, she would have to pay taxes on that income.

Update: The IRS has a "Whistleblower - Informant" award.

Update: It is a vacation! '“Thanks for ruining our vacation,” she [Piper Palin] said to our [TIME Magazine's ] photographer.'

Update: The Washington Post also has Piper Palin's comment.

Palin 2012 Hits Granite Wall

Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post has some good news:

One too many political tea-leaf readers say that Sarah Palin, with her rock-star personality, loyal following and outsized influence on the Republican Party, could jump into the 2012 presidential race at the last minute and run off with the GOP nomination for president. This is in defiance of consistent and plain evidence that Palin is going nowhere fast. ...

Now a new poll from the University of New Hampshire ...

Now, here's where the news is really bad for Palin. ...

Lots can change between now and when the New Hampshire primary actually happens early next year. ...

But this much is clear: At the rate she's going, Palin will get nowhere near the Oval Office, let alone the Republican nomination. She has had two years to show the American people that she is not only worthy of the office but also worthy to be considered for the nomination. Her actions during this time have showed us time and again that she is more interested in playing a leader on television than actually being one.

Capehart's link to the "new poll" is a bad link, so here is a link to the poll results at The LA Times.

And there is more good news. As I wrote here, the addition of a chief-of-staff at SarahPAC is an indication of management failure, not a presidential bid. New York magazine has the news of two new departures from the PAC. One step forward, two steps backward. Is anyone surprised?

Salon, too, has an article, today, about Palin's fading prospects, here.

Palin's Hiring of 'Chief of Staff' Evidence of Organizational Failure, not Presidential Candidacy

CNN reported:

Sarah Palin has added a veteran Republican strategist [Michael Glassner] to serve as chief-of-staff for her political action committee, Sarah PAC, CNN has learned. ...

And Politico reported:

Sarah Palin has hired a veteran operative to serve as a chief of staff to her loosely organized team, one of the biggest indicators yet that the former Alaska governor is leaning toward a run for the White House. ...

The fact is that nobody -- Todd Palin? -- was officially in charge of SarahPAC. That lack of management has led to a lot of problems, so it shouldn't be surprising that the PAC should bring someone in with management (and fundraising) experience. To construe the appointment of a chief-of-staff as evidence that Palin is going to run is something -- well! -- something straight out of the fevered minds of palinistas and palinoiacs. CNN's characterization of Palin's team as "loosely organized" was echoed in Politico's post, which stated, "Glassner will be tasked with bringing greater organization to the far-flung and small staff that resides in several different states and time zones."

Palin's has been quite an amateurish organization and has been long overdue for a shakeup. Glassner's first task will be to organize the existing staff, to improve its discipline, fund raising, expenditures and reporting. Heads may roll; the existing staff must be professionalized before any consideration can be given to staffing-up in anticipation of a run, if one is being considered. Remember, too, that if Palin runs, it won't be SarahPAC that manages the campaign.

There is a little deja vu in Glassner's appointment. Glassner became involved in Palin's VP campaign just before the VP debate, which, in 2008, according to The Wall Street Journal, might have been an epic fail:

... in recent days, Gov. Palin flubbed quasi-mock debates in New York City and Philadelphia, some operatives said. Finger-pointing began, and then intensified after her faltering interview with CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric. However, she performed better when she took questions from the press after touring Ground Zero and remarked about her parents' visit there after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Her performance also sparked negative responses from some conservative pundits, and she has slipped in some polls. Last week, nearly half the respondents in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said she is unqualified to be president, while one in three said they were "not at all" comfortable with the idea of Gov. Palin as vice president, up five points from a poll in early September.

Until the weekend, the highest levels of the McCain campaign were focused on Sen. McCain's response to the financial crisis and his own debate against Sen. Barack Obama.

The McCain campaign has put in place several other well-regarded advisers to Gov. Palin, including head of vice-presidential operations Michael Glassner, who has worked for former Sen. Bob Dole, and Mr. Eskew, who worked for President George W. Bush's campaign and administration. ...

The Journal's report lends credence to what we're told in Game Change (pg. 401):

Given the acuteness of [Nicolle] Wallace's concern, McCain's advisers felt they had to bring the candidate into the loop that Saturday. Bluntly, they described to him their unease about Palin's mental state. McCain suggested that they move the debate prep to his spread in Sedona [Arizona]. Give her room to breathe. Let her bring her family. A change of scenery might do her good. Cindy would be there to support Palin, and a doctor friend of the McCains would be on hand to observer her.

