On Waiting

I like Talkingpointmemo.com.  J.M. Marshall seems like a nice guy and the whole enterprise offers interesting takes on complicated issues and does a very good job of updating stories as more information becomes available.  Consequently, I find it odd that he and the rest of the staff are going all in on Sarah Palin's role in the current round of elections.  Here he calls her the new Republican "kingmaker" and links to this article to prove it. The article discusses the various candidates Palin endorsed and claims that she was key to this or that victory.  Consider, however, a couple of examples of this evidence.  For Nikki Haley, the link takes you to an article about Palin recording a robo-call for Haley. But it has zero evidence for the call's effectiveness. For Tom Emmer, the evidence is actually a brief bio and discussion of how crazy his political positions are. It also contains nothing about Palin's actual influence on the electorate. Palin's kingmaking prowess is assumed by TPM and everyone else discussing the current elections because at this point there is nothing like sufficient evidence to prove anything.  It's almost like everyone in the media wants Palin to matter instead of doing the right thing witch is pointing and laughing. Keep in mind that Palin is still seen as "extreme" by 55% of US voters. A fact which helps when making the obvious point that she  is  a "crazy magnet that's pulling people to the right."   Before anointing the crazymagnet the kingmaker let's wait until for some evidence.