Primary losses blunt Palin's 'mama grizzly' claws

WASHINGTON (AP) - It's been a summer of setbacks for Sarah Palin. Candidate "cubs" endorsed by the Mama Grizzly in Chief have been suffering a recent string of primary election losses.

The Republicans' 2008 vice presidential nominee promised a pack of "mama grizzly" candidates would rise up and defeat Democrats in this November's elections. But office-seekers she supported in Kansas, Wyoming and Washington state lost their primaries despite her high-profile endorsements. And Karen Handel lost her runoff contest for Georgia governor a day after sharing an Atlanta stage with Palin.

Now, Alaska's Senate primary on Tuesday is shaping up as an embarrassing defeat in her own backyard. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is expected to dispatch the challenger Palin has endorsed in the Republican contest.

Palin says it isn't about picking winners.

"Regardless of whether the many candidates I've had the honor of endorsing win or lose this time around, I support them because they boldly shake things up in their primary races," she said in a Facebook message.

Her choices have included a mix of tea party favorites and other antiestablishment figures.

• She backed former Super Bowl champion Clint Didier over establishment-recruited Dino Rossi in Washington state's GOP Senate primary. Didier lost on Tuesday.

• She supported staunchly conservative Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the Kansas GOP Senate primary. He was defeated by Rep. Jerry Moran on Aug. 3.

• In Wyoming, Palin-endorsed candidate Rita Meyer - whom Palin described as "a unique blend of steel magnolia and mama grizzly" - lost a squeaker of a gubernatorial primary to Matt Mead.

Indeed, frustration with Palin has seemed to be growing, as she has waded into state races and challenged the national party's preferred candidates. She has defied Republican campaign committees' picks in favor of longshots, such as investor Brian Murphy in Maryland. Murphy is running against former Gov. Bob Ehrlich in the Sept. 14 primary.

Ehrlich publicly brushed off that surprise endorsement, saying it was "not terribly relevant to anything that we've planned to do or are going to do."

Palin remains a unifying figure - for Democrats.

She is a favorite target of mockery for her messages on Twitter using colorful language such as "cackle of rads" and "refudiate."

She's joined another presidential prospect, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in backing Joe Miller's longshot challenge to Republican Sen. Murkowski in Tuesday's Alaska primary. Miller also is endorsed by the Tea Party Express, a California-based group that's been hitting the airwaves and holding rallies. That group claims at least partial credit for upset wins in other states - Sharron Angle in Nevada and Mike Lee in Utah.

In Alaska, the tea party group has drawn smaller crowds. And Palin, too, who abruptly resigned the governor's office in 2009, enjoys limited reach in her home state. A Dittman Research poll in April found just 46 percent of Alaskans with favorable opinions of Palin.

Palin's endorsements apparently did help South Carolina's Nikki Haley capture her gubernatorial nomination and Rand Paul capture Kentucky's Senate nomination in May. And her backing has proved helpful to GOP candidates trying to assure voters they are sufficiently conservative: former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina who is challenging Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in California, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry who turned back a primary challenge from GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.