Palin Pushes Mama Grizzly Meme

Sarah Palin's political action committee, Sarah PAC, has produced its first web video of the season, called "Mama Grizzlies." As a rule, this column does not generally notice web videos, but this one is special. It's ... well, an advertisement, if you will, for brand Sarah, and the variant of brand Sarah that's gaining currency in the Tea Party heartlands, her fiercely independent, common-sense conservative, not-gonna-let-the-government-win Mama Grizzlies. It's a movement now. The video features Palin and women, and signs about Palin and women (Moms Against Mandates) and is set against the narration from a speech Palin gave in Washington last month. 

Palin's preoration is about November, 2010, but it is hard to read this video as anything but a test of a much larger potential operation. Incidentally, for those who wonder about whether Palin is actually laying the groundwork for a 2012 run, like Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, the answer is: it's hard to tell. She's not recruiting fundraisers, so far as we know ... she's not signing up field activists in Iowa ... she's definitely building a list, and she's definitely making strategic endorsement choices in some key states, and she's showing up with regularity in South Carolina and Nevada ...