Sarah Palin: The Straw Lady?

I've asked this before and I'm going to expound on it now: What exactly does Sarah Palin have to do with the Tea Party? One day Santelli is talking about dumping derivatives in a big Chicago Tea Party and a few months later Sarah Palin is out there anointing people as Tea Party Candidates. What does one have to do with the other? I buy this whole conservative resentment at all things Two-Party-related since economically Congress tends to be representing left and lefter ever since 2002 or so. But I never really bought that a running mate of John McCain would be the catalyst for turning that resentment into election results. But there's her face plastered all over the Tea Party movement. And the Tea Party did pretty well for itself. But then I noticed something: none of the candidates Palin heavily campaigned for actually won. Angle, O'Donnell, Fiorina, and it looks like even Miller lost. Her campaigning-for-others track record is worse than Obama's.

I get that she has done her darndest to co-opt the Tea Party and gain some momentum for herself. She's talking Presidential campaign and is even getting a bit belligerent as of late. But her victory lap looks more like a trail of tears in an otherwise popular movement. I'm still not sure exactly what the Tea Party is, but judging from the election results, it's not Sarah Palin. At best she's an embodiment of what's wrong with the Tea Party instead of what's right about it.