Daily Beast Harasses Private Citizens Who Donated to Palin's PAC

This week, the Daily Beast contacted and harassed private citizens who made contributions to Sarah Palin’s political action committee, SarahPAC. In doing so, the outlet attempted to also weaken her organization by smearing it in the eyes of those most responsible for ensuring Palin’s free-market populist message and conservatism is widely disseminated. 

During the first half of 2013, a political off-year in which there are few elections, Palin’s political action committee spent $35,000 more than it took in. The Daily Beast seized on that number and tried to convince donors to SarahPAC that Palin was defrauding them by spending money on expenses common to every political action committee.

As the Daily Beast conceded, Palin’s donors were not buying the Beast’s malarkey. 

Tim Crawford, the treasurer of SarahPAC, told Breitbart News that since 2013 is an off-year, the organization did not aggressively raise money, cognizant of the fact conservative donors were flooded with requests during the 2012 election cycle. 

“For the most part we gave our donors a break and didn’t fundraise aggressively at all. Very pleased with the results,” Crawford told Breitbart News. “It is an off year after a presidential election where every donor was bombarded with requests.”

As the Daily Beast mentioned, Palin’s PAC did make a $5,000 contribution to Jason Smith; the conservative Republican won a special election in Missouri’s Eighth Congressional District in June by a hefty margin, 67% to 27%. 

John Avlon, the co-founder of the anti-Tea Party “No Labels” group, was recently promoted to be the “Executive Editor” of the Daily Beast. Avlon oversees a publication that declared the Tea Party was dead earlier this year before conceding less than six months later that the movement has roared back to life. 

“No Labels” donors want to see the Tea Party destroyed, and Avlon’s group benefits financially and politically if the Tea Party and conservatives are weakened. Palin, coincidentally, is the political figure who former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said had the most impact in Republican primaries. Furthermore, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) declared at this year’s CPAC that he would not be in the Senate were it not for Palin’s support in the Texas Republican Senate primary. 

Showing Palin’s strong grassroots support, the Daily Beast acknowledges that 75% of SarahPAC’s donations are from “small donors” who contribute less than $200. The Daily Beast admitted they reached out to a “number” of donors and got three on record, all of whom dismissed the outlet’s assertion that SarahPAC was wasting their money. 

One donor said, “I trust her judgment and her record.” Another said she has “done research” on Palin’s advisers and the ones that she uses are the “good” ones. Another donor mocked the Daily Beast for insinuating Palin was wasting their money, simply telling the reporter, “Come on, get real.”

The publication seems troubled that Palin, a figure whose star power is surpassed by few in American politics, paid North Star Strategies’s Jason Recher to organize and accompany Palin to events to ensure they went smoothly. To the Daily Beast’s surprise, Palin also has advisers, like Rebecca Mansour–who is mentioned in the piece–that are indispensable to any political figure, especially those like Palin whose time is in demanded like few others. 

Breitbart News has already systematically undercut Avlon’s assertion that Palin was being hypocritical for railing against Washington’s permanent political class while having political advisers who fight against it. Palin’s advisers are different, as Breitbart News reported:

They don’t hang “for sale” signs around their necks every election cycle to field a slate of candidates to butter their breads. They don’t go on television shows while not disclosing their business interests or allegiances when attacking other candidates. In fact, it is difficult to even think of the last time a Palin staff member actually went on a television program. Again, it is because these are people who work for Palin, are assembled for the long run, and put Palin’s interests ahead of their own. They don’t have a stable or roster of clients. 

In closing, the Daily Beast criticized Palin’s PAC for spending money on hotel rooms so that Palin could give a “commencement speech in the tiny town of Republic, Washington.” As Breitbart News reported, Palin gave that speech in a town elitist New York outlets like the Daily Beast so often dismiss, deride, and ignore.

The Daily Beast criticized Palin for paying her way–and not forgetting her roots–to speak at the high school graduation in Republic, Washington. Perhaps the outlet expected her to walk or drive to give that address. More disturbingly, though, the outlet harassed and pestered private citizens who donated to her political organization, trying to turn them off from supporting a political figure and organization that runs counter to the one co-founded by the Daily Beast’s Executive Editor. 

That is the type of permanent-political-class politics that Palin and her political action committee have always fought.