Palin's Madison Rally Is Overwhelmed by Protest Crowd

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the paid spokeswoman for the tepid Tea Party movement, jetted into Madison for what was supposed to be a victory party. Unofficial returns released Friday for the state’s highly controversial Supreme Court race show the candidate of conservative Republican Governor Scott Walker leading his until-recently-unknown challenger by a 50.2 to 49.8 margin prior to an anticipated recount. And, though implementation of Walker’s anti-union agenda remains stymied by a court order, the governor is freshly returned from a star turn before a Congressional committee in Washington where every effort was made to suggest that he had effectively overwhelmed the mass opposition that his proposals have inspired in Wisconsin.

Madison’s ABC News affiliate reported that “pro-union labor supporters surrounded smaller groups of tea party members waiting for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to appear outside the Wisconsin Capitol” while the NBC affiliate reported: “A solid core of tea partiers were near the stage, but they were flanked on all sides by union protesters who have dominated protests at the Capitol for months. The tea party folks had the microphone, but the crowd had the volume, literally and figuratively.”