Pawlenty defends potential prez rival Palin

In a Politico article published online on Sunday, Sarah Palin was treated to harsh attacks from unnamed Republican operatives. The article alleged that top Republicans close to other GOPers contemplating 2012 presidential runs have coalesced around opposing Palin as the party’s nominee. Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei reported:

Palin immediately fired back at the article, challenging the authors’ reliance of solely speaking with anonymous officials. “Having unnamed sources in an article like this is very, very disappointing,” Palin said in a Fox News appearance.

Current Palin allies who may turn into political foes if Palin runs for president rushed to the former Alaska governor’s defense today. Outgoing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has openly mulled a presidential run once his current term in office ends in January, went on Twitter Monday afternoon to attack the Politico piece. From Pawlenty’s Twitter account:

Politico story is way off. Palin deserves great credit for all her work on GOP’s behalf.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — a 2008 presidential candidate who is likely to make another bid in 2012 — also supported Palin today. “She would be a great thing for the Republican primary process,” Romney said on the Laura Ingraham radio program. Both Romney and Pawlenty were cited by name as top Republicans concerned about a Palin presidential run in the Politico article.

The Republican politicians flirting with presidential campaigns have to be careful in what they can say at this point about their potential rivals. In advance of the midterm elections Tuesday, those Republicans have walked a fine line in creating the infrastructure for a campaign without doing so publicly for fear of distracting from the Republican cause to win control of Congress on Nov. 2. So when a politician such as Pawlenty visits Iowa, he goes not directly campaigning for himself, but publicly working to support the local GOP candidates.

Part of this equation is that all potential 2012 Republicans must appear as one big, happy family at the moment, even if they may be running campaigns against one another next spring. Some have appeared at events together this fall in support of other Republicans. But shows of unity and validation for their soon-to-be opponents could backfire once they launch their presidential campaigns. It will be significantly harder for Romney to argue in a debate that Palin is unqualified to run for president when she can point to his statement that her running is a “great thing.”

This tightrope will be particularly difficult for the other candidates to traverse when they are discussing Palin. She has crafted an image of herself as the embattled conservative, attacked by the forces of the elite, a theme fully embraced by her tea party supporters. If more “traditional” Republican candidates employ the same mainstream attacks against the former Alaska governor, it may backfire and simply entrench her support among base GOP voters.