The end of Sarah Palin is here
By Chris Cillizza
January 26, 2017
Remember how former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was going to use her political celebrity to build an army of like-minded politicians via her political action committee?
Yeah, not so much.
Michael Beckel of the Center for Public Integrity flagged for me this news: Palin has officially shut down Sarah PAC as of the end of 2016. Kaput. Donezo.
But, that's not even the real story. Again, via Beckel: In the 2016 election cycle, Palin's Sarah PAC spent $830,000 on consultants and just $82,500 in donations to other candidates — a.k.a its ostensible purpose. Not only that but Sarah PAC spent $168,000 on travel and lodging expenses during the 2016 election — double what it donated to candidates, which is its ostensible … well you get the idea.
This was not an isolated incident. In the 2010 election cycle — when Sarah PAC was functioning on all cylinders — it raised $5.6 million and spent $4.3 million. Just $509,000 of that total — less than 12 percent of total expenditures — went to either candidates or political/party committees.
What the closure of Palin's PAC — and the remarkably small amount of spending on actual candidates for office — makes clear is that a) her time as a national leader for Republicans is over and b) Palin's prime interest was never really anything other than promoting her own political brand.
Read more at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/26/heres-definitive-proof-sarah-palin-didnt-care-about-much-in-politics-other-than-sarah-palin/?utm_term=.08e61082a4a7