Sarah Palin is telling Florida voters to choose Newt Gingrich over Mitt Romney in this week's primary. But she's not really endorsing Gingrich. "Annoy a liberal. Vote Newt. Keep this vetting process going, keep the debate going," she said Sunday on Fox News. She has also posted a lengthy Facebook attack on the GOP establishment's treatment of Gingrich. But besides the possibility that liberals would see a Gingrich candidacy as assuring President Obama's re-election, Palin's support for Gingrich is dividing her Facebook fans, writes Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.
How dumb does she think her Facebook followers are? Everyone paying attention understands that Gingrich himself is engaged in "the politics of personal destruction" as much as his opponents or the GOP establishment or the super PACs running attack ads in [Florida]. And "serious concerns" have been raised about whether Gingrich has "consistently applied conservative principles." It's perfectly fine for Palin to prefer Gingrich to Romney. What rankles is her disingenuous pose as a neutral arbiter of fair play when she's clearly an advocate for the candidate who has said he'd find her a prominent place in his administration.
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