With a long list of enemies, a taste for incendiary rhetoric and responsibility for a campaign website graphic that placed gunsight logos on a map of targeted congressional districts, it didn’t take long for Sarah Palin to get pulled into the orbit of Saturday’s massacre in Tucson.
So far, the former Alaska governor has said little, only posting a brief message on her Facebook page Saturday offering condolences to those affected by the shooting. But the rush on the left to affix some of the blame on her for the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has suddenly turned the tragedy into a defining moment in Palin’s meteoric political career.
Whether she defends, explains or even responds at all to the intense criticism of her brand of confrontational politics could well determine her trajectory on the national scene—and it’s likely to reveal the scope of her ambitions as well.
Palin didn’t respond to an email Sunday afternoon. Her advisers are furious that she’s being linked to the tragedy, but recognize the delicacy of the situation and are trying to assess how best to halt it from spiraling further without making it any worse.
Part of Palin’s quandary is rooted in the unique spot she occupies. Since her resignation from the governorship in the summer of 2009, Palin has played a role that is part talk-show personality and part political figure. It’s a positioning that has served her well, creating personal wealth and celebrity appeal while energizing her core supporters.
But now, for the first time, Palin is being forced to choose between the public and private spheres she operates in. If she has any intentions of running for the presidency, she must begin to appeal to the country’s broad political center. And that task just got harder in the wake of Tucson.
The other option is to simply remain in the private sector where she can continue to issue the envelope-pushing jeremiads and employ the overheated rhetoric that appeals to her loyal base, sells her books, draws TV viewers and makes her irresistible to a sound byte-hungry media.
Either way, she’ll have to show her hand, signaling whether she wants to be Ronald Reagan or Rush Limbaugh.
Palin’s allies point out the unfairness of the situation, one that may force her to respond to a tragic event where there is so far no evidence that deranged shooter Jared Lee Loughner ever even mentioned Palin’s name, let alone found inspiration from her “targeting” of Giffords.
After all, they say, numerous Democrats have used targeting and bulls eye imagery in the past. And many Democrats, including President Obama, have also used incendiary and provocative language on the campaign trail. The president himself, Palin defenders have noted, said: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
“Governor Palin does not promote flag burning or extol the Communist Manifesto as Loughner did, so the fact that some folks are trying to link her and others to this tragedy is tragic and shameful in and of itself, not too mention worthy of the bad political spin Hall of Fame,” said conservative PR executive Greg Mueller, voicing the anger of many on the right.
But if Palin wants to be the next Reagan, a conservative who managed to expand his appeal, she would be well-served by taking her cues from the Great Communicator, who was often at his rhetorical best at times of tragedy.
“Governor Palin should not overreact to this, but rather rise above the ugly political blame game,” counseled Mueller, a veteran of past GOP presidential campaigns. “Her statement yesterday calling for prayer, peace and justice was right on point. She should avoid responding to the radical left and some in the media seeking to perpetuate and lay unjust blame. If she decides to speak further I am sure she, like other dignified national leaders, will call for allowing justice to take its course and frame this for what it is — a violent attack on the sanctity of human life and a tragedy perpetuated by a deranged and sick young man.”
John Weaver, a longtime Republican campaign strategist and a Palin skeptic, also complained about her treatment in the wake of the shooting, noting that Loughner’s “actions can’t be placed on anyone’s doorstep.”
“But if Governor Palin doesn’t want to be criticized then she should continue her commentary but dial back the anger,” Weaver said.
There’s no lack of interest in the question of what role, if any, her polarizing politics have played in shaping a fractious political environment where passions are sometimes expressed through violence.
Consider these metrics: As of mid-day Saturday, Google trends showed that Palin ranked as the sixth-most popular search on “hot topics” and “Sarah Palin crosshairs” was number nine on the list of “hot searches.” Further, Facebook’s Randi Zuckberg told ABC that the top question being asked on Facebook Sunday was: “’Is Sarah Palin to blame?”
Few Republicans would speak openly about the political stakes for Palin, but privately a number of strategists said that the mere existence of these internet searches and questions underscored her challenge.
Complicating Palin’s predicament, Giffords herself had specifically warned about the potential impact of Palin’s crosshairs graphics after she made the governor’s list.
“When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that action,” she said on MSNBC in a March interview about what she called “Sarah Palin’s targeted list.”
The skeletal organization surrounding the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee hasn’t helped quell the controversy.
Adviser Rebecca Mansour only sparked more attention to the former governor when she made the case Saturday to talk radio host Tammy Bruce that the crosshairs were actually something different.
“We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights,” said Mansour. “It was simply cross-hairs like you’d see on maps,” she said, suggesting that it is a “surveyor’s symbol.”
But Palin herself, however, had in the past tweeted about the map in questions and referred to the targets as “bulls eye[s].”
Democrats have been more than willing to pile on.
“The phrase ‘Don’t retreat; reload,’ putting crosshairs on congressional districts as targets – these sorts of things, I think, invite the kind of toxic rhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is an acceptable response,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Rep. Robert Brady (D-Penn.), a streetwise Philly pol, went further, telling CNN that he would introduce legislation making it a federal crime “to use a language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official.
“You can’t put bulls eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official,” Brady said, adding a taunt: “I understand this web site that had it on there is no longer in existence. Someone is feeling a little guilty.”
The mere fact that Palin, who isn’t one to hold back in the face of such a sustained attack, hasn’t yet responded to any of the criticism suggests she understands the high stakes of the situation and the choices in front of her. Still, once the Tucson tragedy begins to fade from view, the same incentives for bombast and scorched earth rhetoric are likely to return.
“The fact is that politicians say these things because they work,” said Republican consultant Todd Harris. “The public, or at least segments of the public on the right and the left, respond to it. It raises money and builds organization.”
Andy Barr contributed to this report.
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