The Palin media strategy

Politico:

Since resigning her post as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has essentially gone dark, making almost no public appearances and successfully avoiding the media outlets that are clamoring to talk to her.

But that doesn’t mean Palin has been quiet.

Relying almost exclusively on social media to get her message out, Palin has managed to carve out her own high-profile place in the national health care debate, on energy policy and on tort reform.

While Palin isn’t the only major political figure to try alternative means of communication to bypass the media, her unique ability to remain in the headlines while avoiding the spotlight suggests she may be the first to pull it off successfully.

For several days in August, the national health care debate turned to focus on so-called “death panels,” in large part because of two widely-publicized Palin Facebook posts accusing Democratic authors of the House proposal of creating bureaucratic entities to decide end of life care.

The post was immediately rebuked by Democrats, and even by some Republicans, as untrue and irresponsible. But rather than immediately firing back at her critics when reporters came calling for a response, or issuing a press release defending her claim, Palin waited five days to post her response on Facebook.

The post, simply titled “concerning the ‘death panels,’” went up shortly before midnight on a Wednesday night. By late Thursday morning, a write up of her statement was on the homepage of dozens of national and local newspapers. The post also quickly became one of the most mentioned topics within the political blogosphere.

“I can’t answer what her strategy is, but I can say that it’s working,” said GOP strategist Mary Matalin. “A large issue of why this works is that she has been so demonized and made fun of by the mainstream press.”

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It is not surprising that someone who has been demonized by the media would avoid direct contact whenever possible. She has also found an effective outlet for her thoughts that is working. Rush Limbaugh takes a similar tack against many in the mainstream media. He has his own forum and he has not trouble getting his message out and dealing with his critics on his own terms.