Perhaps the PAC's namesake hasn't yet become organized, or has become disorganized, or ... . An interesting question is: Who realized that the PAC was disorganized and decided that a chief-of-staff should be hired?

Some of Glassner's other experience with the McCain/Palin campaign was reported in The Washington Post's "McCain Lists Top Bundlers," and The Huffington Post's "McCain Bundler, Booted Over Role In FCC-Fined Telecom, Now Staffs Palin."

Update, February 13, 2011: Added the quote from the Wall Street Journal. Reading between the lines, it may be that Glassner, who was head of operations for the 2008 VP campaign, became more directly involved with the candidate after her disappointing interview with Katie Couric and poor performance during debate preparations.

SarahPAC Eats Palinbots' Lunches

Here, we see Sarah Palin laughing maniacally. An aide has just informed her that some poor sap has given his lunch money to SarahPAC.

SarahPAC has filed a quarterly report for the period beginning April 1, 2010 and ending June 30, 2010.

The PAC received $865815.42 (line 6(c)) and disbursed $742334.31 (line 7). $82500 was disbursed to to Federal Candidates/Committees and Other Political Committees (line 23), so Federal Candidates/Committees and Other Political Committees received about 9.5% of monies contributed to the PAC, or about 11% of the PAC's disbursements. Whichever way you prefer to look at it (percentage of contributions or percentage of disbursements), only about 10% of the PAC's contributions went to work to help candidates/committees. That means that if you gave $100 to SarahPAC, only about $10 went to work to help candidates/committees.

SarahPAC appears to be an inefficient way to contribute to campaigns and/or committees; you might get more bang for your buck by contributing directly, and by doing so you could contribute to whomever you please.

It appears that if you contribute to SarahPAC, you are helping perpetuate the PAC and its close associates more than anything else.


The Associated Press has published a story written by Becky Bohrer, "FEC filing shows Palin gave $87500 to candidates." Her $87500 figure probably includes a $5000 item from line 29, "Other Disbursements." Ms. Bohrer has written about Palin before, recently in an article about the possibility of a 2012 Palin run for the presidency. At least part of that article was informed by Rebecca Mansour, "a consultant to her [Palin's] political action committee."

Pink Elephants On Parade

Pit Bulls and Mama Grizzlies aren't good enough? Sarah's now saying, "Look out Washington because there’s a whole stampede of pink elephants crossin the line, and the ETA, stampeding through, is November 2nd 2010." (emphasis added)

Dumbo, starring in a 1941 Disney film, drinks water spiked with champagne and hallucinates:



Sarah's "Look out Washington..." is from a transcript of SarahPAC's new video, "Mama Grizzlies." You can see the video and read the transcript at The Mudflats' "SarahPAC Video Post-Mortem." Greg Sargent's blog at The Washington Post has the video, too, and he may be taking it too seriously. CBS has a story, which relates the video to the rise of "conservative feminism," which is an oxymoron, like "a cruel kindness." IM notes that some moms, like Sarah Palin, may not know everything, and in the same post has news that the RNC doesn't believe Palin will be a player in the party's future.

Did you sing along with "Pink Elephants On Parade?"

What's Wrong With Sarah PAC?

It is inefficient.

A PAC's efficiency is an objective way of measuring how well a PAC performs. It measures a PAC's support for candidates by comparing a PAC's contributions to candidates with the PAC's receipts. A PAC's efficiency is simply contributions divided by receipts.

In its latest quarterly filing of April 13, amended April 14, Sarah PAC reported receipts of $400481.95 (line 19, here). On line 23 of the same report, Sarah PAC reported $9500.00 in contributions to Federal Candidates/Committees and Other Political Committees. $9500.00 divided by $400481.95 yields an efficiency of 2.4% (rounded generously).

What an efficiency of 2.4% means is that for every $100.00 donated to Sarah PAC, only $2.40 finds its way to Federal Candidates/Committees and Other Political Committees.

A report from The Center For Public Integrity mentioned that "Federal Election Commission data show the average federal PAC in the recent 2007-2008 cycle dedicated about 35 percent of spending to contributions aiding federal candidates."

With such extremely poor, far below average efficiency, it is clear that Sarah PAC is primarily benefiting people and organizations closely associated with the PAC.