With friends like Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney doesn't need enemies

By Richard K. Barry

Sarah Palin and Chris Wallace

On Fox News over the weekend Sarah Palin said that she was not convinced Mitt Romney was a conservative.

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday she had this to say:

I trust that his idea of conservatism is evolving. And I base this on a pretty moderate past he has had, even in some cases a liberal past.

I am not convinced. And I don't think the majority of GOP and independent voters are convinced, and that is why you don't see Romney get over the hump.

She added that "he has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars and hasn't risen yet."

Palin implied similar things during her CPAC keynote speech in which she also expressed her preference that the GOP presidential nomination process continue because it would give each contender the chance to hone their strengths and deliver a more concise message. 

Typically, I don't pay a lot of attention to Sarah Palin, but in this case she really does appear to be speaking for a sizeable segment of the conservative electorate.

Did she really say that despite the fact that Romney has been running for the GOP nomination for five years, she doesn't truly know where he stands on the issues or trust his judgement as a conservative?

Well, yes she did.

At the risk of saying the same thing over and over and over again, committed conservatives really don't like Mitt Romney and it doesn't appear that he'll ever be able to do much to change that. 

For Romney it's not so much that Palin is off side. That on it's own is probably not that big a deal. It's that Palin, a  person who gets a lot of face time on a network like Fox, is feeding the narrative that is damaging his campaign.  In football it's called piling on.

If you care, you can watch a clip of Palin rating the GOP field here.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)